In 1967, Stoddart described the land area of Diego Garcia as having a littoral hedge of ''Scaevola taccada'', while inland, ''Cocos nucifera'' (coconut) was the most dominant tree, covering most of the island. The substory was either managed and park-like, with understory less than 0.5 m in height, or consisted of what he called "Cocos Bon-Dieu" – an intermediate story of juvenile trees and a luxuriant ground layer of self-sown seedlings – causing those areas to be relatively impenetrable.