Ethnobotanical Travelogues

Welcome

2026-05-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

below is collection of observations and thoughts inspired by the places, plants & people of latin america.
thanks for your interest in my ramblings about my ramblings.....
(the highlighted words within the text are links to provide more info)
cheers
tobias

ECUADOR 2011

2010-08-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

So some of you have queried about my lack of writing this year.
The answer is here!

PLANTS OF MINDO
A Guide to the Cloud Forest of the Andean Choco

ECUADOR 2010

2010-07-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

The following posts are from a 5 month trip in the winter/spring of 2010.
They have been reordered, from beginning to end, to allow them to be be read chronologically.

Enjoy,
Tobias

Leaving for Ecuador! (January 2010)

2010-07-05T22:13:00.000-07:00

Saludos,

So as many of you know,

I am leaving the country this Sunday (Jan 10) for 5 months of research and teaching in Ecuador.

The first half of my trip I will be at Reserva Los Cedros (http://reservaloscedros.org) working on the research for my dissertation (http://ethnobotanicalresearch.blogspot.com).

I am using a group of mushroom-mimicking orchids to link volatile chemistry, genetics, and insect behavior as co-creative processes in the distribution, diversity, and evolution of this group of enigmatic plants.

While that may sound somewhat lofty and esoteric, I can assure you that my feet will be planted firmly in the mud during those couple of months! (The cloud forest we are working in gets 3x as much rain as Eugene!)

The second half of my trip will be helping to teach a neotropical ecology field course with students from the U of O (http://biology.uoregon.edu/neotropicalecology).

Additionally, I will find some time to adventure on my own, particularly gathering information and photos for the second edition of my book on the common plants of the cloud forest (http://plantsofmindo.blogspot.com).

Thanks for your continued interest,

and may your winter and spring be filled with brilliant adventures of your own.

Until Ecuador!

con amor,

Tobias

Dracula lafluerii

Quito! (January 2010)

2010-06-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

Mural downtown

Saludos,
So….almost a week in quito……
As some of you know, things got off to a bit of a slow start!
As in 2 days slow……
There was a problem with my visa and upon arrival at the airport in eugene at 4:30 in the morning, after staying up all night, frantically trying to get organized, they told me that they would not let me on the plane!!!!
In what amounted to an hour of forced diplomacy, I got things sorted out to leave 2 days later (somehow magically avoiding a change ticket fee of $250)
So instead of leaving on the 10th, I left (again at 4:30am) the morning of the 12th, making my last day in Eugene a palindrome (01/11/10) perhaps in more ways than one……
Honestly, I was not quite ready to leave!!!

Lantana camara

Quito is…..well, it is south America!!!
Passion fruit, mangos, avocadoes. Cherimoyas, papayas, pineapple…..bananas, prickly pear fruits, nonis (which I have admittedly only smelled not tasted), guavas.
All those cool Andean tubers that are used like, but not related to the potato…….piles of herbs in el mercado…..

Mercado de artanisias

80 degrees and sunny, but a little too so….
this is supposed to be the rainy season, but the best they’ve got is lightning over Pichincha (the local volcano)……
nice to be a tourist, but worrisome otherwise
there is not enough water to fill the hydodams, so there are rolling blackouts across the city every day…….
just don’t plan on getting much business done between 4 and 6!!! (at least in my neighborhood, times may vary in other disticts)
una corte de energia is one thing, but…….
Most of the staple crops eaten and served are from the last harvest, and there is some concern about the future…….water = food, water = life…….

In other news……
chatting with local friends about politics and the economy, things are not looking so good for biodiversity……..
The ‘lefty’ president has done a bunch of great stuff for the poor, but it is mostly all funded by oil money……..word on the street is that this year they are going to start seriously exporting out of Parque Nacional Yasuni (http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5ihFdfE7gdXQ2kIGdEEGu3PwjNqpw)
……in the western amazon basin and arguably one of the most biodiverse regions in the world!!!
If you get a chance to check out this film http://www.crudethemovie.com/ it might be worthwhile (although likely depressing), it think it is coming to the bijou in the near future…….

Sticky issues, like the spilled crude oil coating the rivers……..
Hard to tell people that they cannot have schools and medical clinics……but at what cost……
Seems like water smay become the resource of most concern sooner than later as the rain stops and the Andean glaciers melt….!!!
Me, trying to rationalize the fuel to fly down here, by remembering that we are supporting conservation efforts through our work……hhhmmmm……

View from my roof

Well, didn’t mean for this to be a downer…….
In the meantime quito is still a big city that knows how to party!!!
Been getting plenty of exercise on the dance floor……
Which at 11,000 ft, doesn’t take much to feel breathless!!!!

Que mas?
Well, it seems that the process of getting a research permit, that we thought was underway, was…..not so much……
This week has been a bit of a scramble to get all of the pieces together in a hurry so that we at least have the process started when we head to the field…….
Negotiating government red tape has been pushing the bounds of my rusty Spanish, but it all seems to be coming together…..
Connected with a woman at a local ngo (http://www.jatunsacha.org/) who has been super helpful with all of this………….

I am actually going to stay behind in quito an extra day to finish sorting all of this out, while the others head to los cedros (http://www.reservaloscedros.org/en/)
I have been noticing how much less frustrating this all is in Spanish….
Dealing with this kind of run-around in english would likely drive me up the wall, but somehow the challenge of sorting it all out in another language makes it an interesting puzzle!

Well, perhaps enough for now……
Culture, food, politics, it all adds up!

Graffiti

Next missive will likely find me mesmerized by orchids, with mushrooms growing out of my hair……
Looking forward to the mule ride….lol

Abrazos a todos
tobias

View from town

Los Cedros (Jan-Feb 2010)

2010-05-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

So……….
Got a little behind on the writing front….
Got back from los cedros and then headed directly to the coast for a week
Somehow sitting in an internet café seemed like it would violate the rules of vacation!!!
Trying to catch up just now

Los cedros was amazing as usual…..it feels a little odd to be getting used to being there
I can actually think and work and not be overwhelmed by the lushness and diversity
Need to be conscious about not losing the sense of awe……

At any rate…….
Waiting for the mules to come down the path and fetch us, I befriended a butterfly that would not leave me alone!

The wonder of the moment was somewhat shattered by the mule trains of lumber that preceded the mules that were to fetch us…….
A good reminder that all is not well in paradise……..

There is a road that we have been watching extend towards the reserve for the last three years……
And it is a good example of the needs of people pitted against the needs of the forest
The folks that live in the pueblito are stoked to have access to the larger town,
But of course there is a cost
Easier access in part means easier exploitation
Much of the wood coming out is ‘cedro’ (Cedrela odorata (Meliaceae)) a beautiful red color,
But they are also starting to cut ‘copal’ (Protium sp (Burseraceae)) a lighter-colored wood that is not as valuable, perhaps indicating that the easily accessible regions are beginning to be a bit cut-over……

Then our mules arrived to transport us up to the magic of the clouds
Easy to forget the troubles of the outside world once there…….
Dozens of species of orchids
Hundreds of species of birds
Monkeys in the trees above the trail……
6 inch long millipedes
waterfalls
tree falls
mind-blowing diversity of moths

as the plants become more familiar, it gets easier to focus
to decipher the tangled swarm of vegetation

and a good thing too, as we had our hands full with things to accomplish……

first though, I spent a day helping the folks form the reserve rebuild the bamboo bridges that had been washed out by high water.
Yet another level of remoteness surmounted by a day playing in the river!

over 500 fungal collections
over 500 insects caught and stashed in alcool
I collected fragrance from more than 175 different flowers, mushrooms, and insects!

Trying to tease apart a mimetic pollination strategy necessitates an interest in everything!
We want to know about the orchids
We want to know about the mushrooms they are mimicking
And we want to know about the flies that visit both!

As far as fragrances, we have pretty well established that the same compounds are made by the orchids and the mushrooms,
what we want to get at is the particular amounts and ratios……
Are the flowers mimicking particular fungi or just taking advantage of a general ‘mushroomy-ness’?
And then I starting working a secret side hypothesis that is that the flowers are also emitting fly pheromones! Hence the fly extracts……

We have also found good populations of some new (to us) Masdevallia populations and ran into a Poroglussum to boot!!!

Poroglossum cf. hoeijeri

Well, if we are studying Dracula, why all the fuss about other species……one might ask?

Well it it turns out that there are a bunch of genera that at one time were included in Masdevallia.
Dracula, Poroglossum, Scaphosepalum, Trisetella and maybe others…….
Recent phylogenetic work has supported the prior morphological clumping and suggests that these other genera are the closest relatives of Dracula.
Dracula however is the only group that has evolved the strange mushroom forms and fragrances.
Therefore, by studying the rate of pollination in these sister taxa, we hope to get a handle on the adaptive nature of fungal mimicry, in a fungal rich background……..

Now if that wasn’t a bit heady,
I have also been trying to wrap my head around Dipteran taxonomy and behaviour…..
Which is to say:
Who are these flies and what are they doing?

So far we seem to be getting different visitors to the different species we are watching, and equally as interesting, the same flies going back and forth between the flowers and nearby mushrooms!

What is it that attracts these things anyways?
By manipulating the display of fragrance and color we are trying to find out what aspect of the signaling motif is most important here.
So far, our methods seem a little crude.
The wonders of interspecies communication seem to outweigh, bagged flowers and colored modeling clay……
think using a chainsaw to cut butter……

That said, what we have learned is that either visual or fragrance cues are sufficient to attract the flies, but in order to actual land, both aspects are required.
A bit like ‘fly psych 303’ as Jesse noted……

In the mean time I am getting a good reminder that ECOLGY IS COMLICATED!
Easy enough to sit in my office in Eugene and devise schemes to tease apart the fabric of life, but when yer actually out in it, feeling the web and weft, tug and pull…….
well…..another thing entirely………..

But that is part of the process, no?
To let our actions inform our understanding and then modify our future actions to gain the understanding we seek……….

Alright, maybe that is enough science for now.

In other news
The screaming flocks of parrots overhead,
Swimming in the river in January!
Salsa dance parties

Water-fights for Carnaval
And a steady stream of tourists and volunteers
Serve to add to the excitement……

On the later note, a group of somewhat new-agey folks
Showed up for a couple of nights…….
Jesse (dreadlocks past his butt!) and I found ourselves in the unusual position of being pegged as ‘squares,’
I mean we ARE scientists afterall……
Discussion of botanical diversity turned to ‘secret life of plants,’ Rudolf Steiner, and spiritual evolution…….
Communing with divas and the like.
A fine discussion to have, but what we laughed about afterwards was the way we were perceived to represent the reductionist mechanistic world view of “SCIENCE.”
And in a somewhat argumentative tone that was entirely lost on us.
A good reminder of the power of stereotypes……

I’ll sign off for now
There will be another post about lounging on the beach, exploring the dry forests of the coast and getting the runs from coconut juice soon!

besos
t

Los Cedros 1 2010

click on photo to see whole album

A la Costa; Feb 2010

2010-04-09T21:33:00.000-07:00

So neither jesse nor I could remember the last time we had had a vacation…………
After a month in the rain and mud, nothing sounded better than heading to the coast to dry out for a minute!

Much of the coast of south America is under the influence of the Humbolt current.
This cold current flows from the Antarctic ocean up the west coast of south america to the equator, where it meets the warm Panama current from the north and heads out into the Pacific.

It is the most productive marine ecosystem in the world,
accounting for approximately 18-20% of the world’s fish catch,
and contributing to the diversity of the Galapagos islands.

