Morne Seychellois

National Park

Seychelles · Indian Ocean islands

Indian Ocean islandsDeclared in 197930 km²

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The largest protected area in the Seychelles, with the jellyfish tree, a species thought extinct for a century.

Area

30 km²

Declared in

1979

Region

Indian Ocean islands

Climate

Tropical

Plan your visit

Area: 30 km²

Highlight

Granite montane forest with the endemics of Mahé

Morne Seychellois National Park was established in 1979 on the island of Mahé, the main island of Seychelles, and protects some 30 km², around a fifth of the island's surface. It is the largest protected area in the country.

Its core is the massif of the same name, which culminates at about 905 metres and is the highest point in the archipelago. Seychelles is a rare case among oceanic islands: they are neither volcanic nor coral in origin, but fragments of continental granite broken off from Gondwana more than sixty million years ago, and that ancient origin explains a relict flora with a very high degree of endemism.

The park preserves montane forest, summit cloud forest and formations on bare rock, with palms, pandanus and endemic carnivorous plants. Its most notable species is the jellyfish tree, Medusagyne oppositifolia, the sole representative of its family, which was thought extinct for almost a century until its rediscovery in the 1970s on the slopes of Mahé, where a few dozen adult trees survive with serious difficulties of natural regeneration. The park is also home to the paradise flycatcher and several endemic frogs of very ancient lineages.