Bosque Nublado (January 2008)

Hola a todos,
so made it back to quito after a very wet week......
i guess they call it the cloud forest for a reason (and this is the rainy season to boot)
on my fourth day, my hát started to mold............

what a week though

as a kind of back drop, i have been reading a book called One River by Wade Davis (a must read, by the way, that is not only super engaging, but filliing in big parts of my own ethnobotanical education....thanks kusra for the recommendation)
there is a line in the first couple of chapters where he is decribing setting out to uncover the botanical origins and cultural uses of coca, and in presenting the indigenous attitude he notes that ´´In a sacred landscape, every plant is the manifestation of the divine.`´

besides the interesting tidbits to mull over, reading about some of the early ethnobotanical explorations by richard evan shultes and the like, make my own botanical adventures appear that much more grandios and tame at the same time....... (at least in my own head!)

interesting that in the internet cafe they are playing the classic song by kansas:
´´....all we are is dust in the wind.....``´

well at any rate.......

leaving quito, i had the bright idea to hitch hike to mindo, partly because i missed the bus and partly for the fun of it.......

as usual the hardest part was just getting out of the city......a good two hours of not being sure if i was even on the right public bus.........at last i made it to mitad del mundo (the middle of the world) a monument marking the equator just north of quito, but not after cursing myself for always having to go about things the hard way......

my outlook soon changed as i flagged down the first truck to go by, a big cinder block delivery truck.............between the hight of the tail gate and the wieght of my pack (i can never travel lightly appartenly) i ended up kind of somersaulting into the back with my pack landing on top of me.........but we`re off.........and out of quito!!!


rolling out of the dry interandean valley, the cement dust whirling around me seemed fitting as we past ramshackle cinder block houses, with stones to hold the tin roofs on (made me feel better about the pallets holding my own shed roof on ...lol)

passing senna shrubs with their yellow flowers, stalks of mullein, big daturas, the towering agave americana stalks were the tallest things in sight!

as we crested the andes my ride ended, and as i watched the clouds roll up and over form the west, i was glad for a ride in a car (it was soon dumping rain)

coming down the mountains, i got giddy......the dry valley, giving way to lush montane forest, epiphytes everywhere, tree ferns, and giant white epidendrums (or were those sobralias)....giant orchids in the ditches by either estimation!!!!!

also a good chance to practice my spanish.......

my driver alex, a policeman from quito explained to me how the people use the giant leaves of the gunnera as umbrellas.....interesting to find such ethnobotanical tidbits coming from a self proclaimed city boy as we listened to loud electronic dance music....

arrived at el monte.....and somewhat bemusedly was introduced as the ``visiting biologist´´

somewhat self-consciencously i was assigned to one of the cabanas....a grand affair to be sure......

went for a walk about before diner and was struck by how late it stayed light......on the equator the sun goes down at like 6:30 all year.....to my northern winter sensibilities this was a welcome extension to the afternoon...........

right off the bat, oncidiums, shefflera, columneas, and more.......

in the failing light i was glad to have my new tripod along (thanks to 7song for the tip).....the difference between blur and actual fotos!!!

the next day i took over 200 fotos!!!!!!!!!!!!
pleurothallis, peperomia, kohlerias, gasteranthus, clusia, erythina, psamissia (the fleshy flowered tropical ericaceaes)

anthuriums and philodendrons climbing on everything

begonias taller than me!!!!!
ironically B. parviflorus......the `small flowered begonia``--big as a small tree!

turns out you can id rubiaceaes by their stipules (at least theoretically) the coffee family with such common genera as psychotria and Palicourea.............visited by humming birds and butterflies alike....

i have been using the rapid color guides form the field musem of natural history (almost to a fault really)

the pictures make me think i know something, and then when i cross reference with the gentry (the hitchy for nw south america) i am pretty sure that i don´t know anything....lol

and to top it off he´ll say things like (re. gesneraceae) ``generic taxonomy is in a state of flux; worse, many of thew obvious floral characteristics are misleading....```

it reminds me of the quote i read from voet and voet when i teach chemistry....
^^our knowledge, extensive as it is, in all cases, is dwarfed by our ignorance`` and this is out of a modern biochemistry book over 1000 pages long!!!!!

or as the great taxonomist and ethnobotanist Linnaeus once said:
``what we know of the divine works are far fewer than those of which we are ignorant^^

it strikes me as a good philosophy to recall in this diverse land.......

but i digress

for those of you interested, i have learned a few birds......and seen many more...

roadside hawk
crimson rumped tucanettes
acaricaris
sunbittern
lemon rumped tananger
white winged tananger
a bunch of other cool tanangers
a flock of 25 parrots
etc

found another piece by wade davis in the el monte library that i will end this already too long email with:

```The ultimate role of ethnobotany lies not in the identification of new natural products for the benefit of the modern world, but rather in the illumination of a profoundly different way of living in relationship to nature.´´

--W. Davis ´Towards a New Synthesis in Ethnobotany. In ´Las Plantas y el Hombre.´eds. Rios j& Pederson 1994.

so now i am sufficiently dried out and heading to los cedros en la manana, which everyone assures me is much wetter than mindo!!!! usually spoken with a laugh......

paz
t

ps oh yeah he attached pix arer of a little orchid i found at el monte......far be it for for me to speculate, but does it look like a fly to anyone else?????? coevolution in action?
and a nice segue into the draculas........

les extrano
t