For us here on land though, there are a couple of important influences of this current,
Both center around the relationship between water temperature and the ability of the air above to hold onto moisture.
Warm air holds more moisture than cold air.
One of the reasons that it is so wet at los cedros is that all of the moist air associated with the Panama current collides with the cold air associated with the Humbolt current and the moisture falls to the ground.
The Choco phytogeographic region,
(that part of NW south America where these currents collide, and home to los cedros!)
is arguable one of the wettest places on earth.

The other big influence of the Humbolt current is that much of the coast of south America, chile, peru and the southern half of Ecuador is very dry, receiving as little as 10 inches of rain/year in certain regions.

A welcome respite from the 100% humidity we were leaving behind!

Hitch-hiking out of quito, we found ourselves cresting the western range of the Andes and falling through clouds, the highway draped in ferns and waterfalls……
I am not sure if it actually ever rained, or if we got as wet as we did, simply by rushing through the condensing air in the back of a truck!

Soon we left the lush slopes behind and entered the broad coastal plains,
As night fell, we got on a bus, and missed most of the acres of bananas, oil palm and sugarcane that we rumbled through…….

Slept in Manta, a bustling port city that until recently was home to a US military base that was used largely in the “war on drugs.” (interpret the quotation marks anyway you like!)

Couldn’t wait to leave in the morning, despite the coconut water, vended from 3-wheeled bicycles…..
Wanted to leave so quick in fact, that we almost let our selves be talked into riding the bus down to Puerto Lopez!!!
But patience prevailed, and soon enough we were hiking out of town, thumbs in the air!

Intriguing landscape, reminded me of traveling in Baja some years ago……
The dry, dry landscape, contrasting against the sea

Dry tropical forest once occupied more land area than tropical rainforest.
Some 42% of all intra-tropical vegetation.
However, it is easily converted to pasture and is slow to recover…….
In Ecuador less than 2% of this forest type remains,
a statistic which is unfortunately true for most tropical dry forest regions in the world.
Unless it is worse!
(Central America has less than one-tenth of one percent of its original dry forests).

it took us the better part of a day to hitch the 120km down the coast
6 rides in all……
hanging off the bumper of pick-ups full of people,
eating bologne sandwiches and listening to manu chao in a sedan driven by tourists form quito,
and hunkering down in a truck full of wires and electrical supplies to avoid the fish guts and bloody water, flying out of the trucks in front of us!!!

We arrived in Puerto Lopez, tired and sunburned!
‘Accidentally’ rented a house on the beach…..
(we had been looking for a hostal,
but this was cheaper and nicer than anything else we had seen!)
and quickly discovered some aloe growing nearby.
Nothing like aloe directly applied to burnt flesh to remind us of the power of plants!

Fried fish for diner,
A moonlit walk through the warm waves
And we called it a day…..

Puerto lopez is just south of the main entrance to Parque Nacional Machalilla
A protected area includes 50km of coastline
(including isla de la plata – an important breeding ground for seabirds such as boobies with various colored feet, frigate birds and albatross - euphemistically known as ‘the poor-man’s galapagos’),
and extending inland to the humid forests of the coastal mountains.

Red-footed Booby

This is one of very few protected dry forests on the coast of south America
(lacking the conspicuous diversity and charismatic mega-fauna of its wetter counterparts……
While at first glance, a seeming desert,
we were lucky enough to arrive 3 weeks behind a rainstorm
and found sufficient botanical treasures to keep us enthralled for the better part of a week,
and then not wanting to leave!

After los cedros the relatively depauperate biota,
Was welcomingly easy to wrap our sun-drenched heads around…..

A few species of lovely lizards
Doves, vermillion fly-catchers, and golden tanangers flitting through the cacti and brush
Blooming prickly pears (opuntia sp)
Palo santo (Bursera graveolens)
its intense aroma accentuated by the beating tropical sun
shrubby boraginaceaes (Cordia lutea)
pelicans
crabs
plovers

beaches white with the remains of once living coral
others with black sand that hurt our barefeet with its radiating heat

jesse and I, hanging out at the great look out point
found ourselves defacto naturalists
answering questions about plants and birds, for various folks
from Russia to argentina!

Made me think that a field guide to the dry forest, night be a simpler undertaking that one to the cloud forest!!!

anyway, enough for now

abrazos
t

Ecuador Coast

click on photo to view whole album

Cuenca to Quito; March 2010

2010-03-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

Bueno,
So where were we………?
Ah yes, on the bus to Cuenca sucking down delicious coconut juice out of little plastic bags…..
Hhhmmmm.

So leaving the dry coastal forest, things quickly got greener passing into the coastal mountains, and by the time we reached the broad coastal plains it was rice fields and mango orchards.

Rice paddies

Leaving Guayaquil the approach to the andes was like coming up to a wall……
Flat, flat, flat, not flat!
The bus spent 2 full hours climbing to reach Cuenca (2596m = 8517ft).
Immediately the vegetation changed.
Clouds of ferns, dripping orchids.

Before dark, passed through the eerily subdued paramo, the high elevation moors.
The only trees in sight, scattered stunted, Polylepis. A rose family member that has the distinction of being tree that grows above ‘tree-line!’

The cool mountain air of Cuenca was welcome after a week of frying on the coast (although that was in itself a welcome respite from the month of soggy clouds…!).

Cuenca itself is a charming mountain city, with all architechtural appeal of Quito, without the smog, dirt and crime.

But the real reason I was there was to visit Ecuagenera!

1 of 23 greenhouses at this 1 of 3 sites!!!

A huge orchid grower and exporting business that has been around for over 20 years.
By propagating the 5000 species that they sell, from seed, they are alleviating pressure on wild populations that would otherwise suffer from over-collecting.
In 1993, Ecuagenera became the first Ecuadorian business to obtain permission to export orchids through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
They have used their success to promote conservation and education at various levels……
But this is not why I was interested........

Part of my dissertation research is to sample and map the fragrance chemistry of as many Dracula species as possible in an attempt to understand the evolution of the enigmatic mushroomy aromas that these plants use to attract pollinators.
So this was really a recon mission!
And it worked……I have been invited back to collect fragrances when i am finished teaching in may!

Porroglosum muscossum

While I was on the coast I read a book called ‘The Orchid Thief,’ on which the movie ‘Adaptation’ (which i have not seen) is loosely based.
It is a true story of a crazy plant freak trying to start an orchid nursery on a Seminole reservation in Florida by wild collecting ghost orchids from the swamps of the everglades.
It is really a wonderful history lesson on the extreme of the Victorian orchid craze, when privately-contracted orchid hunters, put higher value on their weaponry above all other tools.
A time of botanical looting and horticultural espionage.

It also gave a good insight into the quirks of the modern orchid collector scene, including lots of latin.
It was nice to be able to put a ‘face’ on many of the plants I had just read about!

Meanwhile I was being reminded of why everyone says “Don’t drink the weird juice in little plastic bags that they sell on the bus!”
And this with a 10 hour overnight trip back to Quito ahead of me!
I got a first-hand lesson in the power of activated charcoal to soak up extra intestinal liquid!!!
(thanks again Jesse)

Back in Quito,
Mostly getting ready to go back to Los Cedros, but did manage a hike in the Parque Metropolitano.

Dioscorea piperifolia (Dioscoreaceae)

A large city park, reminiscent of New York’s Central Park, or Vancouver’s Stanley Park.
A sprawling trail network amongst the introduced Eucalyptuses, did offer a glimpse into the original flora of this high inter-Andean valley (it still blows my mind that at 10,000 ft, Quito is in a valley!!!)

Botanical highlights included: an Oregon grape!!!! (Berberis hallii), a baby lady’s mantle (Lachemilla orbiculata), leaves the size of a quarter!!! A Sterculliaceae (chocolate family) that I had never heard of - Byttneria ovata, a weird spikey shrub. Dioscorea piperifolia a diminutive wild yam relative, and an apparently hallucinogenic shrub called ‘Shanshi’ that my friends aunt once misidentified as blueberries!!!!! (Coriaria ruscifolia (Coriariaceae)). Identification was refreshingly easy thanks to a recently published book “Flores Nativas de Quito.”

Berberis hallii

You can tell what is going on in local, national, and international politics by keeping your eyes open to the walls in Quito!
This visit coincided with International Women’s Day (which apparently is not celebrated in the states?), and the graffiti was apropos.

More soon…….
I should be working on the presentation I am giving at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador on my research next week!!

Abrazos
Tobias

Cuenca to Quito

Click on photo to see the whole slideshow

Ecuagenera Orchids

Click on photo to see the whole slideshow

Neotropical Ecology (April-May 2010)

2010-02-26T11:54:00.000-08:00

Wow……
So just wrapped up this teaching gig,
Has been quite an adventure,
Andes, amazon, islands.
Plants, birds, insects, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians!

From the relatively familiar forests of Mindo, to the monkey infested jungles of the amazon,
to watching Galapagos penguins fish in the surf along side sealions and pelicans!
A mix of teaching, learning and shepherding……

I have admittedly got quite behind in my travelogue-ing,
so some things will fall off
and this missive will largely focus on the field course portion of my adventure.

I have however posted some photos from my last trip to los cedros,

including some fairly researchy ones:
Things like orchid pollinia attached to the backs of fungi visiting flies
and insects that we were able to rear out of old flowers!

pollinia on a fungal visitor!

Evidence for two key aspects of this pollination system……
that these flies actually visit both organisms
and that some of them at least seem to be laying eggs as part of their reason for visiting!!!

Also spent about a week in Mindo.

Shooting for the second edition of my book……
I always see something new when I go out there!
Spent some time in my friend Hugolino’s orchid garden
which helped me move forward on some of my IDing!

Brassia sp

Came back to quito to give a talk at the Universidad Catolica on my research.
Kinda nervous about giving a talk in Spanish,
but as soon as I was up there, it all just kinda flowed!

Click here for a copy of the presentation!

Managed to catch some great music too!
Sergento Garcia, reggae, salsa, hip hop from france (but mostly in spanish),
a style he calls Salsa Muffin!
DJ Karim opened blending eastern European influences with latin rythms and dance beats!

cultural diversity mash up reminiscent of
the biodiversity mash up I have been suspended in….
worlds swirl and collide
musical traditions cross continents, oceans, and arrive again,
looping back through time and space…..

A good transition from fieldwork to teaching:
something totally different to cleanse the pallet.

BI 479
So this was a course from the UO,
mostly juniors and seniors in biology and environmental science.

The job description was somewhat long and convoluted
Teacher, guide, tour leader, organizer, comrade, colleague, student, porter, counselor….
This was not your run-of-the-mill graduate teaching position!
To top it off, of the faculty for the course, I had the best Spanish,
so lots of logistical stuff fell my way………

Working with other guides and scientists,
giving space for novelty, but providing a thread throughout……
Facilitating the students getting their minds blown,
but providing the framework to be able to put it all together in the end!

Culture, biology, ecology, conservation, economics, politics……
This place brings up all of these things.

Teaching plant families becomes the easy part,
when the need to impress the magnitude of the diversity,
the consequences of its lose
the role we all play,
and how the poverty we cannot avoid
is tied into the whole picture,
seems somehow more relevant.

At the same time seeing the intricate patterns and
beginning to pick apart the diversity
into manageable bites…..

(opposite leaves, prominent stipules – Rubiaceae – yay coffee!!!)

helps the immense wall of unfathomable green clarify,
overwhelmedness giving way to discerning observation.
A process that will serve them well in whatever they do
(and clearly not all of them will become field biologists!!!)

