Overseas trade began in the 1880s, when one of the four palms endemic to the island, kentia palm ("Howea forsteriana"), which grows naturally in the lowlands, was found to be ideally suited to the fashionable conservatories of the well-to-do in Britain, Europe, and the United States, but the assistance of mainland magistrate Frank Farnell was needed to put the business on a sound commercial footing when in 1906, he became director of a company, the Lord Howe Island Kentia Palm Nursery, whose shareholders included 21 islanders and a Sydney-based seed company.