A Fragile Eden

This text transports readers to a band of ancient and remote islands located 1000 miles off the coast of Africa. These islands, the Seychelles, ahve been geologically isolated for more than 70 million years. They include the only islands in the world that are formed of granite. In their long isolation, the native flora of these 32 granitic islands remained untouched until the late 18th century. Since then, however, inroads have been made in their natural environment by human settlement, by the introduction of cinnamon and its rapid spread over many of the islands and by present-day tourism. Slowly these fragile plants have been overrun and many are now endangered. Most of the plants first described 100 years ago are still found today, but many are becoming increasingly rare. Some cling to existence with only a few specimens to be found, often in remote locations. In 1985 the Oxford University Biological Expedition to the Seychelles studied the vegetarian on several of the islands. Rosemary Wise, the department's artist, was asked to accompany the expedition.
She became alarmed that the rapidly disappearing species might go unrecorded and made it her mission for the next 10 years to