There were essentially three parts to the course
Two weeks in the andes
Comparing and contrasting both slopes (east and west)
A week in the amazon
The most diverse place on the planet!
And a week in the Galapagos
Mecca for evolutionary biologists, with its high rates of endemism and reproductive isolation!

ANDES

BI 479 Andes

click photo to view the whole slideshow

The Andean portion started in Mindo.
I was glad to be in familiar territory
while vicariously recalling my own first impressions of the tropical cloud forest.

Focused on plant family recognition,
(Melastomataceae, Arecaceae, Orchidaceae…..)
insect orders,
(Coleoptera, orthoptera, diptera, hemiptera…)
we developed extensive bird lists:
including toucans, humming birds, motmots, trogans and more.
Flocks of parrots squawking overhead filled out the quintessential tropical bird experience!

After a brief stop in the high elevation paramo (moors) / Polylepis forest
(a rose family member with the distinction of being able to grow at higher elevations than any other tree in the world!)
we descended the eastern slopes of the andes to spend a few days at a research station called Yanayacu Biological Station & Center for Creative Studies.

Rudy Gelis was our guide here,
a lanky expat bird-whisperer.
Inca jays, tourqoise jays, mountain caciques, chestnut-breasted antpittas, and
Sickle-wing guans……..
Night monkeys on the night hike!!!

From here we descended further into the amazon basin to travel north to Baños
to spend a few days with Lou Jost,
orchid whiz, math geek, and bird book illustrator,
who recently ‘discovered’ the world’s smallest orchid!

He is very excited by a group of orchids (genus Teagueia)
That has undergone an adaptive radiation in the eastern andes,
With different species occupying different peaks in a relatively small geographical area.
A good example of the potential for diversity
facilitated by the riotous topography of this special place.
Informing not only conservation strategies but also the fundamental ways that we think about and measure biodiversity.

Teagueia

These tiny flowers only occur around and above 3000 m,
In places we thought would be too hard to access with the whole group of 18 students.
I spent my ‘day off’ in Baños with a friend,
Florian Werner, a german biologist who studies epiphyte communities in southern Ecuador, who had come to visit the class.
He was as (or maybe more) excited as I was to see these elusive flowers.
After five hours of slugging uphill through thick mud and crawling under dense thickets of bamboo we arrived in the cool stunted forest that houses these and innumerable other pleurothallid orchids.
Almost too tired and cold to even take a few pictures,
we relished the biogeographical implications of these flowers (smaller than my pinky nail),
and set off back down the mountain….

AMAZON

BI 479 Amazon

click photo to view the whole slideshow

The next leg of the trip,
after a day in quito to do laundry
was to fully descend into the amazon basin,
which, heretofore we had only really caught glimpses of

The first thing,
besides the blanket of hot humidity and the verdant green of the landscape,
that always strikes me upon arrival into the amazon:
is how the rivers define the lifestyle.
People travel and settle the rivers in this land with very few roads.

And formidable rivers they are!
Even here, some 2000 miles from the atlantic coast (an elevation drop of a mere1000 ft!)
the channels are wide.
The first river we traveled was the Rio Napo.

One of 17 major Amazonian tributaries,
the Napo joins the main stem of the amazon just over the border in Iquitos, Peru.
(as a geological side note the amazon used to flow the other direction – east to west! Cut off and redirected by the relatively recent volcanism that created the andes mountains, a testament to the dynamic world will live in, where even the solid earth is malleable as clay!)

Constant traffic,
from dugout canoes
to barges carrying oil tankers.

About two hours downstream we stop.
From a boat landing we travel a couple hours by open walled bus
to the rio Tiputini,
which flows through Parque Nacional Yasuni
and is home to the Estacion Biodiversidad Tiputini.
Another three hours down the river,
and we arrive!!!

And what a place to be………
Pink dolphins in the river,
scores of insects provide a constant din,
birds of ridiculous color, and call:
macaws, more toucans, more parrots…..
Troupes of monkeys passing through the treetops:
Woolys
Spiders
Tamarinds
Squirrels
Howlers
and more!!!

Catching the sunset from the canopy tower,
the vast expanse of green laid out before me.
Passing rainstorm
replaced by mist rising off the treetops.
The very real feeing of being caught in the middle of a hydrological cycle of global import!

A reminder that this place is very much greater than the sum of its parts
(and it has more parts than anywhere else in the world!)
Remote and far away as it seems,
we all are dependent on the ‘ecosystem services’ provided by this region,
as a modulator of global climate.
And in a slightly more esoteric way, as a reserve for the genetic diversity that is the raw material of evolution!

These points are driven home as the sun goes down, revealing the glow of a natural gas plume in the distance……..
Yes under all of this lush diversity lies one of the biggest oil reserves in the world.
A glaring conflict of interests.

GALAPAGOS

BI 479 Galapagos

click photo to view the whole slideshow

The ‘enchanted isles,’
they were called by the wailers and pirates
that first navigated the shifting currents around the
Galapagos islands.

In popular lore the Galapagos are inextricably linked to Darwn
as the inspiration for his unfolding theory of evolution.
While Darwin did spend some days here, as a young naturalist aboard the Beagle,
the real utilization of the archipelago as a ‘natural laboratory of evolution,’
fell to later scientists.
Most famously the Grant’s study of ‘Darwin’s’ finches
(a worthwhile and accessable account of which is given in “The Beak of the Finch” by Jonathan Weiner).

one of 'Darwin's' finches in a Scalesia tree

A host of factors have conspired through geological history to
establish a unique and interesting biota here.
A volcanic ‘hotspot’ located directly on the equator.
and at the intersection of several important oceanic currents.
Spewing magma established the current islands above sea level some 3 million years ago.
The nutrient dense, cold water brought from Antarctica by the Humbolt current provides ample resources to support a stupendous marine ecology, including scores of seabirds (including the charismatic boobies).

The confluence of the other currents contributing to sporadic colonization by continental cast-aways, followed by the reproductive isolation insured by the 1000 kilometers to the mainland.

A natural experiment in not only evolution, but also community assembly, adaptive radiation, and stress tolerance (in this land of rock and salt)!!!

Endemic prickly pears the size of trees.
Both a native and a weedy Passiflora.
The Tribulus (Zygophyllaceae), or ‘puncture vine,’ the famous famine food of
the finches studied by Rosemary and Peter Grant.
Marine iguanas that live off of algaes we would call seaweeds,
Sea turtles, giant tortoises, lava lizards.
At least four species of mangroves growing out of the lava in the intertidal zone!

As a botanical counterpart to Darwin’s finchs
The endemic genus of shrubby to tree-like Asters,
Scalesia has undergone an adaptive radiation here.
Some 16 species found nowhere else in the world!

Flamingos in the lagoon,
snorkeling with sharks,
all lend an air of otherworldliness……..

and then back to Quito!

Now preparing for my last weeks here,
which will include time at los cedros,
preparing all of our specimens for shipping,
a possible visit to Ecuagenera to collect Dracula fragrances,
and other odds and ends……

and then home!
After 5 months it is hard to imagine,
but travel always increases my appreciation for the little niche I occupy in Oregon.
Not because I enjoy the other places any less,
simply because my eyes are always opened to new and different things,
that reinform my experience of ‘home.’

Hasta pronto,
tobias

Home Again (June 2010)

2010-01-22T12:50:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post some of my last photos from los cedros:

and a day at the market in Quito:

and now back in Oregon!

ECUADOR 2008

2008-07-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

The following posts are from a 3 month trip in the winter of 2008.
They have been reordered, from beginning to end, to allow them to be be read chronologically.

Enjoy,
Tobias

Introduction (January 2008)

2008-06-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

Hola de Quito,
having only just arrived, this will be more of an introduction to my plans than a travelogue persay......

although arriving downtown last night at 10:30 was an experience to be sure.
burning effigies in bonfires on every street, fire works in every direction, dancing , drumming, the acrid smell of smoke ......

it was all a little much for my travel weary self

this morning i had breakfast with my friends Angelica and Rudy, she is a ecuadorian biologist and he is an american ornithologist.....
http://www.plumaverdetours.com/
good to have friends
fun to have bilingual conversations to help get my spanish legs back on.....
may be the possibility of some collaborative adventures at some point

so what am i doing?
i have a couple of main projects over the next couple of months:

the woman who was my honors thesis advisor at the U of O, Bitty Roy (http://evolution.uoregon.edu/Roy.html ), got a grant from National Geographic to come down here and study thes orchids that mimic fungi to attract fungus gnats for pollination!
These orchids just happen to grow in the cloud forest on the western slopes of the andes near the "choco" region which is widely regarded as a center of major biodiversity for most groups of organisms (birds, plants, etc).
Which roughly translates into me spending a month freaking out on the wonders of one of the most diverse cloud forests on the planet!
I could hardly turn down the invitation to tag along!!!!!!
stay tuned as we head out there on the 10th.....
http://www.reservaloscedros.org/en

The other organized project i am going to be working on, starting tomorrow, is putting together a series of color plates, roughly modeled oin the rapid color guides put out by The Field Museum in chicago.
http://fm2.fieldmuseum.org/plantguides/rcg_intro.asp?zone=tropical&guidetype=plant&country=ECUADOR&subject=&family=&btnsubmit=Go%21
This will be at a reserve called el monte in mindo, that i visited a couple of summers ago, when i was down here with Peter Wetherwax´s course......
http://www.ecuadorcloudforest.com/
Again the rough translation is me spending my days running around in the cloud forest looking for flowers to photograph.......

then depending on how a few other factors come together....we shall see......
mid february will take me through the end jof my "·commitments"
but there is a whole lifetime of amazing things to do down here
(a possible travel glitch is the fact that i am getting recruited for interviews by a handful of grad schools that i applied to.....not sure how this will come together)

we shall see

like i say, just an introduction

when i return from mindo i will have some real things to write about

adios
t

ps for those of you that missed my slideshow from last time, NIck posted some highlights at
http://www.seedambassadors.org/Images/Ecuador/presentation.htm

Bosque Nublado (January 2008)

2008-05-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

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

Los Cedros (January 2008)

2008-04-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

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!

Draculas in the Mist (January 2008)

2008-03-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

Buenas,
OK so what was it that took me to Los Cedros???

well, a young mycologist from the royal ontario museum in toronto took an interest in the orchid genus Dracula.

why would a mushroom systematist care about orchids? one might wonder.

well in this particular genus, most species have labellums, or lower lips, that very much resemble small mushrooms. this resemblance has been shown to be chemical as well as visual through the work of an inspired swiss perfumer.

´´if they look like mushrooms, how can you tell that they are orchids?´´
so queried one puzzled aquaintance.........hhhhhhhmmmmm......

why would an orchid care to appear like a fungus?

well it turns out that there is a group of gnats --- the so-called fungus gnats --- that use small mushrooms to copulate in and then subsequently to raise their young in --- ´´brood sites,´´ in the biological parlance.

now if you were an orchid that looked and smelled like a mushroom.......at least good enough to fool a fungus gnat.......you might be able to take advantage of this domestic visitation to have your pollinia (the fancy name for the sacs of pollen in the orchidaceae) moved to the receptive stigma of another flower.....thus cross-pollinating.....and ensuring the genetic diversity necessary to resist the myriad pressures of day to day exsistance in this wet, warm, pathogen rich habitat.......

