Some three thousand horses and a human multitude converged downtown San Jose yesterday for the famous National Tope. I, however, kept my horses peacefully out to pasture and joined a small group of Ciudad Colon neighbors to take presents and clothing out to the nearby Quitirrisi Indigenous Reserve. Our group was organized by the local English/Spanish teacher, Roxana Vega, who is known for her joyful high spirits and compassion for others. There are many needs in this country and she is kept busy year round, always finding a new batch of volunteers whenever students from the University of Peace contact her for Spanish lessons. What better way to learn Spanish than to immerse yourself into the culture and volunteer?
So yesterday, a caravan of cars followed Roxana’s white pickup, all piled high with boxes of new clothing, out to the Reserve, located about 10 minutes west of Ciudad Colon. We were met by the village elder, Juan Sanchez, who calls himself Chotto in the Huetar language. He led us down a beautiful wooded trail to the village square, anchored by a lovely round bamboo structure, which felt fresh and cool inside. We soon discovered that Juan – Chotto is also the village shaman and uses the structure for curing ailments. In reality, the large, interior area is both called “Centro de Curacion el Coicote” and also, “Templo de Las Creencias Indígenas Huetar, Tatamama”. He took us around and showed us some of his remedies – mixtures of bones – ancient stones – dried seeds - all of which he uses along with herbs and invocations to the spirit world to effect the cure.
While Chotto was showing us some of his implements of the healing arts, the square outside filled with indigenous people, who walked in from all over. Most of the volunteers moved outside to help distribute the gifts. It was a big, noisy, joyous occasion.
We stayed out of the sun and sat down on a bench with Chotto to talk with him about his people. Choto learned the Huetar traditions from his father and passes them down to his children. The Huetar were once the most organized and powerful indigenous group in Costa Rica, as they inhabited the fertile, central valley plateau, known as the land of eternal spring. Unfortunately for the Huetar, the Spaniards agreed with them that this was the most pleasant location for settling in the country and pushed the Huetar out. They are now confined to a small reserve to the west of the valley, which they named Quitirrisi (this means the names of two trees: Quitiri and Risi).
The Spaniards effectively stamped out Huetar traditions and, except for some words, which one recognizes from many of the town names in the Central Valley, the spoken Huetar language is lost. Chotto explained that other indigenous groups in Costa Rica, such as the Bribri have had more luck retaining their language because they are located in more remote areas. The Costa Ricans, through influence from the church, even tried to rename Quitirrisi to “San Martin” but the indigenous would have none of it.
Today, the people are healthy and live simple lives. They have smiling, laughing children and well-fed, contented dogs. They make well-crafted baskets and hammocks, which they offer for sale on the main road to Puriscal. Some of the adults work at jobs in the Central Valley and the kids go to school in Ciudad Colon. Choto worries about retaining the indigenous traditions when the modern world interfaces in so many ways. Some of his people now go to the medical clinic rather than requesting traditional cures, although he admits that all come to him in the end if the western medicine doesn’t work.
From what I understood of what Chotto described, the Huetar style of medicine isn’t so much as one remedy but the combination of earth/sun/moon energies that he tries to align, using representations (like plant cut at 1st day new moon) in order to bring the cure. You need to feel the energy and believe in its power. Sounds more powerful than the placebo effect and the placebo effect is very powerful!
I was very interested in his vast knowledge of trees and plants but there was no time left for talk – it was time to go join the festivities outside. But Chotto did promise he would come visit us at Finca El Tigre. He knows the forest and said that we have some rare plants that he could use at the reserve. We agreed to do some trading of seeds, etc and discussing more of the traditions.
I hope to share more about the Huetar traditions with you very soon!
Saludos a todos y pura vida!
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
The Show Begins!
Happy Holidays from Costa Rica! Holiday traditions here are very different from where we came from in Pennsylvania. When we first arrived here back in December, 1997, I pined for the traditional winter wonderland scene with freshly cut evergreens, winterberry and holly. What we got at the hotel here was Santa and his scruffy plastic sleigh perched atop the roof of the hotel, while guests lounged under the blazing sun at the pool. Inside, the lobby featured artificial trimming and a dried out, brown cedar tree that looked more like a fire hazard than anything else. It was truly a surreal introduction to Christmas in the tropics.
We decided to go native and celebrate the holiday season like the locals, using the incredible flowering plants and trees, which begin blooming in December and continue all the way through the dry season until May, when the rainy season brings the green foliage back into center stage.
So, if we just look around the gardens at Finca El Tigre, we can find an absolute spectacle of color - pink and purple bougainvillea, red gingers, yellow trumpet vines, white orchid trees, multicolored frangipani and it goes on. It stopped raining about a week ago and the deciduous trees have begun dropping leaves. But the trees don’t go dormant like they do in the north. During the dry season, many of them burst into mouth-dropping blooms that cover the entire tree. The first time I saw the blazing, yellow Cortez Amarilla (Tabebuia ochracea), it nearly knocked me off my feet. Nothing prepares northerners for our first glimpse of a Tabebuia in full, big-bang bloom. But I digress and get ahead of myself. The Tabebuias won’t start for another few months yet.
Right now, this December 22nd, the Guachipelin trees (Diphysa Americana) are raining delightful yellow blossoms that look like sweet pea flowers. If you turn the blossom a certain way, it looks like a little bird (how easily we amuse ourselves). Along the fencerow, we have an avenue of Madero Negro trees (Gliricidia sepium) shaking off similar looking bird-like pinkish-blue flowers. Across the garden there are three dwarf Malinches (Caesalpiniacs.) with their elegant, floating red and yellow flowers. The yellow trumpets of the Vainillo trees (Tecoma stans) are brightening up the steep slopes and at the top, the huge Flame of the Forest trees (Spathodea campanulata) are ablaze with big orange clusters. The local kids use the waterlogged flower-buds as squirt guns. In the garden, there is an extravagance of color with mucho pickings for decorating the house- assorted Ixoras, hibiscus, heliconias, flowering vines and of course, the red bracts of the huge poinsettia shrubs. You know those potted poinsettia plants for sale during the Christmas season? In Costa Rica, they plant them out in the garden and they soon turn into big, gangly shrubs – always faithfully turning red again just in time for the holidays.
Some flowers have delightful fragrances and a few can be intoxicating, like the Ylang Ylang (Cananga odorata) and Jasmine trees at dusk. Everyone is out at dusk around the holidays, not just for the fresh, fragrant air, but because the sunsets are spectacular this time of year, producing incredible displays of color across the sky.
But December is just the beginning! During the dry season, flowering trees bloom successively week after week, giving everyone a different show as they drive down the same road.
At Finca El Tigre, the best show of all today is the massive expanse of Gallinazo (Schizolobium parahyba) and Guachipelin brightening up the forest canopy with greenish to yellow blossoms. Now that these trees have distinguished themselves amongst the rest of the canopy, we can see the huge Gallinazos down by the waterfalls and also how they have marched up the mountain over the years, trees not as massive, but just as bright when in bloom. During the rainy season the forest canopy features shades and textures of green. Now that the dry season has started, flowering trees will punctuate and brighten up the entire canopy.
Some good friends and Forestry Engineers, Manuel Viquez and Yamileth, designed an excellent website, which includes a section describing a flowering tree each week as Costa Rica goes through the flowering season. Check them out at http://www.elmundoforestal.com/ and look for the section called: “Los Arboles del Paraiso”. It’s done in Spanish but non-speakers can still enjoy the incredible pictures.
We decided to go native and celebrate the holiday season like the locals, using the incredible flowering plants and trees, which begin blooming in December and continue all the way through the dry season until May, when the rainy season brings the green foliage back into center stage.
So, if we just look around the gardens at Finca El Tigre, we can find an absolute spectacle of color - pink and purple bougainvillea, red gingers, yellow trumpet vines, white orchid trees, multicolored frangipani and it goes on. It stopped raining about a week ago and the deciduous trees have begun dropping leaves. But the trees don’t go dormant like they do in the north. During the dry season, many of them burst into mouth-dropping blooms that cover the entire tree. The first time I saw the blazing, yellow Cortez Amarilla (Tabebuia ochracea), it nearly knocked me off my feet. Nothing prepares northerners for our first glimpse of a Tabebuia in full, big-bang bloom. But I digress and get ahead of myself. The Tabebuias won’t start for another few months yet.
Right now, this December 22nd, the Guachipelin trees (Diphysa Americana) are raining delightful yellow blossoms that look like sweet pea flowers. If you turn the blossom a certain way, it looks like a little bird (how easily we amuse ourselves). Along the fencerow, we have an avenue of Madero Negro trees (Gliricidia sepium) shaking off similar looking bird-like pinkish-blue flowers. Across the garden there are three dwarf Malinches (Caesalpiniacs.) with their elegant, floating red and yellow flowers. The yellow trumpets of the Vainillo trees (Tecoma stans) are brightening up the steep slopes and at the top, the huge Flame of the Forest trees (Spathodea campanulata) are ablaze with big orange clusters. The local kids use the waterlogged flower-buds as squirt guns. In the garden, there is an extravagance of color with mucho pickings for decorating the house- assorted Ixoras, hibiscus, heliconias, flowering vines and of course, the red bracts of the huge poinsettia shrubs. You know those potted poinsettia plants for sale during the Christmas season? In Costa Rica, they plant them out in the garden and they soon turn into big, gangly shrubs – always faithfully turning red again just in time for the holidays.
Some flowers have delightful fragrances and a few can be intoxicating, like the Ylang Ylang (Cananga odorata) and Jasmine trees at dusk. Everyone is out at dusk around the holidays, not just for the fresh, fragrant air, but because the sunsets are spectacular this time of year, producing incredible displays of color across the sky.
But December is just the beginning! During the dry season, flowering trees bloom successively week after week, giving everyone a different show as they drive down the same road.
