“Keeling Island is one of the low circular Coral reefs, on…which matter has accumulated and formed strips of dry land... On entering the Lagoon the scene is very curious & rather pretty, its beauty…derived from the brilliancy of the surrounding colors...Looking at any one & especially a smaller Islet, it is impossible not to admire the great elegant manner in which the young and full grown Cocoa-nut trees, without destroying each others symmetry, mingle together into one wood: the beach of glittering white Calcareous sand, forms the border to these fairy spots.”
Charles Darwin The Journal of a Voyage in H.M.S. Beagle
April 1st 1836
Further reading: Henslow, J. S. 1838. Florula Keelingensis. An account of the native plants of the Keeling Islands. By the Rev. J. S. Henslow, M.A., Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge. Annals of Natural History 1, 5 (July): 337-347