´´you mean even in nature everyone´s pretending to be something their not just to get laid?´´ quiped my gay electrician friend........

in fact deceptive pollination is thought to be a major driver of the remarkable diversity achieved in the orchidaceae, one of the, if not the biggest plant families in the world............

so this rare example of fungal brood site mimicry caught the attention of this young mycologist, and with a little help he was able to convince the national geographic society that this phenomena was worth studying..........

as for me.....right time, right place?

the woman he brought on board to collaborate happened to be my honors thesis advisor.........
my (at least cursory) familiarity with the cloud forest flora, ability to speak spanish, and general willingness to work in less than comfortable field conditions landed me an invitation to tag along......

so there i was heading into the clouds with an team of 5 other researchers including our local contact from the herbario nacional in quito, deep mushroom heads and excited plant ecologists................

head in the clouds, but feet firmly stuck in the mud!!!!!!!

fascinating to hang with these guys who were at least as into mushrooms as i am into plants.....a whole different lense......one that expanded my own appreciation.....

got to taste garlic flavored purple puffballs of dubious edibility, in the genus morganella.....

for the first time in my life i ate psuedohydnum gelatinosum........(a clear, gelatinous, toothed fungi, with a hymenium about the texture of a slimy cats tongue...hhhmmm..)......simply for the sake of helping to prove its edibility to our skeptical local guide.....it never occured to me to try this species in oregon where it is common.......although i have come to learn that they are not half bad soaked in cranberry juice and vodka!!!.......(purely anecdotal lol)

yes, deep mushroom heads......

but i digress...................

so fungal mimicry........an adaptive story alluring enough to get into text books, but never seriously studied (pet peeve of Gould and others)........so what do we have to do to provide support for this hypothesis?

our first line was to establish that the orchids and possibly model mushrooms even co-occured in time and space

check

then we looked at visitors. did the same gnats actually visit the orchids and the mushrooms?

check

were these gnats vectors of pollinia?

check

by covering flowers with bags and assessing visitation, we were able to ask: are olfactory cues important as well as visual cues?

check

still in the works is the identification of the aromatic compounds emmitted by these flowers and some of the mushrooms that were at least good visual candidates for models.....enter same inspired swiss perfumer (google roman kaiser for interesting tid-bits)......

a few other things in the works including a breeding system experiment to determine the abilty of the orchid to to self pollinate

preliminary population genetics inquiry..........we have the dna.....or at least some of it...

are these results specific to the species we looked at, or can we generalize across the genus?

some of this stuff is going to have to wait for further funding.....hopefullly from the national science foundation.......but we likely have got at least one paper out of the project so far.....

stay tuned for publication announcement!!!!!

so far though the adaptive story-telling has been largely supported.......
lovely when things make sense, no?

possible the beginning of a bigger story

more soon

paz
t

ps pix to follow.................

Carnaval (February 2008)

2008-02-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

Hola,
Got a little behind the ball on the email updates…….i guess being too engaged to hang out on the computer is a good thing!!!!!!!!!!!

So i left los cedros after three weeks……

The mule ride down was much shorter, clocking in at only 3 hours!!!!!

Leaving the primary forest, the first signs of humans were the hillsides cleared for pastures, and the gates on the trail, lashed together with the aerial roots of epiphytic philodendrons or clusias.

Arriving in chontal (the nearest pueblito to the reserve) I got my first taste of carnaval!!!!

The basic idea is to get people wet and dirty…….

This is accomplished with water balloons, washtubs, flour, spray foam and assorted other projectiles…….
No one is exempt….little kids and the elderly alike, subject to random attack!!!

On the way back to quito, some passengers on the bus made the mistake of leaving the windows open……..resulting in a very wet ride………..

Decided to take an extended carnival vacation…….
Headed out of town with my friend Rocio

Spent a couple of days with her sister in the high town city of Guaranda, watching parades and dancing…….

The bus ride out there was a bit of a cultural adventure……..we managed to track down the bus from ambato just as it was leaving…….
It was already totally jammed packed, but down here there seems to be no such thing as “no more room”……..so we literally squeezed aboard….with the door barely closing behind us……
Jammed in the corner, balancing on the bottom step, I ask Rocio “is it is far”…..

“2 hours”

It soon becomes apparent that the majority of the passengers on this high mountain route were kichwas…..being used to usually not totally knowing what is going on, it took me a while to realize that it was not spanish that I was hearing as I somehow became the laughing stock of the bus……rocio was little help in interpreting….so I just laughed along…..

After a couple of days rocio and I piled into the back of a truck with her mom and a bunch of campesinos who were on their way to vend a the carnaval festivities in the pueblo where rocios mom lives…….
Between the people, pots, pans, stoves, boxes of food, live chickens, and i´m not sure what else….i could only fit one of my legs in the truck…and rode the full 2 hours half hanging off the bumper……………this did not however prevent us from stopping to pick up more people (and chickens)….like I said… there is no such thing as “no more room”

Arriving in Echeandia which is the lower elevations of the broad coastal plane, was a welcome retreat……..tropical feeling really……

I used the opportunity to gorge myself on fruit of every description……….

The usual fare of mangos, cocos, papayas, and pinas, with a few new (for me) additions:
Sapotes, which are in the bombacaceae (Ceiba family) not the sapotaceae as their common name might suggest…..damn common names!
Babacos which are a close papaya relative, the same genus actually….Carica
My first time eating tuna, the fruit of the prickly pear (opuntia spp), surprised myself that I had never tried something so juicy and delicious…..even better though are the bigger, juicier relatives, the pitahoyas…..still trying to figure out the latin……

A couple of prunus´ that were new to me, fun to meet new genus mates of plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, almonds and apricots!!!!!!! Capuli, (P.seroina ssp. capuli), a small cherry like fruit, and Claudia, a variety of P. domestica, the species that includes our common plums……….

Nothing like having local friends to guide one´s culinary experience…….
Ate all kinds of stuff that i would not have known how to order in a restaurant…..much of it centered on various versions of steamed corn meal or masa ……..
I still am not totally sure what separates a chuigule from a tamales, or a humido, or a bola, except that the leaves that they are cooked in are very important….corn leaves, banana leaves, canna leaves, no leaves……..

Just about ever part of a pig or chancho that I probably did not want to know what it was exactly……

Helped kill a chicken in the kitchen sink

Lots of yucca, Manihot esculentus, I think the only euphorbiaceae I have ever eaten…..or that is edible for that matter……a family characterized by toxic latex with members like castor bean (ricinis communis) that contains ricin a protein that interferes with the production of dna and the metabolism of proteins in cells……….

And plantains……!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So common in the diet that they are not even called platanos…..but refered to by their state of maturity…..
“Verdes”, “greens,” means unripe plantains…….
“whats in the soup?”
“………. pollo, verdes……”
Same thing with the ripe version, refered to simply as “maduras,” --- “matures.”
As in “postre de madura” cake made with ripe plantains……

Ran into some wild edibles.......culantro del monte.....an edible Erygium, what we know as coyote thistle in the west eugene wetlands.......this one E. foetidum......weedy in the ditches....not a thistle at all, but a member of the cilantro family (Apiaceae), a case where the spanish common name is more accurate than the english....damn common names!

Being put a the awkard social setting of not wanting to not drink the water……I started drinking it……….aahhh the freedom from consuming plastic bottles!!!!!!
So far so good…….

On the way back to quito, passing through endless plantations of bananas, oil palms “palmas africana,” (Elaeis guineensis), and papayas, all bound for somewhere else is a good reminder, after a month of gazing into orchid flowers, that all is not right in the world…….

As an aside….i finished reading one river….great book!!!!
On the Huarani hunting ethic, davis notes…..
“you don´t have to conserve what you don´t have the power to destroy. Harming the forest is an impossible concept for them. The fact that they use every part of the animal has nothing to do with a conservation ethic and everything to do with hunger.”

Some years later, during his own travels, davis discovers that “…..the world that had inspired shultes….no longer exists….”

Harder to find inspiration in the sprawl of monoculture

Started a new book……oaxaca journal by oliver sacks…..a contemporary travelogue rich in natural history…..one thing I learned the other night is that chocolate, according to Mexican legend was a gift of the sun gods……reflected in the generic name Theobroma……..

Lots of chocolate in the low lands…..with beans spread out to dry in every available flat sunny spot, even if it is a median strip in the middle of the road or a high way shoulder……

Ok starting to ramble…….
Back in quito, been working at the herbarium --- trying to get this field guide together

Back out to mindo tomorrow
More soon

Paz
t

Al Fin (March 2008)

2008-01-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

so……where was i?

on my way back to mindo if I recall correctly……almost a month ago…….

Fun to come back after a month away……during which time the identification of many of my photos facilitated the feeling of familiarity and home-coming, amazing really the way that learning the plants can connect one to the landscape……the whole point in a certain way…..and certainly an inspiration to work on this guide……

And more to see!!!!

My first day back I added half a dozen orchid species to my growing list……

A little, yellow, former-liliy, Hypoxis decumbens now in the Hypoxidaceae
Citrus in flower
Furcraea, which I had originally misidentified as agave, in bloom
Large shrubs of Sauraria, in a family that was new to me, the Actinidaceae….

I felt as though my base of knowledge allowed attention to be paid to the more subtle community members, now that I had figured out many of the more conspicuous ones……

Of course there were big, flashy flowers that called my gaze that simply had not been in bloom the last time I was there, such as the humming-bird pollinated Centropogon solanifolium….which was fun too…..

a number of large sobralia orchids….allowing the opportunity to sample and compare the sweet perfumey fragrances….

Also got to walk with a couple of different guides……wow! What a luxury to have someone just tell me what things were!!!!

Nice though too that I had waited and struggled through much of the id on my own……this meant that after a full day of hiking with the proprietor of one of the larger orchid gardens in the area, it really felt like a botanical exchange…..i certainly learned a lot, but he too had gotten something out of the excursion and was happy with the trade…….and although I offered to pay him for his time, I was secretly grateful when he refused the offer!

Everyone that I talked to was excited about the idea of the guide I am working on…so that was encouraging……

After a week in the field, I headed back to quito to finish up at the herbarium, identifying some of my new finds and confirming some of my older ones……

After running into a bit of a glitch changing my plane ticket, I ended up spending almost 3 weeks in quito!!!

Not the rich biological experience of the campo……but worthwhile for the work I was able to do at the herbarium, and the cultural element of that much interaction in spanish! And thanks to friends, I had a place to stay………

With almost 200,000 specimens, the herbario nacional del Ecuador, was certainly the largest collection that I had done any work in…….

Interesting to uncover the history of it all through the process of trying to identify my own plants….collections and determinations made by Al Gentry the author of the Field Guide to Woody Plants of NW South America…..who died tragically when the plane that was carrying him to do a rapid biological assessment crashed into a mountain side in western Ecuador some 15 years ago…..

They say that his spirit actually visits the herbarium to this day….and if you are there alone at night, it is not uncommon to hear folders of dried plants being rifled though!
For more info: http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_collections/ecp/ecp_sites/Parker_Gentry/gentry.htm

Collections by Caloway Dodson and David Neill, the founders of the herbarium (both out of the Missouri botanical garden),

collections by Brian Boom from the new york botanical garden in the 1980s that were funded by the National Cancer Institute…….
wonder what they found out…..interesting that they were interested in Rubus’……

The 13,418th collection made by Jim Luteyn – ericaceae expert form NY Botanical Garden was not an ericaceae at all, but a Rubus megalococcus…….
For more info: http://www.nybg.org/bsci/res/lut2/

Phytochemist Edward Kennelly collected a Commelina with no known use, as part of a ethnobotanical survey…….i got a chance to speak with him about this and other plants when we met in his office at CUNY in the Bronx last week!

