Saint Lucia is a sovereign island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 617 km2  and has a population of 174,000. Its capital is Castries.

Saint Lucia was named after Saint Lucy of Syracuse by the French in 1635, the island's first European settlers. They signed a treaty with the native Carib Indians in 1660. Britain took control of the island in 1663 and in the following years, and because of the war with France, the island changed hands 14 times. In 1814, the British took definitive control of the island. Because it switched so often between British and French control, Saint Lucia was also known as the "Helen of the West Indies".

Representative government came about in 1840. From 1958 to 1962, the island was a member of the Federation of the West Indies. On 22 February 1979, Saint Lucia became an independent state of the Commonwealth of Nations associated with the United Kingdom.

This is one of the only coins ever produced by Saint Lucia and one of the few produced in the last decades. It is part of a series of Caribbean coins dedicated to the region's flora.