At Finca El Tigre, the best show of all today is the massive expanse of Gallinazo (Schizolobium parahyba) and Guachipelin brightening up the forest canopy with greenish to yellow blossoms. Now that these trees have distinguished themselves amongst the rest of the canopy, we can see the huge Gallinazos down by the waterfalls and also how they have marched up the mountain over the years, trees not as massive, but just as bright when in bloom. During the rainy season the forest canopy features shades and textures of green. Now that the dry season has started, flowering trees will punctuate and brighten up the entire canopy.
Some good friends and Forestry Engineers, Manuel Viquez and Yamileth, designed an excellent website, which includes a section describing a flowering tree each week as Costa Rica goes through the flowering season. Check them out at http://www.elmundoforestal.com/ and look for the section called: “Los Arboles del Paraiso”. It’s done in Spanish but non-speakers can still enjoy the incredible pictures.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
A Lady of Nature & A Natural Teacher
Tribute to a True Lady of Nature and a Natural Teacher
Everyone knows someone in their lives who is so important, or who has had such a major influence on their life’s direction, that they could be called pivotal or Life-Changing. For me, that person was Polly Ivenz. I met Polly some 15 years ago in Pennsylvania, when I lived on a large, wooded property straddling Bucks and Northampton counties, and located just down the road from a delightful forest reserve called, Mariton Wildlife and Nature Reserve. Mariton was guided by a board of directors, managed by a forestry engineer, and instilled with light and life by its Program Director, Polly Ivenz. She was in her 70's when I first came to visit Mariton Reserve in 1992 but was quickly captivated by her quick wit and vast knowledge of botany and biology. I came to regard her as my mentor and role model in the natural world.
I was in my mid-thirties at the time and in excellent physical condition, but nothing prepared me for hiking with Polly. There we would go, climbing up a steep mountain trail at a decidedly fast pace, clambering over boulders and through patches of woodland wildflowers on a quest for some elusive orchid or fungi or butterfly. I would follow behind, huffing and puffing, trying to keep up with the slight, sprightly figure, with the puff of white hair, bounding around in front of me. That is how we would hike. Polly striding ahead with her quick, graceful, cat-like movements, always looking, observing, and then suddenly stopping to investigate something. Here a new growth of Sarsaparilla, over there some fresh White Oak acorns, up there a Scarlet Tanager, and over there – “Oh my goodness…is it? Yes it is – it’s an American Ginseng plant!”
Every time we came across something new or unexpected, she would infuse me with her excitement over this wonderful new find, and then tell me all about its properties and, sometimes, if I was really lucky, its legends. She was a walking encyclopedia of the natural world – a generalist who was curious about virtually all the flora and fauna existing in the forest. If she came across something she didn’t know Polly was revved up to go on the hunt to find out what it was. We would take the sample of the plant and pour over books at the library. Polly always managed to charm visitors into donating a rare book or specimen to Mariton, and had acquired quite an impressive collection. If the answer wasn’t there, she would contact botanists at the local universities and would not rest until she got the specimen identified. By the time I met Polly, however, there were few specimens that stumped her and, most amazingly, she was an entirely self-taught woman. She had no university degree, but could easily engage academic specialists in detailed conversation, often exceeding the knowledge of many PhD’s. This was a well known fact around the community. She well deserves an honorary doctorate if one has not been bestowed on her already.
But the truly special quality about Polly wasn’t just her knowledge; it was her determination to share the wonders of Nature with the world at large. Polly single-handedly planned and organized the monthly Natural Resource Programs for which Mariton was famous, attracting a growing audience from all over the area. And I was among the dedicated following, who always came to listen to her visiting experts tell us about everything from migrating hawks to herpetology, to local geology, to indicators of stream water quality and so much more. And of course, every year, she would invite back the most popular speaker of the season, a mycologist. But, it was a spindly, elderly local farmer in the audience who taught the fervent crowd the best secrets on how to find the elusive morel mushroom.
The Nature Programs were just one way Polly brought her message to humanity. Every summer, she held daily Nature Camps for the local children. She divided them into two groups by age and, by using adventurous, fun outings, managed to instill a love of nature into all of these kids. I helped her one summer and recall how exhausted I was at the end of each day after interacting with all those kids. Not Polly – they revitalized her. She was on a mission to impart her passion and knowledge to the next generation. I think she considered it an honor and a duty to make this contribution, and I was awed by her energy and devotion to the environmental cause. She showed kids the consequences of human intervention, such as how contaminated water results in loss of habitat. And she gave them a sense of kinship and responsibility towards the natural world.
Polly could have done anything with her life. For one thing, she was a natural healer - I recall many examples of her insights. One time, I showed up to a Summer Day Camp, as one of her volunteers, feeling awful. I’d been miserable all week with headaches, exhaustion and a sore shoulder and, in fact, had been swallowing aspirin every morning just to get up enough energy to go help Polly with the kids. That day, she took one shrewd look at me and said – “Victoria, you have Lyme’s Disease. Go see a doctor.” She was right of course, and within days of starting antibiotics, the symptoms melted away. The ironic part of this is that I was a practicing pharmacist at the time and knew Lyme symptoms and treatment perfectly well. I was simply blind to myself.
Mariton’s mailing list expanded through visitors and donations, so Polly initiated a monthly Newsletter to send out news and invitations. She was also on the telephone all the time on behalf of Mariton: scheduling speakers, cajoling people for donations, recruiting volunteers. But Polly didn’t just focus all her time on the Mariton Reserve. She was also an active force in all sorts of forums – The Library Board of Trustees, The Township Historical Society, The Gardening Association, The Wildlife Rescue Shelter, among many others. In everything she did, she charmed people with her gentle wit and brought many over to her project of the day. One time, she encouraged me to join in with the Annual Bird Count. Even though I couldn’t identify the species very well, she insisted that I would be valuable as another pair of eyes to help. And furthermore, she didn’t think I would exaggerate my bird counts like some other people she knew. A fellow who previously had, allegedly, exaggerated his bird count had caused quite a scandal!
At this writing, November 26, 2006, Polly is 89 years old and understandably somewhat frail physically, having likely withdrawn from many of her projects, but her friends report that she is still sharp mentally. Therefore, Polly, I want you to know that you are, and shall always remain, my most beloved and influential teacher of the natural world.
I remember back in 1997, when I first left Pennsylvania for the jaw-dropping biodiversity of Costa Rica. I thought I’d learned something during all those years, but when I got to the Tropics, realized that I knew nothing. But I did grasp from you, through all our work together, a method of learning and a sense of curiosity that helped me to never give up, even when faced with something as overwhelming as tropical dendrology. I thank you for that relaxed, methodical pace of learning new species. And I also thank you for sharing your open mind and spirit. You knew that my particular interest was botany, particularly medicinal plants. But you always insisted that I not neglect all the other marvels of the natural world. You were interested in everything and believed everyone must feel the same, with the same sense of wonder as you.
I’ll never forget your admonition when I left Pennsylvania for Costa Rica: “Now Victoria, don’t forget the butterflies!”
Indeed, Polly, I have not. Though I have not yet learned their names, I think of you often when I see them fluttering around the gardens. Last year, I planted a special butterfly garden to attract butterflies and hummingbirds-mixing Stachytarpheta with Lantana and other flowers. You should see the colorful spectacle of a multitude of butterflies fluttering all over the shrubbery. And then there are the thousands of white butterflies fluttering all over the Bernoullia flammea tree right now and the gorgeous blue Morphos flying about in the forest this time of year. Someone told me recently, that Finca El Tigre has so many Morpho butterflies because they are attracted to a particular tree and vine in the legume family called Machaerium sp., which is abundant in the young forest. I can just hear you telling me something like that when we used to take our walks at Mariton…. Every butterfly is associated with a particular plant, thus we must never underestimate the importance of even the lowliest common thistle… No Polly, I have not forgotten!
Who can say how much impact you have had on all the people you’ve come into contact with over all these years? I believe you have influenced the lives of more people than you can possible ever imagine.
How much influence have you had on me? It’s hard to separate it all out, but upon pondering, I can attribute your influence to three fundamental things:
1.Be Curious. …What is that? How can I find out?
2Make a contribution to humanity. …There was this forest bordering a population that was at risk of development in the near future…
3.Consider the consequences when intervening in the natural world. … Do I really want to plant that exotic tree so close to the forest?
Dearest Polly, you are and shall always remain my most beloved and most influential teacher of this incredible, wonderful natural world.
Everyone knows someone in their lives who is so important, or who has had such a major influence on their life’s direction, that they could be called pivotal or Life-Changing. For me, that person was Polly Ivenz. I met Polly some 15 years ago in Pennsylvania, when I lived on a large, wooded property straddling Bucks and Northampton counties, and located just down the road from a delightful forest reserve called, Mariton Wildlife and Nature Reserve. Mariton was guided by a board of directors, managed by a forestry engineer, and instilled with light and life by its Program Director, Polly Ivenz. She was in her 70's when I first came to visit Mariton Reserve in 1992 but was quickly captivated by her quick wit and vast knowledge of botany and biology. I came to regard her as my mentor and role model in the natural world.
I was in my mid-thirties at the time and in excellent physical condition, but nothing prepared me for hiking with Polly. There we would go, climbing up a steep mountain trail at a decidedly fast pace, clambering over boulders and through patches of woodland wildflowers on a quest for some elusive orchid or fungi or butterfly. I would follow behind, huffing and puffing, trying to keep up with the slight, sprightly figure, with the puff of white hair, bounding around in front of me. That is how we would hike. Polly striding ahead with her quick, graceful, cat-like movements, always looking, observing, and then suddenly stopping to investigate something. Here a new growth of Sarsaparilla, over there some fresh White Oak acorns, up there a Scarlet Tanager, and over there – “Oh my goodness…is it? Yes it is – it’s an American Ginseng plant!”