One day I had the chance to chat with Charlotte Taylor, the world expert on the rubiaceae, (also from Missouri botanical garden) who took one look at a photo that had stumped me for over a month, and in a moment, she not only told me what it was, but gave me a whole lost of diagnostic characters!!!!
For more info: http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/

I got a quote on printing this guide (the family I was staying with runs a print shop!)………
but of course the more you print the cheaper it is……….
the plan now is to try and find someone who wants to donate some money to print 500 copies……..

but in the worst case scenario……the director of the herbarium, David Neill said that they could likely print smaller batches there!!!!
Cities really are about connecting with people……

Well, back in America del norte……
My first glimpse was Atlanta at sunrise,
more beautiful from the air than from inside the airport surrounded by homeland security and CNN……..pharmecueticals in the water supply, legislators claiming that “homosexuals are more dangerous than terrorists”…..

it has been a week now…..getting used to the grey of the deciduous eastern woods in winter, so different than the verdant greenery I left behind……

the only thing blooming skunk cabbage and hazelnuts……and not the skunk cabbage that I know from the west coast……this version a mottled purple, and bearing the name Symplocarpus foetidus……not Lysichiton americanum…….a good reminder that common names can be tricky what-ever the language ……..

looking forward again to the green of Oregon…..

thanks for listening throughout these months and giving me an inspiration to record my thoughts and experiences…….

Many of you I will get a chance to see quite soon,

And to those of you that I will not see, I wish you a happy spring!!!

En solidaridad y paz,
Tobias

ECUADOR 2006

2006-05-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

The following posts are from a 2 month trip in the summer of 2006.
They have been reordered, from beginning to end, to allow them to be be read chronologically.

Enjoy,
Tobias

Ecuador: August 6, 2006

2006-04-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

just in town (quito) for the day.
spent most of it at the botanical gardens- freaking out on blooming orchids

gotta pack my bags for the jungle--leaving at 6´´45 tomorrow morning
plane then bus, then canoe --- woah! super remote

i didnt realize that the amazon basin still has 75 percent of its primary forest
all i´d ever heard about was how fast it was getting cut down.

so far been to cloud forest on the east and west sides of the andes and the high elevation moors or paramos.

cloud forest
east side wetter and more lush than the west side------the main weather patterns down here come from the east-----which affect precipitation and rain shadow etc.

who wouldá thought that the weather patterns would come from opposite directions in the southern hemishere?

at any rate lots of epiphytes, bromialads, orchids, etc.
families i dont know---ever the ones i do look super different---
epiphytic, tubular, humming-bird pollinated ericaceaes for example.
heliconias (bird of paradise relatives), coffee, palms, pineapples, papayas, clusias, tree ferns, the list goes on.....

poison dart frogs, leaf-cutter ants that collect leaves to feed the fungus that they raise in their nests.......dung beetles----the insects are incredible.
we actually saw a wolf spider grab a big ol moth out of thin air and devour it.

gesneraceae, melastomataceae, alstromeriaceae, cyclanthaceae, are just a few of the families that i didnt know

gunneraceae, bombaceae, heliconiaceae, are others that ive had little experience with.

while the rubiaceae, clusiaceae, orchidaceae, araceae all peak in diversity

paramo
here things are a little more familliar---
some families still look wierd---shrubby asteraceae
but ive been able to recognize a bunch of genera------valeriana, gnaphalium, etc.
its that whole thing about how the high elevations get lower toward the poles----
did i mention that this was all higher than you can get in oregon--aprox 1300 ft

the equator was a trip too
it may have been a hoax but we did see the water spiral in opposite direcrtions on opposite sides of the line.....

gotta run

nos vemo un rato

paz
t

Ecuador: August 18, 2006

2006-03-10T14:12:00.000-08:00

Buenas,

the jungle was intense
hot, humid, loud, buggy, beautiful!

so lush, so green.
the overwhelming sensation was one of being surrounded by life.

a place where "all plants are rare and rare plants are common,"
most of the flowers were in the canopy, some 30-40 meters overhead
and between me and them was a teeming sprawl of lianas, epiphytes, aerial roots, trees shrubs and herbs. difficult to see much.

plants with spines, plants with latex,
plants that house colonies of ants in their stems, thier petioles or just on them.

small ants (3mm), big ants (1 inch) whose bite supposedly will leave you bed-ridden for 2 days, ants that taste like lemon (you have to bite them before they bite you), and army ants that eat any thing in thier path.

it was difficult to touch just about any thing without sustaining at least a couple of bites at best.

as noted in the last email there is a surprisingly large percentage (75%) of original forest left in at least the ecuadorean amazon. (although this number shrinks at an alarming rate).
the major threat to diversity is not so much to the flora (at least not yet) but to the fauna.
when roads are cut in for oil exploitation it also provides access for settlers who quickly hunt out anything worth hunting, including, cats birds, rodents and anything elso that may provide some necessary protein.
a complicated catch 22 for conservation.
access.
for oil, for food,
megafauna hunted to extinction and a 500 km long pipline moving crude to the coast for export (ecuador is too poor to run (m)any of their own refineries.)

as an interesting aside ecuador was relatively debt free before the oil "boom" of the "70s (of course at this point the crippling debt is given as a justification for further oil contracts and the situation worsens), but i digress......

the first place we were at (for a week) has escaped much of this onslaught. a function of the fact that the nearest town that is accessable by road was a two hour canoe ride, a two hour drive and then another two hour canoe ride away. a remarkable piece of undisturbed forest that is operated as a research station by the Universitad San Fransico de Quito.

a jaguar from the river, iguanas, 8 species of monkeys, caimen (aligator kind of creatures), herds of pecarries (kinda like wild pigs), snakes, insects galore and tooo many birds to count (toucans, parrots, parakeets, hawks, and the rare and sacred harpy eagle to name just a few).

as for plants, i havent sorted though all of my species lists yet but......
huge canopy trees in the chocolate family (Sterculia sp.) giant buttressed figs (Moraceae) and ciebas (Bombaceae) which apparently are not good places to sleep, not only because they offer bedding spots to jaguars, but also because they are the home of the devil (a different perspective than i got in southern mexico where the mayans believe that the cieba tree holds up the universe---a concept that doesnt seem too far fetched when you see the size of these epiphyte laden giants)

orchids, bromeliads, lots of Bignoniaceous vines and so many more that i think i need to consult my notes, which is ok, as i grow weary-----the altitude here definately takes its toll--not to mention the long day of errands and chores.

there will be more to be sure

would all of you in the northwest eat enough blackberries on my behalf to make your cheeks sweat and i promise to do the same for you with passion fruit

excitedly yours
t

Ecuador: August 21, 2006

2006-02-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

Buena onda,

so i am finally getting back to you all after a couple of travel days and a look at my species lists.

class is over--on my own and on the coast now---but i will save the details for another installment of travelblab

some high lights plant wise from the tiputini research station;

-wild papaya--^^jacaranda,^^
-huge canopy trees in the polygonaceae (buckwheat and rhubarb family)--never seen anything like that--polygons all the way down to the scarious, sheathing stipules, just huge trees.
-ananas--super fibrous wild papaya (bromeliaceae) that made some impressive twine on my first attempts.
-blooming bright red passion flower vines
-plants that sting but are used for pain--ala nettles---Â´Â´ortigaÂ´Â´

quiet riot just came on the radio for those of you who care--Â´Â´come on feel the noise.....Â´Â´--the 80s are quite popular here--from pop to metal (a definate tangent)

-brownea--a large red flowered tree in the mimosaceae (fabales--legume) that apparently is quite an effective contraceptive (no personal experience) with potential sterility on overdose
-the white latex from the roots of the clarisia rasemosa (moraceae) is used for boils and other eruptive conditions including killing the parasitic botfly larvea that can be injected by mosquito bite
lots of palms including the Â´walking palmÂ´Â´ (socratea) whose extensive adventitious roots, systematically die and regenerate on opposite sides of the tree. motility or illusionÂ¿?Â¿

got to spend about 20 hours 30 meters up in a canopy walkway that ran between 4 trees working on an epiphyte survey project.

(reminiscent of the ewok villages of northwest forest defense---a tactic that would be useless down here where the cargo helicopters overhead go where they please in the quest for more oil. and death threats are not uncommon against folks like the manager of the research station for little more than monitering activity)

great place to hang out though--watch the ants!

project results;
more lichens in the canopy
more plants in every group (moss, ferns, and flowering plants) in the understory
more total cover in the canopy (inc lichens)
the flowering plants in the canopy cansistently displayed significant drought adaptation--ie. thick leaves, succulence, or in the case of the tank bromieliads-- the ability to collect and store water.
----the dualling abiotic pressures of water and light in dynamic dance....

swimming with caiman, pirhana, sting ray, electric eels, anaconda, and a little parisitic fish that apparently can clog your urethra. no mishaps though.

next spot was a lodge off of the napo river (one of 17 major tributaries of the amazon) that was run by a quichua community. this was kind of wind down time as far as the course went--although the lagoon full of huge caiman was a highlight.
unsuccessful pirhana fishing.
the lagoon also afforded enough of an opening in the jungle to appreciate a very dark sky teeming with stars i may have never seen before.

fewer mammals than at tiputini (the research station)
a few species of heron----which are apparently the tropical water bird of evolutionary choice, their non-intensive foraging techniques make them better adapted to the relatively nutrient poor tropical waters than ducks (only 1 sp. in ecuador).

the now familiar toucans and parrots
a few howler monkeys
a pigmy king fisher

two species of blooming water hyacinth

soccer game with the local quichua community-----
little kids running circles around us wearing one cleat and one rubber boot, some played bare foot, some in socks.

i wore rubber boots on both feet just to see what it was like, and i can attest to the fact that sprinting in rubber boots in the blazing midday jungle sun is definately enough to make you sweat. they also dont stay on so well when you kick the ball.

so the last night at Sani lodge on the Napo we heard a series of inexplicable
explosions. The next day, we were speculating on what we had heard and settled on seismic testing. Why in the middle of the night?
the next day upon our arrival back in ??civilization?? with its acompanyingg news media, we discovered that the booming sounds that we had heard were in fact the sounds of major volcanic eruptions comming from tungurahua (5029m), that was in the process of burying the town of Banos with ash.

the andes high as they are, are still growing.

even the solid earth is teeming with Â´lifeÂ´Â´

para la vida
t

Ecuador: September 3, 2006

2006-01-10T14:16:00.000-08:00

que tal?

so embarking from quito
the adventure begins (continues?)

the interandean valle dominated by annual agriculture
the only trees seemed to be the introduced pines and eucalyptus
that were planted as wind breaks
under heavy human cultivation since before the incas conquered--let alone the spanish
there is little (if any)native vegatation left
the same forces have also made this region a majorcenter of diversity for a number of crop plants ranging from potatoes to papaya
so much lost---so much gained
??????????????????????????

