Photo of the Day 371

Coconut Palm, New Caledonia, France, 2000

Photograph by Peter Essick

A coconut palm stands on a breezy tropical beach in France's New Caledonia. Tourists enjoy these sun-soaked beaches, but botanists explore the island’s incredible plant diversity. Out of 3,400 identified native plant species, three-quarters are endemic to this archipelago and many can be traced to the Cretaceous era.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "New Caledonia: France’s Untamed Pacific Outpost," May 2000, National Geographic magazine)