Every time we came across something new or unexpected, she would infuse me with her excitement over this wonderful new find, and then tell me all about its properties and, sometimes, if I was really lucky, its legends. She was a walking encyclopedia of the natural world – a generalist who was curious about virtually all the flora and fauna existing in the forest. If she came across something she didn’t know Polly was revved up to go on the hunt to find out what it was. We would take the sample of the plant and pour over books at the library. Polly always managed to charm visitors into donating a rare book or specimen to Mariton, and had acquired quite an impressive collection. If the answer wasn’t there, she would contact botanists at the local universities and would not rest until she got the specimen identified. By the time I met Polly, however, there were few specimens that stumped her and, most amazingly, she was an entirely self-taught woman. She had no university degree, but could easily engage academic specialists in detailed conversation, often exceeding the knowledge of many PhD’s. This was a well known fact around the community. She well deserves an honorary doctorate if one has not been bestowed on her already.
But the truly special quality about Polly wasn’t just her knowledge; it was her determination to share the wonders of Nature with the world at large. Polly single-handedly planned and organized the monthly Natural Resource Programs for which Mariton was famous, attracting a growing audience from all over the area. And I was among the dedicated following, who always came to listen to her visiting experts tell us about everything from migrating hawks to herpetology, to local geology, to indicators of stream water quality and so much more. And of course, every year, she would invite back the most popular speaker of the season, a mycologist. But, it was a spindly, elderly local farmer in the audience who taught the fervent crowd the best secrets on how to find the elusive morel mushroom.
The Nature Programs were just one way Polly brought her message to humanity. Every summer, she held daily Nature Camps for the local children. She divided them into two groups by age and, by using adventurous, fun outings, managed to instill a love of nature into all of these kids. I helped her one summer and recall how exhausted I was at the end of each day after interacting with all those kids. Not Polly – they revitalized her. She was on a mission to impart her passion and knowledge to the next generation. I think she considered it an honor and a duty to make this contribution, and I was awed by her energy and devotion to the environmental cause. She showed kids the consequences of human intervention, such as how contaminated water results in loss of habitat. And she gave them a sense of kinship and responsibility towards the natural world.
Polly could have done anything with her life. For one thing, she was a natural healer - I recall many examples of her insights. One time, I showed up to a Summer Day Camp, as one of her volunteers, feeling awful. I’d been miserable all week with headaches, exhaustion and a sore shoulder and, in fact, had been swallowing aspirin every morning just to get up enough energy to go help Polly with the kids. That day, she took one shrewd look at me and said – “Victoria, you have Lyme’s Disease. Go see a doctor.” She was right of course, and within days of starting antibiotics, the symptoms melted away. The ironic part of this is that I was a practicing pharmacist at the time and knew Lyme symptoms and treatment perfectly well. I was simply blind to myself.
Mariton’s mailing list expanded through visitors and donations, so Polly initiated a monthly Newsletter to send out news and invitations. She was also on the telephone all the time on behalf of Mariton: scheduling speakers, cajoling people for donations, recruiting volunteers. But Polly didn’t just focus all her time on the Mariton Reserve. She was also an active force in all sorts of forums – The Library Board of Trustees, The Township Historical Society, The Gardening Association, The Wildlife Rescue Shelter, among many others. In everything she did, she charmed people with her gentle wit and brought many over to her project of the day. One time, she encouraged me to join in with the Annual Bird Count. Even though I couldn’t identify the species very well, she insisted that I would be valuable as another pair of eyes to help. And furthermore, she didn’t think I would exaggerate my bird counts like some other people she knew. A fellow who previously had, allegedly, exaggerated his bird count had caused quite a scandal!
At this writing, November 26, 2006, Polly is 89 years old and understandably somewhat frail physically, having likely withdrawn from many of her projects, but her friends report that she is still sharp mentally. Therefore, Polly, I want you to know that you are, and shall always remain, my most beloved and influential teacher of the natural world.
I remember back in 1997, when I first left Pennsylvania for the jaw-dropping biodiversity of Costa Rica. I thought I’d learned something during all those years, but when I got to the Tropics, realized that I knew nothing. But I did grasp from you, through all our work together, a method of learning and a sense of curiosity that helped me to never give up, even when faced with something as overwhelming as tropical dendrology. I thank you for that relaxed, methodical pace of learning new species. And I also thank you for sharing your open mind and spirit. You knew that my particular interest was botany, particularly medicinal plants. But you always insisted that I not neglect all the other marvels of the natural world. You were interested in everything and believed everyone must feel the same, with the same sense of wonder as you.
I’ll never forget your admonition when I left Pennsylvania for Costa Rica: “Now Victoria, don’t forget the butterflies!”
Indeed, Polly, I have not. Though I have not yet learned their names, I think of you often when I see them fluttering around the gardens. Last year, I planted a special butterfly garden to attract butterflies and hummingbirds-mixing Stachytarpheta with Lantana and other flowers. You should see the colorful spectacle of a multitude of butterflies fluttering all over the shrubbery. And then there are the thousands of white butterflies fluttering all over the Bernoullia flammea tree right now and the gorgeous blue Morphos flying about in the forest this time of year. Someone told me recently, that Finca El Tigre has so many Morpho butterflies because they are attracted to a particular tree and vine in the legume family called Machaerium sp., which is abundant in the young forest. I can just hear you telling me something like that when we used to take our walks at Mariton…. Every butterfly is associated with a particular plant, thus we must never underestimate the importance of even the lowliest common thistle… No Polly, I have not forgotten!
Who can say how much impact you have had on all the people you’ve come into contact with over all these years? I believe you have influenced the lives of more people than you can possible ever imagine.
How much influence have you had on me? It’s hard to separate it all out, but upon pondering, I can attribute your influence to three fundamental things:
1.Be Curious. …What is that? How can I find out?
2Make a contribution to humanity. …There was this forest bordering a population that was at risk of development in the near future…
3.Consider the consequences when intervening in the natural world. … Do I really want to plant that exotic tree so close to the forest?
Dearest Polly, you are and shall always remain my most beloved and most influential teacher of this incredible, wonderful natural world.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Visiting Forest Hikers
You can’t just take visitors anywhere out in the forest. We often have friends visit us from Costa Rica and abroad. We’re especially careful with visitors from abroad. They certainly prepare their wardrobes well –often equipped with the latest hiking gear complete with high tech, instant drying/no tear fabrics. And they carry these incredibly lightweight back-backs that have all sorts of zippers and pockets for stuffing everything you could possible imagine needing while hiking out in the jungle. And they provide me with all the information on the latest hiking & forest supplies along with web sites where I can acquire all this stuff too. It’s not necessarily always true, but the more carefully our visitors assemble their supplies for hiking in Costa Rica, the more careful we are with them!
After less than two years of exploring the forest out at Finca El Tigre, we’ve already had a series of mishaps with intrepid visiting hikers - everything from scrapes and tumbles to sun stroke to fractured limbs. We never take visitors from abroad on the high adventure waterfall hikes, especially city people from New York City or London. We’ve had enough close-calls with experienced locals. I’ve learned the hard way that it doesn’t matter what the visitors say – that they’ve hiked Tibet or Nepal – I still want to see how they do on an intermediate hike (high enough adventure for pretty much everybody) before inviting them down to the waterfalls. And I rarely hike down there without our forest worker, Armando, who has hauled injured visitors back up the mountain a few times already. He is also useful for using his machete to hack a trail around obstacles and also keeps us oriented without GPS.
Hiking deep in the forest without Armando basically guarantees me with a side-detour into uncharted territory. In case of getting lost, I never fess up to visitors. I just tell them we’re exploring new areas in the forest as we climb back up the mountain. Sooner or later, we eventually come across one of the lateral trails crisscrossing the forest. People can really get lost down in the Osa Peninsula – and not survive - but never at Finca El Tigre. This is a calming thought whenever I blunder off the trail with visitors in tow.
Quite honestly, most people don’t appreciate the forest. We start off on a hike and immediately they begin chattering and going on about anything and everything except what’s right in front of them. These are friends who are delightful at cocktail parties but can’t seem to make the shift when confronted with nature. They can’t seem to feel the joy of just being in the middle of an old forest, mesmerized by the birds and rushing water and beholding the utter majesty of massive trees. And then they wonder why we can never see any animals! Therefore, when visitors begin talking incessantly, I just take them on the pasture hike overlooking the forest canopy and talk with them and enjoy the views. They come back invigorated from the exercise and think that they’ve hiked in a forest.
If visitors are in good physical condition and seem to make the shift into the natural world, then I offer to take them down for a look in the forest. Then it is decision time – the forest hikes can range from two to five hours, or more, depending on how things go. Luckily, we have lateral trails that loop back up part way and again half way down the mountain if I decide we need to bail out. This generally happens quite naturally when a visitor suddenly remembers a weak knee or some other medical condition when faced with a long hike down the mountain, which invariably results in a long hike back up. Actually, it’s easier hiking back up a mountain than keeping your balance hiking down but most people don’t want to find that out for themselves. There are times when we need to grab onto something to keep from tumbling down a steep slope. And it’s important not to grab onto just anything – like a thorny palm or some other nasty plant, of which there are many, not to mention biting insects and snakes. I know what to touch and not touch but can’t expect visiting guests from abroad to know the same. So I have to constantly advise them along the trail-
“Don’t touch that green, leafy plant – it will burn you …. Watch out for that ferny seedling – it has clinging, spines…Don’t touch that caterpillar….”
The general rule of the forest is: Look where you’re stepping – Stop to look up.
Still, visitors usually have a way of picking up skin rashes and bug bites while out hiking. It doesn’t help when they show up wearing shorts or cropped pants. It’s just a bad idea to go into the forest without covering up completely – and that means wearing boots, socks tucked over long pants, t-shirts long enough to cover the pants, a hat and a handkerchief wrapped around the neck for mopping up sweat. What is it with the Brits and Yanks who insist on hiking in shorts as if they were in the Lake District? And nobody who is not wearing boots should go into the forest. Sandals belong on the beach.