dropping in elevation
vast banana plantations
when we arrive on the coast it only takes a couple of days to realize that the these sterile triploid fruits are as common in the diet as in the landscape
fried bananas served with everything
dont have to worry about potassium defficiency
happy cells ge all the facilitated transport they need to relocate glucose
excuse the tangent into cell biology---the micro, the macro------

almost a week on the coast
some birding, some botanizing---puerto lopez, ayampe etc.
blue footed boobies, baby pelicans, vermillion fly catcher
went off on my own for a few days-
--hitching rides in the backs of trucks (one of my favorite ways to travel)
dry coastal forest---the greenest things around were the cacti
----hamacas on the beach-----
opuntias, more erythrinas--this time the more drought hardy smithiana---with bright pink, tubular flowers--it took a minute to realize they were legumes

hiking around the paramo near cuenca (4000 m = 13000 ft)
---on top of the world....
parque nacional cajas--beautiful
lots blooming too. valeriana spp. violas, castillejas, a little
gentianaceae who?s name i forget

hitchhike to loja
spent the day at the botanical garden
the medicinal sectin was mostly european stuff that i grow in my own garden---
---a little dissappointing
but the cultivos andinos section was super chevre (cool)--
edible lupins
tree tomatoes
quinoa
yuca---not yucca---the edible rooted euphorb (manihot esculenta)
lots more

another truck ride to the estacion cientifica san fransisco
a german research station in the rugged montane forest of southern ecuador

over shot by an hour--which led to finding a ride in the dark to get back up the road
but it all worked out and flying through the mountains under
the crescent moon was fitting with my sensibilities

stayed there 3 nights
really interesting ecology
there is a depression of sorts in the ragged spine of the andes in southern ecuador
the lower elevation, the poor soils and other factors make this a center of endemism
and going from ridge to ravine reveals some dramatic changes
highlights included
brazil nuts, the ancient fern lineage--ophioglossum, undescibed species of peperomia, lots of orchids inc. oncidiums, pleurothallids, a stellis named after our friend and guide florian werner---stellis floriani;
the unusual conifer that is the namesake of parque nacional podocarpus
the showy monocots guzmania and bomera in the bromeliacea and alstromeriaceae
respectively

a day trip to podocarpus (in the back of a truck) revealed amazing waterfalls, great swim spots and the rare endemic coppery chested jacamar (a pretty bird)

flamenco music in loja
and off to vilcabamba
a travelling companion picked up a cheap guitar
which i played the whole way in the truck--whick led to some interesting looks and waves as we sailed through towns and villages
wind swept hair and smiling faces

a couple more nights in vilcabamba
then heading back north to quito--atlanta--pdx and home at last
thinkng about heading up the east side--through macas to puyo and then
over.
spice the last week up a bit with a combo of jungle and andean highlands

many of you i will see sooner than seems real (from down here)
hasta pronto
t

Ecuador: September 9, 2006

2006-01-09T14:20:00.000-08:00

getting close to the end,

vilcabamba was great
a mellow little town in southern ecuador

we stayed at a nature reserve run by a biologist couple from argentina
called rumi wilco (no relation to the poet, but named after a local tree that was sacred to the inca and others)
on the way to being quite well dialed-in as far as perrenial edible landscaping........
fresh coffee (not only freshly brewed, but also freshly harvested)

the kilometros of trails through the reserve provided some interesting hikes
very dry.....
lots of woody legumes----acacias et al.
the cactaceae was well represented---2 spp. of prickly pear (opuntia)
san pedro (no i didnt eat any), and a few other genera

met a young columbian anthropologia student who shared my passion for ethnobotany..........
shared a drink in the park;

my only regret was we couldnt stay longer......
perhaps i will return (but that is a story for the future)

but the road beckoned......
specifically the possibility of following up on a lead from a local botanist on where to find new species of orchids......

the hitch to cuenca was smooth....
we couldnt seem to do anything wrong
the first truck that came along picked us up
4 times in a row......

so we ended up on the road from cuenca to mendez because i saw a couple of peaks on the map just north of a little village called tres palmos (looked like the right elevation) resonable accessable etc

leaving paute no one knew where this town was
travelling was slow--and we ended up in the dark
got on a bus for a little while , but the driver didnt know where we were going either.
afraid to pass the spot in the dark we got off the bus and
camped in somebody´s pasture

in the morning we realized that
this road apparently had little to no traffic
and we had missed the first bus of the day
(we still werent sure where we were, or where we were going--nor could we see much through the fog)

at this point it was dirt roads and llamas (the classic andean stuff)
and we had thought we would be on a highway.............

walked for an hour or so and got a few kilometers down the road before the first truck passed

at nice walk in the morning mist after a night of rain.....

blooming orchids on the side of the road (not the ones we were looking for)
farm animals grazing in the ditches, some of the only places flat enough to stand
(the andes in thier youth are quite steep)
pigs (a wooly moutain breed)
chickens are common (sometimes it seems that it is impossible to get any thing else for lunch)
ducks where the ditches are particularly wet

at this point we wondered if we should maybe just take the ride and continue on our way.............................................

(we realized that not only were we not terribly prepared--as far as where we were heading, inclement weather, etc., but that the (too) small amount of time that we had given ourselves was quickly being eaten up by the sluggish pace of our travelling)

the truck dropped us somewhere on the eastern slope repleat with all of its rain
(the prevailing winds come off of the amazon, laden with moist tropical air)
and we spent the next 4-5 hours sitting on the porch of a ranching family (shelter from the rain) waiting for a ride that never came, until embodied by a bus to macas.

all of these events conspired to prevent our
exploration of the regions botanical secrets
but we did see a bunch of cf. epidendrums (pink) on the roadside
and the wait in the rain allowed me the time to read the better part of a paper by
a. gentry on the biogeography of neotropical epiphytes
all told it could have been worse---

today hitched from macas all the way to banos--
the first hour or two on top on a big truck that was hauling wood chips that smelled as though they had been used for chicken bedding.
they dropped us off at a bridge going over the rio pastaza that was
only passable by light vehicles and foot traffic

walked to the other side and promptly got a lift in the back of a pickup
we told them puyo, but when we arrived and discovered that they were going
all the way to banos, we stayed put.

the road from macas to puyo, while seeming to be the main artery on the east side of
the andes, was much worse than most forest service roads ive been on.....
bump, bump, bump.........

puyo to banos improved somewhat....wtih sweeping views of the amazon basin,
waterfalls
and passionfruit for lunch

hoping to catch a glimpse of the active volcano tomorrow

hasta pronto
t

MEXICO 2003

2003-01-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

The following post is from a 3 month trip in the winter of 2003.
It appears slightly more formal than my typical blog-type posts because these notes were originally submitted as part of an independent study project through Lane Community College.

Enjoy,
Tobias

Buena Fortuna Botanical Garden. Baja Sur, MX.

Plants, Places, and People

2003-01-10T13:52:00.001-08:00

Journey to a Center of Megadiversity

"Unless they have chiles, they think they're not eating."
-Bartalome de las Casas, 1552.

INTRODUCTION:

"I became as consumed by the "cultural selection" of fruits and seeds, as Darwin's disciples are by the "natural selection" of bones and beaks."
-Gary Nabham, Ethnoecologist.

This winter many different elements came together in my life, in such a way, that made it possible to step out of all my activities here, for about 10 weeks. I spent that time exploring the country, plants, people and language of Mexico.

This document was assembled as an Biology Independent Study Project, through Lane Community College. The official focus was the plants, and biodiversity of Mexico, such a rich global heritage. This report does contains a lot of information on the plants and ecology of the regions that I visited. However as a gardener, a permaculturalist and as a human being, the magic for me really lies in the cultural context. To this end I have included as much as I could, on the cultural uses of the plants I collected. As well, I have tried to include anecdotes and stories on a variety of experiences with both plants and people. It is almost impossible for me to separate the biological and cultural, the personal and political, in my own life, and this journey was no exception. Entries, taken directly from my personal journal appear in italics. I hope that they help give a sense of the mood, and increase the readability for a non-plant-geek audience. These entries include some Spanish words and phrases, that I've put in quotations. In most cases I think that the context elucidates the meaning.

Ever since I first heard of the Zapatistas, eight years ago, when I was a fledgling activist, I've wanted to go to Chiapas. In the last five years or so, with a real focus in my life being plants and sustainable agriculture, Mexico came up again. Particularly Oaxaca, the original home of "Maiz," and its ancestor Teosinte. After first visiting Alan Kapular's green house three years ago, I've fantasized about seeing Salvia divinorum in its native habitat. As well as many other things. Now, I'm heading south with a pound of Painted Mountain Indian Corn in my pack, to give away, and visions of ancestral varieties, in my head.

Further study recently, has shown me the importance of Mexico, for the biosphere. A major global center of biodiversity, 10% of the species on Earth live in Mexico, while it occupies only 1.4% of the land mass. The country's tropical latitude and incredible variation in topography, provides micro-climates and ecological niches for over 26,000 species of plants.

Four years ago, fresh off a season on a Biodynamic vegetable farm, in upstate New York, I headed across the country, and south, down to the end of the Baja peninsula. With out of a command of the language, and only six weeks, it only whet my curiosity. I did, however, discover an amazing Botanical Garden, called Buena Fortuna, just a few kilometers north of the Tropic of Cancer, on the Gulf of California. It was only their second or third season, and a month before we got there, they had had a hurricane induced flood come through and cover the place with over 3m. of water, but even still, it changed my life. Three thousand species already, living roofs, composting toilet, the "new ordinal taxonomy of the angiosperms," wild stuff. Opened a lot of doors, to biodiversity, permaculture, botany, and more, I'm sure.
This is where I started this more recent journey. Buena fortuna!

ETHNO-ECOLOGICAL NARRATIVE

"Mountain people in their vertigal archipelagoes of human and natural variety, have become the guardians of irreplacable, global assets." -Derek Denniston.

Mexico, with its geographical location, straddling the Tropic of Cancer, and its violent geological history, creating an interior that is nothing but mountains, has all the physical traits, that characterize regions of high biological wealth and diversity. In fact, the only countries in the world that can boast a greater degree of biological diversity are: Brazil, Colombia, Australia and Indonesia. Home to 26,000 plant species, representing more than 10% of the global flora, Mexico's 1,967,180 square km. territory occupies less than 1.4% of the global land mass. By no coincidence, Mexico is also one of the six countries in which 60% of the worlds remaining 6,500 languages are spoken. There are 54 main indigenous groups, throughout Mexico, speaking 240 languages and dialects. Even just these numbers, go a long way in illustrating the scope of diversity, biological, and cultural. Biology acting on, and informing culture, culture acting on, and informing biology, for me the enchantment is in this interface. Diversity, results from the adaptations of species, and the interactions that occur between them, leading to further adaptations and co-evolution. Gary Nabham claims that "Humans may be the co-evolutionary animal of them all." Adapting agriculture, language and religion to specific bioregions and landscapes. To be in a place where not all of that seamless harmony between people and place is forgotten. Where the daily realities of food and shelter are addressed from what the landscape can provide. Where the processes have been passed down from antiquity, and the activities further root the participants in their place. While Mexico does have its many social, economic and political problems, much of it is still so remote, that it is possible to experience, or at least to observe many of these traditions still being carried out.
photos-seed mural

All of these ideas fill my head as I spent a rainy December pulling English Ivy from the forest at Hendrick's, and other city parks. Looking ahead to a winter spent in the sun, exploring the secrets of the, still mysterious, land to the south. The economic burden of such a journey, bringing me back to the woods, rainy day after rainy day. But then, with a pack full of camping gear, a book full of contacts and e-mail correspondence, and a head full of dreams, I'm off!
photo-bf gate

