Grey Nickernut

Guilandina bonduc

Also known as Caesalpinia bonduc

Markings and exact colorations may vary.

Photo: Claire Herzog via iNaturalist · CC BY 4.0 · cropped & resized · source

A hard, marble-round grey seed with a glassy shine, drifted from tropical shorelines.

Typical size
0.5–1 in
How often it turns up
Fairly common
Collecting
Usually legal to collect

Drift seeds are free to collect.

Handling
Safe to handle

How to tell it apart

  • Perfectly round to slightly oval
  • Grey with fine surface cracks, very glossy
  • Extremely hard shell

Found one?

Photograph it and BeachNut ranks the likely matches with a confidence read, then logs it to your collection with the beach and date.

Browsing beaches and the full field guide is free. A free account logs unlimited finds and gives you three photo identifications a day.

Commonly confused with

  • Hamburger BeanMucuna species

    Mature nickernuts turn gray. On a hamburger bean, the dark hilum band running around most of the edge is a better clue than a round shape alone.

More sea beans in the field guide

Browse every sea beans in the guide

Get the weekend beach score by email

Before each weekend: which Florida beaches score best for finds. No spam, unsubscribe any time.