Every hike has a highlight. Sometimes we come across the monkeys or a sloth. Sometimes the sunlight splatters a rainbow on the waterfall. Sometimes we come across a new fruit or seed. Visiting botanists are a special breed because the whole hike is marked by many special moments. I generally botanize by myself or with a visiting botanist and these are my absolute favorite hikes. The difficulty of the hike is quite irrelevant. What’s important is, for example, finding that Tempisque tree after coming across the seed or trying to identify something that just doesn’t key out with the references on hand – and that happens all the time. Botanists are not aware of the steep slopes or the sudden downpours. They are on the hunt for the elusive rare plant – perhaps not yet classified, or just trying to figure out the tree in front of us. We never mind having to carry out an exhausted botanist.
You can’t just take visitors anywhere out in the forest. We often have friends visit us from Costa Rica and abroad. We’re especially careful with visitors from abroad. They certainly prepare their wardrobes well –often equipped with the latest hiking gear complete with high tech, instant drying/no tear fabrics. And they carry these incredibly lightweight back-backs that have all sorts of zippers and pockets for stuffing everything you could possible imagine needing while hiking out in the jungle. And they provide me with all the information on the latest hiking & forest supplies along with web sites where I can acquire all this stuff too. It’s not necessarily always true, but the more carefully our visitors assemble their supplies for hiking in Costa Rica, the more careful we are with them!
After less than two years of exploring the forest out at Finca El Tigre, we’ve already had a series of mishaps with intrepid visiting hikers - everything from scrapes and tumbles to sun stroke to fractured limbs. We never take visitors from abroad on the high adventure waterfall hikes, especially city people from New York City or London. We’ve had enough close-calls with experienced locals. I’ve learned the hard way that it doesn’t matter what the visitors say – that they’ve hiked Tibet or Nepal – I still want to see how they do on an intermediate hike (high enough adventure for pretty much everybody) before inviting them down to the waterfalls. And I rarely hike down there without our forest worker, Armando, who has hauled injured visitors back up the mountain a few times already. He is also useful for using his machete to hack a trail around obstacles and also keeps us oriented without GPS.
Hiking deep in the forest without Armando basically guarantees me with a side-detour into uncharted territory. In case of getting lost, I never fess up to visitors. I just tell them we’re exploring new areas in the forest as we climb back up the mountain. Sooner or later, we eventually come across one of the lateral trails crisscrossing the forest. People can really get lost down in the Osa Peninsula – and not survive - but never at Finca El Tigre. This is a calming thought whenever I blunder off the trail with visitors in tow.
Quite honestly, most people don’t appreciate the forest. We start off on a hike and immediately they begin chattering and going on about anything and everything except what’s right in front of them. These are friends who are delightful at cocktail parties but can’t seem to make the shift when confronted with nature. They can’t seem to feel the joy of just being in the middle of an old forest, mesmerized by the birds and rushing water and beholding the utter majesty of massive trees. And then they wonder why we can never see any animals! Therefore, when visitors begin talking incessantly, I just take them on the pasture hike overlooking the forest canopy and talk with them and enjoy the views. They come back invigorated from the exercise and think that they’ve hiked in a forest.
If visitors are in good physical condition and seem to make the shift into the natural world, then I offer to take them down for a look in the forest. Then it is decision time – the forest hikes can range from two to five hours, or more, depending on how things go. Luckily, we have lateral trails that loop back up part way and again half way down the mountain if I decide we need to bail out. This generally happens quite naturally when a visitor suddenly remembers a weak knee or some other medical condition when faced with a long hike down the mountain, which invariably results in a long hike back up. Actually, it’s easier hiking back up a mountain than keeping your balance hiking down but most people don’t want to find that out for themselves. There are times when we need to grab onto something to keep from tumbling down a steep slope. And it’s important not to grab onto just anything – like a thorny palm or some other nasty plant, of which there are many, not to mention biting insects and snakes. I know what to touch and not touch but can’t expect visiting guests from abroad to know the same. So I have to constantly advise them along the trail-
“Don’t touch that green, leafy plant – it will burn you …. Watch out for that ferny seedling – it has clinging, spines…Don’t touch that caterpillar….”
The general rule of the forest is: Look where you’re stepping – Stop to look up.
Still, visitors usually have a way of picking up skin rashes and bug bites while out hiking. It doesn’t help when they show up wearing shorts or cropped pants. It’s just a bad idea to go into the forest without covering up completely – and that means wearing boots, socks tucked over long pants, t-shirts long enough to cover the pants, a hat and a handkerchief wrapped around the neck for mopping up sweat. What is it with the Brits and Yanks who insist on hiking in shorts as if they were in the Lake District? And nobody who is not wearing boots should go into the forest. Sandals belong on the beach.
Every hike has a highlight. Sometimes we come across the monkeys or a sloth. Sometimes the sunlight splatters a rainbow on the waterfall. Sometimes we come across a new fruit or seed. Visiting botanists are a special breed because the whole hike is marked by many special moments. I generally botanize by myself or with a visiting botanist and these are my absolute favorite hikes. The difficulty of the hike is quite irrelevant. What’s important is, for example, finding that Tempisque tree after coming across the seed or trying to identify something that just doesn’t key out with the references on hand – and that happens all the time. Botanists are not aware of the steep slopes or the sudden downpours. They are on the hunt for the elusive rare plant – perhaps not yet classified, or just trying to figure out the tree in front of us. We never mind having to carry out an exhausted botanist.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Naming the Charrrales
So what’s in bloom this November 11th, 2006:
Yuco (Bernoullia flammea) – Gorgeous orange blossoms, covered by white butterflies, light up the forest mountainside.
Guacimo Macho (Luehea speciosa) – Big, fragrant white blooms turn this common tree into a show stopping work of art.
It was long past time that we got around to naming and describing the assorted charrales around the Finca. Charral is pastureland we stopped cutting two years ago and is in process of natural regeneration back to forest. Already the mass of herbaceous material rises up to our noses, with lots of emergent trees popping through. After two years of walking through them and taking pictures, it’s become clear that each Charral is distinct from the others, even though many of the same plants occur in them all. Also, I wasn’t clear of the size of each of them or even how many charrales we actually had!
So Armando and I went off this morning to sort it all out.
Charral de Las Cuadras – area 1.5 hectares
We started from the stables and walked down the trail we’d cut through the center of the Charral. We can view the expanse from the Stable terrace- thus we named it Stable Charral. Two year ago it was a large pasture extending all the way down the hill to a large flat area we still keep as pastureland. A large Guanacaste stands in the middle of the Charral and many emergent trees are popping through – cecropia, guazuma, guachipelin and many others. In May of this year -2006- we planted seedlings donated by the University of Peace, all along the edge of the center trail. It wasn’t easy to see the planted trees some six months after planting because the Charral had pretty absorbed them but after moving about the plants we could see the hardwoods peaking through – all of them look very well. The Charral is fostering the hardwood seedlings – protecting them from disease, insects and sun. In a few years they will be strong enough to pop up through the Charral and face the elements on their own. We planted: Caobilla (Carapa guianensis), Chirraco (Myrolylon balsamum), Cascarillo (Lafoensia punicifolia), Soto Caballo (Zygia longifolium), Cedro bateo (Cedrela salvadorensis), Jaboncillo (Sapindus saponaria), Cristobol (Platymiscium parviflorum), Ceibo Verde (Pseudobombax septenatum).
We will continue to plant additional hardwoods – K Species – on two edges of this same Charral at the beginning of the rainy season next April.
Charral de la Casa – area 1 hectare
This Charral extends from the pasture just below the house down to a another flat area of pasture. This Charral is characterized by an abundance of Achiotillo (Vismea baccifera) as well as other emergent trees, particularly guachepelin. We plan to introduce hardwood seedlings along all three edges of this Charral next growing season and, since the upper pasture is close to the house, we will plant several large ornamentals trees, such as Spathodea campanulata, Delonix regia, Jacaranda, etc.
Charral del Naciente – area 1 hectare
This Charral is cooler and moister, due to the presence of a permanent spring that refreshes the area. It is bordered by our neighbor’s property –a closely cut pastureland, which is rather like looking into another dimension across the fencerow in contrast to the exuberant tangle of plant life on the Tigre side. The Charral is bordered below by secondary forest with many species, particularly guachepelin (Diphysa Americana), Ron Ron (Astronium graveolens), Myrsine coriacea, Picramnia and Garcinia intermedia. We plan to introduce difficult to grow hardwoods into this Charral next season.
Charral de los Alvarados – 3.5 hectares
I have no idea who Los Alvarados refers to but the Charral is named after a beautiful hilltop grove of Guayabas and Guisaros – known by the same name, which overlooks the vast expanse of this Charral. Los Alvarados Charral will be interesting to study over the years because it is bordered on three sides by forest – fine fodder for its future without any intervention needed by us. We can walk into this Charral through a trail bordering it with a secondary forest to the east and old growth forest below to the north. If we take a side trail, we come to a massive Ceiba tree extending up to the heavens from a streamside. It’s quite impossible to visit Alvarados Charral without paying homage to this awe inspiring tree. Returning to the edge of the Charral, we can see a large Madroño (Calycophllum) spreading out amidst a field of Mazote plants. We have no idea what trees are coming up through the herbaceous material but, judging from a quick look at the bordering forest, we can expect to see: Yuco (Bernoullia flammea, (Cenizaro) Samanea saman, Soncoya (Annona purpurea), Apeiba tibourbo, Ardisia revolute, Ojoche (Brosimum alicastrum), Cedro Maria (Calophyllum), Cedrela salvadorensis, Desmopsis bibracteata, Guanacaste, Murta (Eugenia salamensis), assorted Ficus species, Volador (Gyrocarpus jatrophilfolius), assorted Ingas, Lonchocarpus, Zanthroxylum, Luehea, Miconia argentea, Picramnia, Sapium, Schizolobium parahyba, Sennas, Spondias, Trichilia hirta and many, many others.
We are going to let this Charral regenerate naturally and just enjoy the show.