I started my trip by spending almost three weeks working at the Co-evolutionary Kinship Botanical Garden, Buena Fortuna, at the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. Having been there already, four years prior, I was excited to see all the changes, which were many, both in vegetation, and infrastructure. The co-directors, Gabriel Howearth, of Seeds of Change fame, and his partner Kitzia, are truly inspired and prolific. Getting out of the back of the truck, that I caught a ride in, the last 5 km. from the highway, under the big, January full moon, I hardly recognize the place. I tentatively open the gate, made from the un-peeled sticks of a native shrub. I look around and the vegetation is dense and unfamiliar. Then in the moonlight, I make out squash, nasturtiums, collards and an unidentifiable array of other plants, all sprawling beneath what can only be papayas. All doubt vanishs from my mind. Sure enough Gabriel is still up and we eat mandarins and papayas, left over from the market, under the moon, in the banana grove. What a welcome!
photo-harvest bounty

The dual passions of biodiversity conservation and a low impact organic lifestyle lead to a well orchestrated, explosion of life. Close to 4,000 species, from around the world. A focus on rare and endangered species, genera and families. Everything laid out by relationships at a Super Order level, the highest taxon, within the Classes of the angiosperms. A living example of research that all too often, comes out of The Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and gets stuck in the sterility of academia. An intriguing blend of peacenik sensibility and genetic insight.
photo-staking toms

Friday, 1/24/03:
Incredible diversity, too many papayas, seeds sent to the burn pile. Aloe divisions, a dozen species on our list. Truly an awesome place. A jungle in the desert. Pepper plants as tall as I am. Neem, hibiscus, cinnamon. Plants from Burma, Tahiti, the Philippines. Africa, South America and Europe. Relationships between genera, families, orders and super orders. Sure enough papayas and luffas, both in good supply, are members of the Brassicales. From the different leaf morphology of the tree Legumes, to various flowers of the different passion fruits, the intricate similarities and differences amaze. Not only food, spices, and medicine, but the possibilities for construction and fiber, also seem endless. Palm for thatch, sunhats and timber. Agave for twine. Palo de Arco becomes sticks and posts for construction, harvest boxes, shelves and furniture. Bamboo for walls, rails and conduit.

Life is full, yet simple amidst the complexity of the garden. Much of what is needed for food and building is either grown here or available locally. Shopping at the Red Barn or Jerry's is 2,000 miles away. No organic grains, no heaps of discarded lumber. Reuse a necessity. Seed bags and plastic labels with four other generations, crossed out, and seasons away.

photo-living roof

Wednesday, 1/29/03:
The sound of fruit falling in the night, papaya. passion fruit, there's no telling. So many things it could be.

Made my first plant press today, out of scrap twine and a cardboard box someone at the local "tienda" gave me. I had to buy the newspaper. Dumpster diving doesn't really exist here. What is trash, really is trash, and is usually left along sandy back roads, in the absence of an infrastructure that takes the garbage "away." Every thing even half useful, collects in people's yards.

photos-pilapa and solar oven

Wednesday, 2/5/03:
Leaving in the morning. A sort of farewell gathering this evening, of raw pie and tea. everything grown on site. It was exiting to hear Gabriel and Dahinda talking about all the places that I;m heading to. Kitzia had me draw a tarot card for the road. The Apprentice of Arrows: "I am a messenger, bringing new thoughts that are the seeds of freedom." Of course, I'm leaving here with a bag, full of seeds, and a mission from Gabriel to collect more. The diversity is vanishing and much that is left, won't be there for long. His advice: "Go to the "mercados", connect with growers, find out where they are getting their seed, and collect rare and unusual species and varieties." I told him that I thought that probably everything would seem rare and unusual at first, but that I would try to sort it out. He laughed, I think mostly at the part about sorting it out.

After almost three weeks here, leaving has become almost as big a deal as it was in Eugene. Trying to get it all done, pressed specimens, photos, notes, seeds to take, trying to cram it all in. Yet this time without all of the responsibilities. I can just be grateful for the time spent here. Truly an exceptional place. Truly beautiful people. Today the first trees were planted at Nueva Fortuna. Perhaps I will get to return, to see them grow.

photo-seed cleaning in la paz

In all its diversity, Mexico is home to six distinguishably, well-defined, terrestrial ecological regions. Humid and sub-humid tropical lowlands, humid and sub-humid temperate mountains, deserts and wetlands. All of which I had a chance to visit.

Baja California seems an unlikely conglomeration of desert, butting up to the sea, crowned by temperate mountains. It is possible to be swimming on the beach one minute and hiking through oaks and pines, almost the next. Gabriel's selected home, for the express reason of growing out the diversity of the world in a single garden. A hike in the hills, seeing cacti growing amongst live oaks, aloes amongst pines and palm trees everywhere, makes me think that he chose a good spot.

photos-baja hikes

Almost all of the farms where I was in Baja, grow for Del Cabo, the American exporter/importer of organic tomatoes, basil and dried mangoes. While the global economic structure, that necessitates an export economy, and leaves the primary producers of even organic goods, drinking "Nescafe" and canned milk, leaves much to be desired, at least they're keeping the biosphere organic. On arrival to the mainland by ferry, it's vast coastal plains, and lack of hippie entrepreneurs from the north, are a sharp reminder of the long arms and sticky tentacles of the trans-national "life sciences" corporations of the world. "Alimentos, Salud, Esperanza." In English, the Monsanto slogan turns my stomach. "Food, Health, Hope." The candy coating is sickly sweet. To see it in Spanish, this romance language so new to my tongue, sours my mouth.

photo-the bad guys

Sunday, 2/9/03:
In Mazatlan, our second day on the mainland. The coast is beautiful. Starting to see a lot of coconuts and other more distinctly tropical stuff.

The guys at the bus station told us how to catch the "tren de carga," so in the late, afternoon we headed for the train yard. We heard that the train left at 10:30, and we got there in plenty of time, before sunset. Most of the passerbys were able to tell us something about the schedule and were only half-incredulous that we wanted to know. What a difference from the States, where hoboing is such a secretive activity, shrouded in the mystique of legend and danger, and the potential of landing you in jail. Here it is more of a legitimate form of transportation. Even the security guards, let us know that the train had been delayed until 1:00 am, and insist that we wait in the light where they can see that we're safe.

The whole experience was indicative of the openness and freedom that mark the difference with the U.S. Here I really feel that, if I'm comfortable doing what I'm doing, and it's not hurting anyone, than no one is going to stop me. No citations for trespassing, only occasional precautions and advice.

Monday, 2/10/03:
Finally after ten hours, we're on the train. Escorted to a gondola car, the walls, at a meter and a half, allow lots of fresh air and scenery. Sunrise. The security director comes over and gives us a half-jokingly hard time about, whether of not we have all kinds of "droogas." He goes on and on about how we're going to be beaten, stabbed, robbed and thrown from the train, how we're going to die from exposure. All kinds of really morbid stuff, but he didn't stop us from being on the train, when it started moving at 7:00 am.

Finally, moving, what a rush. It's been years since I was on a train, held home by gardens and projects. As we pull out of the yard, a head pops up at either end of our car. We look at each other, think about all the horror stories, we've just heard, look at the heads, the heads look at each other, look at the next car, and disappear. Soon we look back and see about a dozen people, either already on, or climbing aboard.

Rolling out of Mazatlan, Pacific coastal plains. Passing through bananas, papayas, and mangoes, lots of mangoes. Our first stop in Rosario people start getting comfortable and moving around the train. Some traveling close to the whole length ,on top on it. One man, Mario, lingers in our car. Turns out he knows all of the plants and has worked in the fields of tomatoes and chiles, we're passing ,where people make 100 pesos a day, picking the fruit for export. A tour guide of sorts. He knows many of the people as well, and we get frequent waves. After a while every thing else thins out and its just mangoes, for hours. We pass a warehouse and Mario tells me that he used to work there, packing mangoes. I ask where they were going, his reply, true of so much biological bounty, "El otro lado," (the other side.)

Turn inland and rise into the mountains as the sun is going down. At the higher altitudes, the mangoes give way to pines and the other associates of a alpine forest. But it is soon too dark to effectively high-speed botanize.

photo-train

The mountains south of Mexico City was the next region that I spent a chunk of time in. Mixed deciduous/conifer woods. Lots of Agave species. Tilandsias hanging off the trees. Sub-humid temperate, would be the designation of this ecological region.
photo-mountains in morelos

Monday, 2/17/03:
Today I'm at a new farm project in the state of Morelos, started by a woman, whose been working with an organization called Espacio de Salud, for twelve years. They have been instrumental in the development of ecological, dry sanitation in Mexico. Turns out that she took her first permaculture course in 1988, with Ianto Evans, of Cob Cottage Company fame. Small world, or just small alternative movement? Exiting first year! A half finished straw bale classroom, hundreds of baby, multi-use trees in the ground. It would be fun to come back in five years and see how its grown.
photos-espacio de salud

On Saturday in Cuernavaca, we went to the Jardin Etnobotanico in the morning and a "marcha contra la guerra," in the afternoon. It was an international day of action against the pending war, with thousand of people participating around the world. "Paz, Paz, Paz, con Justicia y Dignidad!"
photos-marcha

I got the chance to stay about week, at community, called Huehuecoyotl, in the mountains, about an hour bus ride from Cuernavaca. It started as a International Rainbow Peace Caravan traveling throughout Latin America, that stopped, 20 years ago, outside the town of Tepoztlan, and never left. Beautiful place, a real eco-village. All the houses are built of beautiful natural materials. Traditional adobe, as well as an array of more modern ecological techniques, are on display. The whole place gravity fed from a 1,000,000 liter cistern that catches the rain right off the mountain, when it streams down, only two or three months a year. Wood fired shower and sauna, feel good on my travel-worn body. A real focal point of the Ecovillage Network of the Americas, who's newsletter can be read in Spanish, French, Portuguese and English. They are frequently hosting Bioregional Congresses, International Ecovillage conferences, and a variety of workshops. Lots of activity. An attribute of community life.

photos-community kitchen

Friday, 2/28/03:
Heading south from Oaxaca City, to the coast. Hitch-hiking.

Pickup stops. Perfecto! One of my favorite ways to travel, a close second to the freight train. We rode for a couple of hours and then the truck pulled over. Lasaro, the driver came back and told us that he was turning off to his house, but that if we wanted to stay with him and get a ride in the morning with his family who were going to be going another 4-5 hours toward Puerto Escondido. Unsure. Look around at the mountains, beautiful landscape, small, agricultural village. Look down at the field next to the road, corn and beans, inter cropped together, the ancient sisters, growing in symbiotic harmony. Okay, we'll stay.

Turns out, Lasaro, at 40, still lives in his boyhood home, with his mother and grandmother. They are the sweetest old ladies you could hope to meet. At the ages of 73, and 96, respectively, they were still running the farm Chickens under-foot every where, even inside the house. Goats, pigs, we helped with the evening feeding routine. Inspiring, to see these old, shriveled, brown women, growing all their own corn and beans. The last generation that holds a traditional relationship with the land. They fed us, well and gave us our own room..

photo-truck ride

Saturday, 3/8/03:
On the coast, in a small town called Mazunte. know for its sea turtle conservation efforts. Marcia, the traveling companion that I met on my way to Buena Fortuna, headed back north a few days ago. Good to have the company, and we had lots of fun together, but also enjoying being on my own again.
photo-mazunte

Met these Mexican hippie kids that had a wood fired oven on the next beach over. A long deserted stretch of sand and waves, called Mermajita, "Mermaid." They would spend all day baking different kinds of bread and cookies, and playing music. Sending huge baskets of still-hot goodies to sell to the, mostly European, tourists on the beach in Mazunte.

