Los Cedros (January 2008)

Buenos,
Soooo…….
Been here a couple of weeks….hard to believe……
The trip in was an adventure in and of itself…….i had been under the impression that we were faced with a five hour hike, with mulas to haul our gear…..when in fact it was meant to be a five hour mula ride!!!!!
About half way through, a few of us, wishing to relieve our unaccustomed bottoms, decided to walk a spell……..
Spent the next hour spent jogging/running way in front of the group, fearing that I was in the process of losing my mule. Only by cutting it off at a switch back was I able to breathe long enough to come to the realization: "never drop the reins"
This and other experiences throughout the day lent pictoral definition to the saying: "stubborn as a……"
But we made it (and just before dark)!!!!
And what a place to arrive………..
The nay-sayers were right…..los cedros is wetter than mindo!!!!
17,000 acres of wet tropical cloud forest……..
2,650 acres of this is formerly colonized land (which emcompasses the research station, banana patch, chicken yard, mula pastures and various restoration projects).
The remainder is primary forest, home to literally thousands of species….including the critically endangered brown-headed spider monkey, rare rosy faced parrots and dozens of other spectacular organisms.
To be fair I have seen way more parrots than monkeys……(0 monkeys……parrots by the flock --- rosy-faced, bronze-winged, cool parakeets whose names I forget)
The reserve is a buffer zone for the 450,000 acre Cotocachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve. An important refuge in the heart of the Choco phytogeographical region, one of the most biologically diverse and endemic-rich habitats on the planet (did I mention that it is one of the wettest as well!!!).
The camera traps show evidence of puma, spectacled bear, agoutis, opossum, ocelots, and many other decent-sized mammals, which in these parts is a good indicator of undisturbed forest. Most places that are close to human influence are relatively depauparate in terms of eatable-sized wildlife………
Many of the plants are familiar from the week in Mindo…..similar elevation, same side of the Andes……this has made it easier to focus on specifics……which reminds me of yet another passage from "One River" (I have been too busy to read much so I am still only about half-way through)……..
"After several trips across the Andes, the pattern of the flora was gradually coming into focus. This to me was the great revelation of botany. When I knew nothing of the plants, I experienced a forest only as a tangle of forms, shapes, and colors without meaning or depth, beautiful when taken as a whole, but ultimately incomprehensible and exotic. Now the components of the mosaic had names, the names implied relationships and the relationships resonated with significance." –Wade Davis
The wetness in fact may lead to a pattern of higher diversity in certain taxa….or can I just see more clearly through the revelatory focus of familiarity??????
My first day here I saw almost thirty distinct species of orchids…..(albeit none of them the Draculas that we were looking for ---- but that is another story that I think I will save for the next instalment).
Pleurothalises, Lepanthes, Masduvallias, Stelises, Scaphosepalums, and Eallinathuses, several species of each, and more genera besides………
The reserve is also rich in gesneriads (woody scroph relatives – as a temperate frame of reference)…….with new species "discovered" and described here……
The now familiar, epiphytic peperomias, anthuriums, philodendrons, and bromeliads, drip from the trees….
I was mislead by a look-alike though……thinking I could pick a Bromeliaceae out of a crowd, I assigned this designation to a terrestrial plant with big inflorescences of orange families…..
Not only was it not a bromeliad, it was in a family I had never heard of…the Marantaceae!!!!!
(can never know enough to not be surprised!!!!!)
The wet ground covered with the "lower" groups of liverworts and club mosses……..
It is the canopy layer that remains largely mysterious……high above…..leaves are difficult enough to discern, let alone, flowers…….it gives an appreciation for the tropical botanist's use of the smell of the cut trunk in identification. Almost all initial guesses based on habit and leaf shape are followed up by an exploratory incision of the bark, with nose held close.
I have come to recognize fallen fruit, yet connecting to the mother is challenging.
Sour oranges that go by the common name "madrono," provide a tart treat while slogging up and down the muddy trails (and apparently are choice monkey forage)………still haven't even gotten to family……someone suggested Clusiaceae (the new home of st. john;s wort)…..but so far that lead has been less fruitful than the plant, with its tangy ovaries….
The aromatic scents of the "copal" fruits crushed beneath rubber boots……not the leguminosous "copal" I know from Mexico – Hymenea—although it does occur in Ecuador…..but a variety of a handful of genera in the Burseraceae, the frankincense and myrrh family that is closely related to our beloved Poison Oak and other members of the Anacardiaceae, like, mango, cashew, and pistachio……….
"……Now the components of the mosaic had names, the names implied relationships and the relationships resonated with significance………" –Wade Davis
Did I mention the rain……..?
Who knew the inside of a cloud could be this wet?
Have to been able to even think about wearing anything besides rubber boots despite hiking several kilometros each day --- in difficult terrain, and I am not a rubber-boot wearer by nature…….have avoided blisters so far…..although some of my cohorts have succumbed…..
Enough for now my friends
I am saving the science part of the story for another email, as this one appears long enough as it is……
Stay tuned!
Suffice to say we have come across over 140 plants of four different species in the elusive genus Dracula, enough to experiment with, and we even have the better part of a paper written!!!!

More soon
Adios
t
ps would send pix, but you know how dial-up is.......finicky and slow at best!