Charral El Tigre – area 1 hectare
The Finca is named after a beautiful hillside known locally as Cerro El Tigre, although there are no Jaguars left in this remnant of forest (but smaller cats, yes). This location is unusual because it is characterized by volcanic soil – the only place on the entire Finca. Probably a huge volcanic rock landed there after the Barva eruption many decades ago. The small Charral is bordered by the pasture hillside to the south and secondary forest surrounding it on the other 3 borders. The Charral is already teaming with seedlings from hardwood trees nearby: Guapinol (Hymenea courbaril), Mora de Brazil (Maclura tinctoria), Cocobolo (Dalbergia retusa), Guayacan (Acosmium panamense) and many, many emergent trees seeded from elsewhere in the Finca.
We have no intention of planting anything in this Charral. On the contrary – we will likely pot up hardwood seedlings from here to plant in Charrales elsewhere on the Finca.
Yuco (Bernoullia flammea) – Gorgeous orange blossoms, covered by white butterflies, light up the forest mountainside.
Guacimo Macho (Luehea speciosa) – Big, fragrant white blooms turn this common tree into a show stopping work of art.
It was long past time that we got around to naming and describing the assorted charrales around the Finca. Charral is pastureland we stopped cutting two years ago and is in process of natural regeneration back to forest. Already the mass of herbaceous material rises up to our noses, with lots of emergent trees popping through. After two years of walking through them and taking pictures, it’s become clear that each Charral is distinct from the others, even though many of the same plants occur in them all. Also, I wasn’t clear of the size of each of them or even how many charrales we actually had!
So Armando and I went off this morning to sort it all out.
Charral de Las Cuadras – area 1.5 hectares
We started from the stables and walked down the trail we’d cut through the center of the Charral. We can view the expanse from the Stable terrace- thus we named it Stable Charral. Two year ago it was a large pasture extending all the way down the hill to a large flat area we still keep as pastureland. A large Guanacaste stands in the middle of the Charral and many emergent trees are popping through – cecropia, guazuma, guachipelin and many others. In May of this year -2006- we planted seedlings donated by the University of Peace, all along the edge of the center trail. It wasn’t easy to see the planted trees some six months after planting because the Charral had pretty absorbed them but after moving about the plants we could see the hardwoods peaking through – all of them look very well. The Charral is fostering the hardwood seedlings – protecting them from disease, insects and sun. In a few years they will be strong enough to pop up through the Charral and face the elements on their own. We planted: Caobilla (Carapa guianensis), Chirraco (Myrolylon balsamum), Cascarillo (Lafoensia punicifolia), Soto Caballo (Zygia longifolium), Cedro bateo (Cedrela salvadorensis), Jaboncillo (Sapindus saponaria), Cristobol (Platymiscium parviflorum), Ceibo Verde (Pseudobombax septenatum).
We will continue to plant additional hardwoods – K Species – on two edges of this same Charral at the beginning of the rainy season next April.
Charral de la Casa – area 1 hectare
This Charral extends from the pasture just below the house down to a another flat area of pasture. This Charral is characterized by an abundance of Achiotillo (Vismea baccifera) as well as other emergent trees, particularly guachepelin. We plan to introduce hardwood seedlings along all three edges of this Charral next growing season and, since the upper pasture is close to the house, we will plant several large ornamentals trees, such as Spathodea campanulata, Delonix regia, Jacaranda, etc.
Charral del Naciente – area 1 hectare
This Charral is cooler and moister, due to the presence of a permanent spring that refreshes the area. It is bordered by our neighbor’s property –a closely cut pastureland, which is rather like looking into another dimension across the fencerow in contrast to the exuberant tangle of plant life on the Tigre side. The Charral is bordered below by secondary forest with many species, particularly guachepelin (Diphysa Americana), Ron Ron (Astronium graveolens), Myrsine coriacea, Picramnia and Garcinia intermedia. We plan to introduce difficult to grow hardwoods into this Charral next season.
Charral de los Alvarados – 3.5 hectares
I have no idea who Los Alvarados refers to but the Charral is named after a beautiful hilltop grove of Guayabas and Guisaros – known by the same name, which overlooks the vast expanse of this Charral. Los Alvarados Charral will be interesting to study over the years because it is bordered on three sides by forest – fine fodder for its future without any intervention needed by us. We can walk into this Charral through a trail bordering it with a secondary forest to the east and old growth forest below to the north. If we take a side trail, we come to a massive Ceiba tree extending up to the heavens from a streamside. It’s quite impossible to visit Alvarados Charral without paying homage to this awe inspiring tree. Returning to the edge of the Charral, we can see a large Madroño (Calycophllum) spreading out amidst a field of Mazote plants. We have no idea what trees are coming up through the herbaceous material but, judging from a quick look at the bordering forest, we can expect to see: Yuco (Bernoullia flammea, (Cenizaro) Samanea saman, Soncoya (Annona purpurea), Apeiba tibourbo, Ardisia revolute, Ojoche (Brosimum alicastrum), Cedro Maria (Calophyllum), Cedrela salvadorensis, Desmopsis bibracteata, Guanacaste, Murta (Eugenia salamensis), assorted Ficus species, Volador (Gyrocarpus jatrophilfolius), assorted Ingas, Lonchocarpus, Zanthroxylum, Luehea, Miconia argentea, Picramnia, Sapium, Schizolobium parahyba, Sennas, Spondias, Trichilia hirta and many, many others.
We are going to let this Charral regenerate naturally and just enjoy the show.
Charral El Tigre – area 1 hectare
The Finca is named after a beautiful hillside known locally as Cerro El Tigre, although there are no Jaguars left in this remnant of forest (but smaller cats, yes). This location is unusual because it is characterized by volcanic soil – the only place on the entire Finca. Probably a huge volcanic rock landed there after the Barva eruption many decades ago. The small Charral is bordered by the pasture hillside to the south and secondary forest surrounding it on the other 3 borders. The Charral is already teaming with seedlings from hardwood trees nearby: Guapinol (Hymenea courbaril), Mora de Brazil (Maclura tinctoria), Cocobolo (Dalbergia retusa), Guayacan (Acosmium panamense) and many, many emergent trees seeded from elsewhere in the Finca.
We have no intention of planting anything in this Charral. On the contrary – we will likely pot up hardwood seedlings from here to plant in Charrales elsewhere on the Finca.
Monday, September 18, 2006
The Petiole Gland Nailed it!
Guayaquil and Cenizaro
Everybody said the tree was a Cenizaro (Samanea saman MIMOSAC) but it sure looked like a Guayaquil to me! (Pseudosamea syn. Albizia saman MIMOSAC)
A highly regarded botanist 1st called it a Cenizaro – and when I insisted that the square flaky bark didn’t signify, he insisted that he was right. Confused, I checked the article showing the difference between the two and emailed him the article. And I wrote him that the article clearly differentiated between the bark of the two and that it had to be a Guayaquil. So there! Be more humble!
Well, I a few months later, I invited the author of that article to Finca El Tigre to show him the Guayaquil. This is a well known Forestry Engineer with a vast memory for trees and a passion for the forest. He looked at the tree and proclaimed it a Cenizaro.
I sputtered: But what about the bark??? How can you call it a Cenizaro when the bark looks like that of a Guayaquil – as you posted on your website!
He calmly answered – it’s very easy to tell that it’s a Cenizaro by looking at the leaves. The leaves on that tree are stiffer and more upright, whereas the leaves of the Guayaquil are more floppy. We looked way up at the pinnate leaves on the tree and they did indeed seem stiffer and not at all floppy.
I was now really beginning to doubt myself and felt really stupid sending that botanist a note telling him to be humble when it was I who was humbled.
A few months after that, a visiting dendrologist also referred to the tree as Cenizaro. He said Guayaquil didn’t grow in our region. I was done in- a total disaster as an amateur botanist. If all those distinguished botanists identified it as a Cenizaro, then it was Cenizaro. Y punto.
All this happened about a year ago. So last week, I invite another amateur botanist out to visit the finca. When we got to the tree, I pointed it out as a Cenizaro. She immediately bristled, pointed out the bark, and said, well, it looks like a Guayaquil to me! When I told her the whole story, she sort of doubted her abilities too but, now my curiosity was piqued.
So I asked the Finca caretaker who was hiking with us: Armando, are there any more Cenizaro trees about that might have branches low enough to grab the leaf? He said yes and knew exactly where they were. He guided us down a trail, which I had not actually explored before, and there we beheld a grove of Cenizaro. But then we looked – there were both Cenizaro and Guayaquil trees all mixed together! The difference in the bark really stood out when looking at them both together. We got a leaf from the Guayaquil and sure enough, found the telltale gland located on the petiole. It WAS a Guayaquil!
Then we walked back to the “Cenizaro” and could definitely see it had identical bark to the other trees – square, light color flaky bark! We nailed it! It was a Guayaquil and all those distinguished botanists had made a mistake!
Should I email them with the evidence and tell them to be humble? No way! I don’t respect them any less – tropical dendrology is so complex that it humbles us all. But perhaps this experience has given me a bit more confidence to investigate mysteries on my own and not rely solely on experts.
So what is that jobo with the smooth bark, anyway? It’s not Spondias mombin….but that yellow fruit sure does look like a jobo! And no it’s not a jocote iguanero and it can’t be that Tapirira brenesii, despite what that forestry engineer said…
Everybody said the tree was a Cenizaro (Samanea saman MIMOSAC) but it sure looked like a Guayaquil to me! (Pseudosamea syn. Albizia saman MIMOSAC)
A highly regarded botanist 1st called it a Cenizaro – and when I insisted that the square flaky bark didn’t signify, he insisted that he was right. Confused, I checked the article showing the difference between the two and emailed him the article. And I wrote him that the article clearly differentiated between the bark of the two and that it had to be a Guayaquil. So there! Be more humble!
Well, I a few months later, I invited the author of that article to Finca El Tigre to show him the Guayaquil. This is a well known Forestry Engineer with a vast memory for trees and a passion for the forest. He looked at the tree and proclaimed it a Cenizaro.
I sputtered: But what about the bark??? How can you call it a Cenizaro when the bark looks like that of a Guayaquil – as you posted on your website!