I spent a few days camped out with them and gave them a bunch of seeds for their garden. It feels good to be a vector.
photos-hornos, turtle

On my way to Chiapas. A land that for me is still cloaked in the, mystique of revolution. Its rich natural resources, leading many a profiteer astray of the indigenous people. "Paz con Justicia y Dignidad!" Peace, with justice and dignity, a simple, yet profoundly difficult request. It is this same biological richness and defensively feisty culture, that have drawn me so far from home.

The southernmost state of Mexico, Chiapas occupies more than 74,000 sq. km. along the "frontera" with Guatemala. It is home to almost a third of all the plants in Mexico, with over 8,000 species. It is thought that local endemism is quite high. Elevations vary, from sea level to 4,000 m. and the climate ranges from desert to rain forest. Annual precipitation varies, from less than 80 cm. in some places, to over 350 cm. in others. Of its 1,500,00, inhabitants, half are Mayan agriculturalists, living in dispersed villages and hamlets. A veritable treasure throve for ethnobotanists.

Monday, 3/17/03:
Descent to the jungle! Leaving Lago Tzizcao, right on the Guatemalan border. Camped "libre" beside the lake. Swam in the morning, cool, mountain water. It was super windy the whole time I was there and my map and Thermarest both ended up in the lake as well. Dried quick, thanks to the wind, but impossible to leave anything unanchored.

photo-lago tzizcao

Stashed my pack and headed up the hill to a "El Restuarante Adventurero," to find "agua" and a "bano."

The walk out back to the toilet, to my fascination, led me through a dense polyculture of coffee and bananas, all under the canopy of a few large trees with spreading crowns. Sure enough, I go back through the restaurante and see bags of "Cafe Organico" for sale. I had two cups with my breakfast, of bean/ goat cheese tacos, and bought half a kilo to export.

photo-banana-coffee polyculture

The past two days I've been leaving the Highlands of San Cristobal. Small corn patches on rocky hill sides, woolly pigs, houses of raw wood and/or adobe , pines and brightly colored indigenous costumes characterize "el campo." At 2100 m., this is a diverse temperate forest.

Saturday to "Las Cascades el Chiflon," outside of Comitan. Descend 800m. into warmer deciduous forest. The river is beautiful, cold and clear. Its deep pools between drops and the bright turquoise color make me wonder about the substrate. Limestone? "Las cascades" are magnificent, dropping some 100 meters, and sending a rain of mist and rainbows down the valley. The influence on the micro climate is dramatic. The rocks around the falls themselves, a lush carpet of bryophytes, ferns and flowering plants.

Here too, a much higher population of epiphytes. Tilandsia spp., orchids, a Prickly Pear, growing 5m. up on a Cypress, various succulents, that make me think Aloeaceae, or Agavaceae, but they could be more Bromialaceae members as well. I feel pretty comfortable with some of the families, but so much is new, and all of my attempts to find some kind of field guide have been unsuccessful. I mean there's more than a handful of families that are endemic to Mexico.

photos-cascades chiflon

Tuesday, 3/18/03. 7:30 am:
Now I'm in the lowlands, the closest town that I have an elevation for, is about an hour from here by dirt road, at only 200 m.

Last night my "combi" (VW van used for local and inter-city travel) didn't get to Chajul until sunset. I met a couple of older senoras waiting for the next combi, who talked the driver into going farther than he was going to. A little farther down the road, but still not my hoped for destination of Las Guacamayas, a forest reserve on the other side of the Rio Lacontan from the Reserva Biosfera Montes Azules, 300,000 hectares of protected Selva Lacandona.

But what luck! As I was walking down the road with these, women, a young guy came up, and when he heard of my plight, ran off to stop a truck he knew of, that was just leaving in my direction. I shuffled after him, in a half-run, under my pack, and there I was, the last 20 kilometros , speeding down the dirt highway. Standing in the back of the truck, wind in the face, under the full moon. This is the way to travel!

Followed my moon shadow, walking the last kilometro to Reforma Agraria, the small village that is the home of the forest reserve.

What strange sounds in the night!?!? Howling, barking, roaring, screaming. A local boy told me: "Monos." He also told me where to sleep.

Woke up this morning at 6:00 am, in the village square. Sun, not quite up, but light. That sound again, a cross between, baying dogs, roaring lions and screaming women. I stuff my sleeping bag and head for the Reserva Forestal.

What fun to see a new place in the light. I am really in the tropics now! The vegetation, super dense, climbers, epiphytes, shrubs, trees, a robust herb layer. A vibrant model for our layered permaculture designs. Life, maximizing space.

It's not just the flora that is so abundant and diverse. That sound again, and others. In the light of morning, I see that "los monos", of the night before are big, black Howler monkeys (Alloutta pigra.), swinging from the tree tops. A flock of beautiful, large, white birds, in the slough, las guacamayas-red macaws ( Ara macao) overhead, some other kind of green parrot-type birds. As I sit and write this, I can look out, across the river at the eastern edge of the Reserve Biosphera Montes Azules. Representing some of the most extensive and best preserved tropical rain forest in Mexico and Central America, described to me as ,"Pura selva." All I can see is the densely lush river bank, accented by a few, boldly colored, bare tree trunks. But I can hear the selva. A constant orchestra of sound. Birds, primates, felines, insects, I can only imagine.

3:15:
Hot! Spent the mid-day traveling by combi, through a lot of cleared land. There was a lot of burning going on, more clearing, and between the hot wind in the combi and the thick smell of smoke, I had a very real sensation of being in a fire.

Sitting on the road to Lacanja Chansayab, watching the occasional person, in the long white costume of the Lacandones, cross the road from various trails, leading into the jungle, and disappear again on the other side. I've been here half an hour so far, only one truck. It didn't pick me up.

4:30:
Had to cut off because I got a ride. Another truck, a family headed for the river. Exactly where I want to go, in the sticky heat of the afternoon.

Got in a swim. My note book took a swim as well, reminding me why it was a "Rite-in-the-Rain."

Still in awe at the life teeming around me. plants growing on everything. Going to camp at a place where the people speak to each other in a language that I don't understand and it isn't Spanish. To communicate we all need to use a second language.

After further exploring the village I discovered that everyone speaks the language of the Lacandones, because that's what they are. There are only about 800 Lacandones alive today, and most of them, 500, live here in Lacanja. The town was founded in 1979, when the Lacandones were relocated out their homeland, the Selva Lacandon, with the creation of the Biosphere Reserve.

photos-jungle swim spot

Wednesday, 3/19/03:
Cooled off with a swim, and now am enjoying the breeze coming off of "Las Cascades Welib-ja." Heading to Palenque.

photo-cascades welib-ja

I fell asleep, out on the grass ,watching the moon rise, last night and awoke around 3:00 am, soaked in heavy dew. Apparently one of the reasons that it is so green here.

On the road, walking, by 8:00 am. It was a good thing that I was walking too, because by the time that I got to the "crucero," 5 kilometros and an hour and a half later, I still hadn't seen a single vehicle going my way.

I did meet a couple of little boys on the way. Children of the jungle. They gave me half of an Annona, which was a delight to try. Under the dull brown exterior, its soft, bright pink flesh was pudding-like. I chatted with them while I ate. At their request, I took their photo, before heading on my way.

photos-wild boys, ruined cities

Friday, 3/21/03:
First day of spring! Rode "camionetas " (pickup trucks) all the way from Palenque back to San Cristobal. A return to the highlands.

The mid-day mountain air felt welcomingly fresh after the steamy jungle of Palenque,, streaming against my face, in the back of the truck. The pines again. Still bananas and coffee and all the diversity of the tropical highlands, but markedly different than the selva.

Hitch-hiking in Ocosingo around noon, a truck, slowed down. I thought, "A ride," but the driver yelled "Vamos a Irak!" and drove off. Ouch. Just yesterday, the second day of bombing, I encountered the news while checking my e-mail. A slideshow of anti-war protests from around the world, brought a tear to my eye. This was really the first time, my whole trip that I got heckled for being perceived as a "gringo." Ocosingo was the site of the bloodiest fighting during the Zapatista uprising in '94. Over 50 revolucionarios were killed here. The cynicism and bitterness is understandable.

A real mix of feelings passing into the highlands. The obvious, dramatic shift in vegetation. The air crisper, images appear sharper. The brightly colored people, washing brightly colored clothes in the streams, stand out against the landscape. As in the selva, lots of cleared land. The struggle here, the condition of the campesinos, the over-exploitation of resources by outsiders, the signs for transgenic seed and RIVAL, a Monsanto produced herbicide, and the war, all weigh on my mind and soul. My last couple of days in Mexico, then back to "los Estados Disunidos," as I've heard it called. Hope and nostalgia, constant companions, while traveling alone. The hope now diminished by the destination. The belly of the beast of global terror.

I keep reminding myself of the good things that I an returning to, which are many.

As the selva is cut and burned, indigenous languages and life styles die by exposure, and "bombas" fall on Iraq, I ready myself to board an air plane to Tijuana, and wallow in the irony.

photos-graffiti

Incredible to be in the "campo" here. The people practice "permaculture," not out of the idealism, that drives so many eco-warriors in "el Norte," but out of necessity and tradition. Perennial food crops, stacking functions, inter cropping, companion plants. It all makes economic sense in a place where even the policemen only get paid the equivalent of $20 "dolares" a week.

The allure of genetic engineering holds false hope for many. A few retain the ecological knowledge, passed down through literally, centuries, but their numbers diminish every day, and with every Coca-Cola consumed. With every bottle of RIVAL purchased and used, we come closer to losing a global heritage of diversity and indigenous wisdom. Despite all this I still get the feeling that I am in a land where Tierra y Libertad have a chance.

photos-huitepec, wood hauler

Monday, 3/24/03:
Coming home, my pack weighs 40 kilos. Three machetes, a corn grinder, three hoe heads, two kilos of organic coffee, seed collection, plant collection and more. So many great hand tools here. Stuff you can't find in the States, where subsistence, family-scale agriculture has gone more or less extinct.

On the bus since Tijuana, just left Sacramento at 7:00 am. Riding through the central valley, Americas last "bread basket." What a difference from the family-scale plots eked out of the rocky hillsides in the mountains of Chiapas.

photo-mayan mural

CONCLUSION

"We can't just put all biodiversity in a museum and expect it to survive. Biological diversity depends on human diversity."-Bob Bye, Latin American ethnobiologist.

Mexico, land of promise and paradox. Where original languages still dominate in many regions, yet you can buy Marlboros and Coca-Cola in the most remote village store. A land very much feeling the strain of retaining its original wealth and beauty, in the face of posturing and legislating by its neighbor to the North, to open these riches to the profit motive of the global economy. While I was amazed by so much that I saw, I can only fantasize about what these landscapes might have been like, just 25-50 years ago, and worry about all that may not be left in another 10-25. Grateful for the chance I had to be down there this winter.

Such a full couple of months. The plants, places, people, the language, all so new and exciting. Being back at home, catching the last rain and hail of winter, it seems a fantastic dream. Readying to put up my new greenhouse, I can't wait to try growing out the seeds I brought home. In this summers garden will grow some new things, hopefully not too far outside of their range. Increasing the diversity, and bringing generations of stories, and campesino wisdom in each seed. I wonder about the new life, that the seeds I took, from my garden, will have in there new places. Hualing these little treasures, literally thousands of kilometros, and sharing them as I go, feels right. It puts me that much closer to fulfilling the ecological role of vector, that humans have adapted to be so proficient at. The natural wealth of our world is a collective heritage that we need to steward and share, if we are to continue to appreciate it.

Riding the rails: Mazatlan to Guadalajara