As a man of the Enlightenment, George Washington possessed a great interest in the natural world. Washington collected this piece of coral on his 1751 trip to Barbados, his only trip outside of the United States. Prominently displayed amongst other natural specimens in his Study, the staghorn coral -Acropora cervicornis- was undoubtedly a treasured item. Washington probably would have known it as "Tubular Coral," as it was identified in his copy of Griffith Hughes' The Natural History of Barbados, published in 1750.