He calmly answered – it’s very easy to tell that it’s a Cenizaro by looking at the leaves. The leaves on that tree are stiffer and more upright, whereas the leaves of the Guayaquil are more floppy. We looked way up at the pinnate leaves on the tree and they did indeed seem stiffer and not at all floppy.
I was now really beginning to doubt myself and felt really stupid sending that botanist a note telling him to be humble when it was I who was humbled.
A few months after that, a visiting dendrologist also referred to the tree as Cenizaro. He said Guayaquil didn’t grow in our region. I was done in- a total disaster as an amateur botanist. If all those distinguished botanists identified it as a Cenizaro, then it was Cenizaro. Y punto.
All this happened about a year ago. So last week, I invite another amateur botanist out to visit the finca. When we got to the tree, I pointed it out as a Cenizaro. She immediately bristled, pointed out the bark, and said, well, it looks like a Guayaquil to me! When I told her the whole story, she sort of doubted her abilities too but, now my curiosity was piqued.
So I asked the Finca caretaker who was hiking with us: Armando, are there any more Cenizaro trees about that might have branches low enough to grab the leaf? He said yes and knew exactly where they were. He guided us down a trail, which I had not actually explored before, and there we beheld a grove of Cenizaro. But then we looked – there were both Cenizaro and Guayaquil trees all mixed together! The difference in the bark really stood out when looking at them both together. We got a leaf from the Guayaquil and sure enough, found the telltale gland located on the petiole. It WAS a Guayaquil!
Then we walked back to the “Cenizaro” and could definitely see it had identical bark to the other trees – square, light color flaky bark! We nailed it! It was a Guayaquil and all those distinguished botanists had made a mistake!
Should I email them with the evidence and tell them to be humble? No way! I don’t respect them any less – tropical dendrology is so complex that it humbles us all. But perhaps this experience has given me a bit more confidence to investigate mysteries on my own and not rely solely on experts.
So what is that jobo with the smooth bark, anyway? It’s not Spondias mombin….but that yellow fruit sure does look like a jobo! And no it’s not a jocote iguanero and it can’t be that Tapirira brenesii, despite what that forestry engineer said…
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Sample of wildlife at Finca el Tigre:
White faced monkeys
They are thieving little rascals.
You can hear them coming from inside the house - trees rustling with little feet scurrying about. You look out the window and see the head monkey, the most daring of the bunch, glancing furtively around to make sure the coast is clear of any humans. It's a go! He lopes over to the nearest banana tree and up to the top in a flash. Grabs a banana. You rush out the door, arms waving and yelling - "Hey! Get out of there!" The monkey faces you and hisses, and dashes off, with a bunch of bananas under his armpit. This scene repeats itself regularly. We intend to plant new banana and papaya trees so there will be enough for us all.
Howler monkeys
We haven’t seen them yet but we sure have heard them.
Fiery-billed Aracari
The Aracaris look like smallish toucans. We saw one perched on a small tree just outside the house. So we all ran out to take a look. We hear another bird raising a racket nearby and realize that the Aracari is raiding the eggs from a clay-colored robin's nest! "Hey! Get away from there!" The Aracari doesn't budge - he just looks down at us with those beady bird eyes as if to say - "Oh just piss off, you interfering humans!"
Sloths
We love the sloths and it’s a thrill to see one. They seem to have such sweet little smiles as they hug the cecropia tree. If I so much as tap a cecropia, the ants swarm out and attack. Why they don’t attack the sloth is anybody’s mystery. They all just exist together harmoniously. Then a few days later when we go back again to see the sloth, he has gone…moved on to another tree.
Terciopelo Snakes
It’s very important not to disturb a sleeping Terciopelo, even if he’s curled up in the middle of the trail and blocking your path. It’s best to silently walk around and give him a wide berth. I found that out the hard way.
We see the tracks of many other animals, especially near the streams, but rarely see them.
Then there are the stable farm animals:
Horses
The usual routine is that the horses leave the stable at 6AM and return punctually at 4PM. They do not like their schedule interrupted by, say, a pesky human wanting to go for a ride mid-morning. They are happy to let us ride them first thing in the morning or late afternoon, before settling down in their stalls but woe to the human who intrudes on their schedule between those hours. First of all, you have to search the pastures just to find them. When you eventually spot them - grazing some 500 meters away, they will immediately perk up and look you over. If you are a recognizable human, they might trot over to say 'neigh', especially if you're holding a carrot. But if they also spot a harness, they will keep their distance - even if you coax them with a whole bag of carrots and bananas! They've got better pickings out in the pasture so - NO WAY JOSE. We'll see you at 4PM!
Barnyard cats
Last week, we had two cats in the hay barn. This week, we have ELEVEN - two mothers and nine kittens. Anybody want a cute little kitten? We will keep them long enough to sterilize the whole lot of them and allow mother cats to train the little ones how to hunt. Assuming the kittens take after mother cats, they will all make excellent mousers. We've never spotted the father - he is a marauding, philandering mountain cat who is known to promptly eliminate all other male cats. These are not your typical lap-cats.
Dogs
We have nine strays at the moment. It's rare to be anywhere at the Finca without a couple of the dogs along for company. Usually two or three of them accompany us out into the forest when we go hiking and they have a ball crashing in and out of the charrales. They never stray too far from us though and follow us out of the forest and they've never killed any of the wildlife - probably because the wildlife is smarter out there. We did lose a couple of dogs to the forest (and also two cats) but that's because these animals went in there at night when the snakes are active. One of my favorite dogs, Maggie, had a bad habit of going out hunting in the forest for days at a time. She always returned with some injury or another. One time a snout full of porcupine spines. And always with cuts and a limp of some sort. Then one time she never returned and we could never find her again. The guys were amazed that she lasted as long as she did. After Maggie's demise, we tried keeping the other vagabond on a leash for his own safety but he howled with such misery that we finally relented and out to the forest he went. We lost him a few months later. At this point, the rest of the pack is smarter and stays close to the stables at night and only goes into the forest when we go. Perhaps they saw something... It's a rough life for the dogs in the tropics. We treat them for parasites and ticks but there's nothing we can do about the torcelos. I was quite disgusted the first time I had to squeeze a big nematode out of a dog but we squeeze them out on a weekly basis at this point and the dogs always appreciate the service. Ivermectin does not work in preventing Torcelos! The first week the drug kills them but you still have the squeeze the dead worms out - which actually causes the dog more infection in our experience than just squeezing them out while still alive.
Hens
We built a nice hen house complete with perches, yards and egg-laying beds for our 20 plus chickens and one rooster. They wander outside during the day but head inside at night to keep safe from the hawks and snakes. The rooster enjoys herding them hither and thither. You learn rudimentary politics watching the chickens – I can definitely understand where the term ‘pecking order’ comes from. It’s quite fun watching them cluck about, chasing and herding. Sometimes I get in there and play Chief Justice.
We are so easily entertained out here!
Greetings to you and all your critters, Victoria
White faced monkeys
They are thieving little rascals.
You can hear them coming from inside the house - trees rustling with little feet scurrying about. You look out the window and see the head monkey, the most daring of the bunch, glancing furtively around to make sure the coast is clear of any humans. It's a go! He lopes over to the nearest banana tree and up to the top in a flash. Grabs a banana. You rush out the door, arms waving and yelling - "Hey! Get out of there!" The monkey faces you and hisses, and dashes off, with a bunch of bananas under his armpit. This scene repeats itself regularly. We intend to plant new banana and papaya trees so there will be enough for us all.
Howler monkeys
We haven’t seen them yet but we sure have heard them.
Fiery-billed Aracari
The Aracaris look like smallish toucans. We saw one perched on a small tree just outside the house. So we all ran out to take a look. We hear another bird raising a racket nearby and realize that the Aracari is raiding the eggs from a clay-colored robin's nest! "Hey! Get away from there!" The Aracari doesn't budge - he just looks down at us with those beady bird eyes as if to say - "Oh just piss off, you interfering humans!"
Sloths
We love the sloths and it’s a thrill to see one. They seem to have such sweet little smiles as they hug the cecropia tree. If I so much as tap a cecropia, the ants swarm out and attack. Why they don’t attack the sloth is anybody’s mystery. They all just exist together harmoniously. Then a few days later when we go back again to see the sloth, he has gone…moved on to another tree.
Terciopelo Snakes
It’s very important not to disturb a sleeping Terciopelo, even if he’s curled up in the middle of the trail and blocking your path. It’s best to silently walk around and give him a wide berth. I found that out the hard way.
We see the tracks of many other animals, especially near the streams, but rarely see them.
Then there are the stable farm animals:
Horses
The usual routine is that the horses leave the stable at 6AM and return punctually at 4PM. They do not like their schedule interrupted by, say, a pesky human wanting to go for a ride mid-morning. They are happy to let us ride them first thing in the morning or late afternoon, before settling down in their stalls but woe to the human who intrudes on their schedule between those hours. First of all, you have to search the pastures just to find them. When you eventually spot them - grazing some 500 meters away, they will immediately perk up and look you over. If you are a recognizable human, they might trot over to say 'neigh', especially if you're holding a carrot. But if they also spot a harness, they will keep their distance - even if you coax them with a whole bag of carrots and bananas! They've got better pickings out in the pasture so - NO WAY JOSE. We'll see you at 4PM!
Barnyard cats
Last week, we had two cats in the hay barn. This week, we have ELEVEN - two mothers and nine kittens. Anybody want a cute little kitten? We will keep them long enough to sterilize the whole lot of them and allow mother cats to train the little ones how to hunt. Assuming the kittens take after mother cats, they will all make excellent mousers. We've never spotted the father - he is a marauding, philandering mountain cat who is known to promptly eliminate all other male cats. These are not your typical lap-cats.
Dogs
We have nine strays at the moment. It's rare to be anywhere at the Finca without a couple of the dogs along for company. Usually two or three of them accompany us out into the forest when we go hiking and they have a ball crashing in and out of the charrales. They never stray too far from us though and follow us out of the forest and they've never killed any of the wildlife - probably because the wildlife is smarter out there. We did lose a couple of dogs to the forest (and also two cats) but that's because these animals went in there at night when the snakes are active. One of my favorite dogs, Maggie, had a bad habit of going out hunting in the forest for days at a time. She always returned with some injury or another. One time a snout full of porcupine spines. And always with cuts and a limp of some sort. Then one time she never returned and we could never find her again. The guys were amazed that she lasted as long as she did. After Maggie's demise, we tried keeping the other vagabond on a leash for his own safety but he howled with such misery that we finally relented and out to the forest he went. We lost him a few months later. At this point, the rest of the pack is smarter and stays close to the stables at night and only goes into the forest when we go. Perhaps they saw something... It's a rough life for the dogs in the tropics. We treat them for parasites and ticks but there's nothing we can do about the torcelos. I was quite disgusted the first time I had to squeeze a big nematode out of a dog but we squeeze them out on a weekly basis at this point and the dogs always appreciate the service. Ivermectin does not work in preventing Torcelos! The first week the drug kills them but you still have the squeeze the dead worms out - which actually causes the dog more infection in our experience than just squeezing them out while still alive.
Hens
We built a nice hen house complete with perches, yards and egg-laying beds for our 20 plus chickens and one rooster. They wander outside during the day but head inside at night to keep safe from the hawks and snakes. The rooster enjoys herding them hither and thither. You learn rudimentary politics watching the chickens – I can definitely understand where the term ‘pecking order’ comes from. It’s quite fun watching them cluck about, chasing and herding. Sometimes I get in there and play Chief Justice.
We are so easily entertained out here!
Greetings to you and all your critters, Victoria
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Lost in the Forest
January, 2005:
Yesterday I got lost in the forest. Jay and I decided to hike the borders all around Finca El Tigre. The workers and topographer had just finally finished clearing and putting in orange stakes, so we figured the trail was clear and we wouldn’t get lost. The 2 kilometer hike down the road was no problem. Then we followed the fence-line into the western border of the forest and began hiking down the mountain. Eventually, the mountain ended at a stream and we hiked along it, awestruck at the massive old trees. That part of the old growth forest is one of the most magical places I’ve ever experienced. Too bad it’s such an ordeal getting there!
After scrambling along the stream for a while, we lost sight of the surveyor’s stakes and began backtracking and searching both sides of the canyon for any sign of the trail. Finally, when we realized that the trail had definitely gone cold (we missed the spot where the border stretched back up into the forest), we headed northeast back to the stable, straight through the forest and back up the mountain. We found out later that we should have scaled the left side of the canyon instead of heading up the right side.
Hiking through open forest was high adventure and, I thank God I was hiking with an experienced hiker and navigator. We didn’t even need to use a compass. Jay could tell direction by knowing the time and looking at the sun. He also gave me a few pointers on moving through the forest, which I shall pass on to those who might be tempted:
Look before you grab onto something! Only grab onto strong, live roots and saplings without thorns. At one point, as we climbed down a precipitous 50 foot drop, Jay advised me to hold firmly onto a particular root before taking the ‘real’ drop. It was good he warned me else the sudden fall might have dislocated my shoulder. Even so, I got an impressive elbow scrape.
2. Use chimney technique climbing up narrow gorges. You get your footing, choose your spot, and then use gravity to fall onto the opposite boulder with both hands and then swing legs up to parallel boulder. Repeat and up you go! It’s not scary so much as hard work.
Follow contour of the mountain rather than climbing up and down in a straight line. It was still rough going, using roots as hand-holds and slashing through bamboo groves, but it was faster and not as exhausting as dealing with the boulders down at the stream.
When you need to climb up a very steep slope, choose your objective at the top and scramble up very fast on all fours – like a monkey - to keep forward momentum.
When going down a steep slope and you lose your footing (like when a sapling snaps away), sit down and keep your feet in front of you and above the ground. The idea is to slide down on your butt. This technique is scary but I never got hurt doing it. The most important thing is not to panic and grab blindly onto something – it could be a snake or a thorny palm.
Don’t step where you can’t see. This is obvious when all is calm and easy but is especially important when the going gets rough. I found that out the hard way.
With all these techniques, Jay only had to lend me assistance one time when I lost my grip and nearly slid off a very big boulder. Otherwise, we hiked quite companionably, under the circumstances, and only hoped to find our way out of the forest before 2PM, at which time the finca employees would come out looking for us. And that would be very embarrassing.
At one point, we saw a clearing up at the top of a canyon and thought we’d reached one of the pastures. We climbed up there only to discover that a massive tree had fallen and left a sunny gap in the canopy. Yep- it was still sunny and very hot outside of the forest. It was almost a relief to go back into it – even though we were lost!
Finally, we could see another open area and climbed up to one of the more distant pastures from the house. We collapsed for a while in the meadow and looked back at the dense forest we’d just walked out of. We got back to the stables- just after 2PM – like apparitions out of a coalmine – totally filthy, scratched up and walking on wobbly legs. What a couple of wussies! The finca employees hike and work all over that forest with perfect ease. The foreman, Armando (who knows the forest like the back of his hand), suggested that we make the building of forest trails a priority. Guess he figured that if he couldn’t stop us from going in there alone, he’d better sort out some easy trails.
Thus, the trail building will begin straightaway and will be carried out concurrently with another high priority project: setting up worm composting. The local ‘worm man’, who works at Univ. of Peace, insisted that we meet a series of requirement in order for the delicate worms to survive. At one point during his litany of requests, I began to wonder if there was anything else I could do for his worms– a telephone…radio??? Armando thinks we can do worm compost simply by piling up manure and putting in the worms. He certainly demonstrated the truth of that by showing me what they do already. The worms seem perfectly happy just living in a pile of manure and being left alone. Jay, however, feels we can speed up the process by building a wooden enclosure for them and keeping them covered. Thus, the great worm debate continues.
Yesterday I got lost in the forest. Jay and I decided to hike the borders all around Finca El Tigre. The workers and topographer had just finally finished clearing and putting in orange stakes, so we figured the trail was clear and we wouldn’t get lost. The 2 kilometer hike down the road was no problem. Then we followed the fence-line into the western border of the forest and began hiking down the mountain. Eventually, the mountain ended at a stream and we hiked along it, awestruck at the massive old trees. That part of the old growth forest is one of the most magical places I’ve ever experienced. Too bad it’s such an ordeal getting there!
After scrambling along the stream for a while, we lost sight of the surveyor’s stakes and began backtracking and searching both sides of the canyon for any sign of the trail. Finally, when we realized that the trail had definitely gone cold (we missed the spot where the border stretched back up into the forest), we headed northeast back to the stable, straight through the forest and back up the mountain. We found out later that we should have scaled the left side of the canyon instead of heading up the right side.
Hiking through open forest was high adventure and, I thank God I was hiking with an experienced hiker and navigator. We didn’t even need to use a compass. Jay could tell direction by knowing the time and looking at the sun. He also gave me a few pointers on moving through the forest, which I shall pass on to those who might be tempted:
Look before you grab onto something! Only grab onto strong, live roots and saplings without thorns. At one point, as we climbed down a precipitous 50 foot drop, Jay advised me to hold firmly onto a particular root before taking the ‘real’ drop. It was good he warned me else the sudden fall might have dislocated my shoulder. Even so, I got an impressive elbow scrape.
2. Use chimney technique climbing up narrow gorges. You get your footing, choose your spot, and then use gravity to fall onto the opposite boulder with both hands and then swing legs up to parallel boulder. Repeat and up you go! It’s not scary so much as hard work.
Follow contour of the mountain rather than climbing up and down in a straight line. It was still rough going, using roots as hand-holds and slashing through bamboo groves, but it was faster and not as exhausting as dealing with the boulders down at the stream.
When you need to climb up a very steep slope, choose your objective at the top and scramble up very fast on all fours – like a monkey - to keep forward momentum.
When going down a steep slope and you lose your footing (like when a sapling snaps away), sit down and keep your feet in front of you and above the ground. The idea is to slide down on your butt. This technique is scary but I never got hurt doing it. The most important thing is not to panic and grab blindly onto something – it could be a snake or a thorny palm.
Don’t step where you can’t see. This is obvious when all is calm and easy but is especially important when the going gets rough. I found that out the hard way.
With all these techniques, Jay only had to lend me assistance one time when I lost my grip and nearly slid off a very big boulder. Otherwise, we hiked quite companionably, under the circumstances, and only hoped to find our way out of the forest before 2PM, at which time the finca employees would come out looking for us. And that would be very embarrassing.
At one point, we saw a clearing up at the top of a canyon and thought we’d reached one of the pastures. We climbed up there only to discover that a massive tree had fallen and left a sunny gap in the canopy. Yep- it was still sunny and very hot outside of the forest. It was almost a relief to go back into it – even though we were lost!
Finally, we could see another open area and climbed up to one of the more distant pastures from the house. We collapsed for a while in the meadow and looked back at the dense forest we’d just walked out of. We got back to the stables- just after 2PM – like apparitions out of a coalmine – totally filthy, scratched up and walking on wobbly legs. What a couple of wussies! The finca employees hike and work all over that forest with perfect ease. The foreman, Armando (who knows the forest like the back of his hand), suggested that we make the building of forest trails a priority. Guess he figured that if he couldn’t stop us from going in there alone, he’d better sort out some easy trails.
Thus, the trail building will begin straightaway and will be carried out concurrently with another high priority project: setting up worm composting. The local ‘worm man’, who works at Univ. of Peace, insisted that we meet a series of requirement in order for the delicate worms to survive. At one point during his litany of requests, I began to wonder if there was anything else I could do for his worms– a telephone…radio??? Armando thinks we can do worm compost simply by piling up manure and putting in the worms. He certainly demonstrated the truth of that by showing me what they do already. The worms seem perfectly happy just living in a pile of manure and being left alone. Jay, however, feels we can speed up the process by building a wooden enclosure for them and keeping them covered. Thus, the great worm debate continues.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
So what is a “Charral” anyway?
I’m pondering this word – Charral, which our Costa Rican Forestry Engineer used to describe areas of old pasture land. Soon after we bought the Finca, we decided to stop cutting several tracts of pasture land and allow it to revert to forest. As a result, we now have around 18% of the entire 120 acre Finca designated as charral, leaving about 10% as horse pasture and all the rest as forest. Our plan is to increase the percentage of forest from the current 70% of the entire property to up to about 90%, by regenerating forest from the six charrales.
My primary purpose in starting this blog is to share the journey of natural regeneration of charrales surrounded by forest. Many people here in Costa Rica have an interest in reforesting tracts by planting trees on once agricultural land by succession planting – basically trying to mimic natural regeneration by establishing fast growing R species before introducing hardwood K species into the mix.
My interest is in natural forest regeneration without human intervention over a period of 15 plus years. This is possible at Finca El Tigre because it is part of a government protected area known as Zona Protectora El Rodeo, supposedly the only remnant of primary forest left in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. The forest at Finca El Tigre is a combination of both young and old forest. We have found more biodiversity in the young forest, with birds bringing in seeds from areas on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the country. The old forest has mostly remnant species left uncut when cattle once grazed most of the entire area. About 50-60 years ago, the owners removed cattle from part of the Finca and the old forest regenerated quickly. About 80% of the old forest is made up of HUGE remnant trees left uncut: Cedro amargo, Cedro bateo, Ceiba, Chapernos, Chilamate, Espavel, Gallinazo, Guanacaste, Guacimo Colorado, Hule, Jobo, Lagartillos, Lorito, Higuerones, Jabillo, Madrono, Mangle de Rio, Ojoche, Pochote, Quebracho, Sura, Yos, Yuco. Then about 20 years ago, after the entire area was designated by the Costa Rica Government as a ‘Protected Zone’, the previous owners stopped cattle grazing on a large part of the rest of the Finca and this area quickly reverted to a young secondary forest with huge biodiversity (we are still in the process of completing an inventory of flora & fauna). The secondary forests surround the charrales and pasture areas, which were used for light cattle grazing up until the time we bought the Finca in 2005.
Thus, all of the biodiversity surrounding the charrales will provide a good amount of plant material over the years as the charrales revert to forests. Each charral is surrounded by different forest vegetation. For example, the Tigre Hill Charral is located adjacent to a forest of hardwood trees such as: Cocobolo, Guapinol, Mora (Maclura) and Guayacan (Acosmium). Then there’s the Stable Charral, which is located next to a lot of Cenizaro and Guachipelin trees, among many others and so on for each of six charrales.
Twice a year, I’m taking pictures of each charral and noting the changes and will continue doing this for the next 15 years. My only intervention is to plant some hardwoods no longer extant in this forest along the edge of the charrales as well as in small clearings left from fallen trees in the younger growth forest. I will not have any idea of what’s going on in the center of the charrales for the next few more years until the faster growing trees begin shading out all the herbaceous material and improve ground visibility. For now, the charrales are all impenetrable masses of vegetation teaming with insects and who knows what else.
So how do we call Charral in English? I haven’t found a web dictionary that can define the word in Spanish, much less translate it into English! This seems to be a uniquely Spanish word used here in the tropics. Infojardin.net defines it thusly in Spanish:
Charral
Área regenerada del bosque secundario en tierras en las cuales la vegetación arbórea había sido eliminada en gran parte; incluye también a zonas en proceso de degradación de la masa forestal, partiendo de los bosques densos, a bosques sujetos a extracción de las mejores especies, y eliminación de ejemplares de porte arbórea quedando la vegetación más baja o sotobosque (según Maldonado 1997).
And so… Charral is perhaps best defined as a tract of tropical land in the process of reverting from agricultural to forest or (sadly) vice versa.
I like the word charral because it conjures up the concept of dynamic transformation, of real life plant succession, of an emerging forest. I like wandering the charrales and just witnessing the continuous changes. Everyday I see something new just by peering into the edge – here a new Guachipelin sapling, there a Guazuma popping up through the Mozote. Most visitors prefer the forest trails and gazing at the big trees. The forest is always a spiritual sanctuary but the charral is also very special. It brings the promise of what’s to come.
I’m pondering this word – Charral, which our Costa Rican Forestry Engineer used to describe areas of old pasture land. Soon after we bought the Finca, we decided to stop cutting several tracts of pasture land and allow it to revert to forest. As a result, we now have around 18% of the entire 120 acre Finca designated as charral, leaving about 10% as horse pasture and all the rest as forest. Our plan is to increase the percentage of forest from the current 70% of the entire property to up to about 90%, by regenerating forest from the six charrales.
My primary purpose in starting this blog is to share the journey of natural regeneration of charrales surrounded by forest. Many people here in Costa Rica have an interest in reforesting tracts by planting trees on once agricultural land by succession planting – basically trying to mimic natural regeneration by establishing fast growing R species before introducing hardwood K species into the mix.
My interest is in natural forest regeneration without human intervention over a period of 15 plus years. This is possible at Finca El Tigre because it is part of a government protected area known as Zona Protectora El Rodeo, supposedly the only remnant of primary forest left in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. The forest at Finca El Tigre is a combination of both young and old forest. We have found more biodiversity in the young forest, with birds bringing in seeds from areas on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the country. The old forest has mostly remnant species left uncut when cattle once grazed most of the entire area. About 50-60 years ago, the owners removed cattle from part of the Finca and the old forest regenerated quickly. About 80% of the old forest is made up of HUGE remnant trees left uncut: Cedro amargo, Cedro bateo, Ceiba, Chapernos, Chilamate, Espavel, Gallinazo, Guanacaste, Guacimo Colorado, Hule, Jobo, Lagartillos, Lorito, Higuerones, Jabillo, Madrono, Mangle de Rio, Ojoche, Pochote, Quebracho, Sura, Yos, Yuco. Then about 20 years ago, after the entire area was designated by the Costa Rica Government as a ‘Protected Zone’, the previous owners stopped cattle grazing on a large part of the rest of the Finca and this area quickly reverted to a young secondary forest with huge biodiversity (we are still in the process of completing an inventory of flora & fauna). The secondary forests surround the charrales and pasture areas, which were used for light cattle grazing up until the time we bought the Finca in 2005.
Thus, all of the biodiversity surrounding the charrales will provide a good amount of plant material over the years as the charrales revert to forests. Each charral is surrounded by different forest vegetation. For example, the Tigre Hill Charral is located adjacent to a forest of hardwood trees such as: Cocobolo, Guapinol, Mora (Maclura) and Guayacan (Acosmium). Then there’s the Stable Charral, which is located next to a lot of Cenizaro and Guachipelin trees, among many others and so on for each of six charrales.
Twice a year, I’m taking pictures of each charral and noting the changes and will continue doing this for the next 15 years. My only intervention is to plant some hardwoods no longer extant in this forest along the edge of the charrales as well as in small clearings left from fallen trees in the younger growth forest. I will not have any idea of what’s going on in the center of the charrales for the next few more years until the faster growing trees begin shading out all the herbaceous material and improve ground visibility. For now, the charrales are all impenetrable masses of vegetation teaming with insects and who knows what else.
So how do we call Charral in English? I haven’t found a web dictionary that can define the word in Spanish, much less translate it into English! This seems to be a uniquely Spanish word used here in the tropics. Infojardin.net defines it thusly in Spanish:
Charral
Área regenerada del bosque secundario en tierras en las cuales la vegetación arbórea había sido eliminada en gran parte; incluye también a zonas en proceso de degradación de la masa forestal, partiendo de los bosques densos, a bosques sujetos a extracción de las mejores especies, y eliminación de ejemplares de porte arbórea quedando la vegetación más baja o sotobosque (según Maldonado 1997).
And so… Charral is perhaps best defined as a tract of tropical land in the process of reverting from agricultural to forest or (sadly) vice versa.
I like the word charral because it conjures up the concept of dynamic transformation, of real life plant succession, of an emerging forest. I like wandering the charrales and just witnessing the continuous changes. Everyday I see something new just by peering into the edge – here a new Guachipelin sapling, there a Guazuma popping up through the Mozote. Most visitors prefer the forest trails and gazing at the big trees. The forest is always a spiritual sanctuary but the charral is also very special. It brings the promise of what’s to come.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Searching for jobo
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, then it must be a bloody duck.
That's the same for a Jobo. The leaves look like a Jobo and the fruit looks and tastes like a Jobo. My tropical dendrology friends look at the fruit and say: That's a Jobo!
But the bark on the trunk is not fissured like a Jobo ought to be. Then a visiting dendrologist told me it wasn't a Jobo at all! That the tree was in fact, a Tapirira brenesii or Cirri Amarillo, as they call it in Costa Rica.
Well Tapirira didn't correspond to what I could find in the literature and the Cirri Amarillo refers to a Mauria heterophylla in my dendrology bible "Arboles de Costa Rica". And that didn't describe my Jobo looking tree at Finca El Tigre, located near Rodeo, near Univ. for Peace, in Costa Rica.
So you know what? I'm going to call this Jobo looking tree a Jobo! Even if the bark isn't fissured.
That's the same for a Jobo. The leaves look like a Jobo and the fruit looks and tastes like a Jobo. My tropical dendrology friends look at the fruit and say: That's a Jobo!
But the bark on the trunk is not fissured like a Jobo ought to be. Then a visiting dendrologist told me it wasn't a Jobo at all! That the tree was in fact, a Tapirira brenesii or Cirri Amarillo, as they call it in Costa Rica.
Well Tapirira didn't correspond to what I could find in the literature and the Cirri Amarillo refers to a Mauria heterophylla in my dendrology bible "Arboles de Costa Rica". And that didn't describe my Jobo looking tree at Finca El Tigre, located near Rodeo, near Univ. for Peace, in Costa Rica.
So you know what? I'm going to call this Jobo looking tree a Jobo! Even if the bark isn't fissured.
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