On the trail again

The search for research specimens is at times quite arduous. So TPP and his long time friend & collaborator were on the trail looking for a tree that never flowers, in our experience, at least at this time of year, but probably because we desire it to flower so much, but somehow manages to reproduce anyways. Actually, it has flowered once in the last 8 trips. Well, here's what it looks like on one of the main trails through the forest. TPP stopped to take a picture while his colleague hiked on ahead.  You can see how the shallow tree roots form regular, or is it irregular, obstacles to hinder your progress. Add to this the slipperiness of tropical lateritic clay and you have quite some fun getting around, which only adds to the joy of not finding any flowers on your trees. This also shows you how far you have to go, which is not very far, to disappear from view even when the location is generally devoid of vegetation. Oh, and that's a six and a half foot guy who's almost out of sight. The great thing is that you see so many things along the way. Soon TPP will post a nice vista rainforest view that is very uncommon because generally you can't see very far. 

Welcome to the rain forest!

This has got to be the front door to the rain forest. Somehow a buttress formed along a root making it a doorway arch. At any rate this was at the beginning of the trail followed today. Nice rain forest is unrelenting green from bottom to top. This particular rain forest in Costa Rica has several layers: herbs and seedlings, small shrubs & palms, large shrubs & taller palms, subcanopy palms and trees, canopy trees, and emergent trees. And it's dense with so much vegetation, and with the sun more or less above your head or if it's overcast, it is really easy to get turned around and have no idea about which way you came or are going. TPP pays real close attention when off a trail. Got turned around badly in the S. Hemisphere a few times because of having the sun on the wrong side.  At any rate it was a pretty good walk. Scored a few new birds, nothing new botanically though. Ah, good, thunderheads have moved in and it's gotten seriously dark, like after sundown dark, but it's only 3 pm, and it hasn't really gushed here yet. Temperature has come down a few degrees and that's quite nice. Rain has arrived, drumming upon the metal roof as only tropical rain can. Some thunder and lightening which is unusual here but common as dirt in the upper midwest. Students out in the field will soon learn about tropical rain and the necessity of umbrellas and zip lock bags for anything that doesn't like getting wet. 

Anti-cancer compound found in rare rain forest tree

This news came from Australia where a compound found in the fruits of a rare rain forest tree have some promise as an anti-cancer agent. TPP took particular notice of this news item because as soon as rare, rain forest tree, and Australia were mentioned together he immediately thought of the Atherton Tableland in far northern Queensland. A lot of quite unusual plants, and animals, live there and many years ago so did the Phactors, in fact the F1 attended kindergarden in Atherton and became a right proper little Aussie for awhile. The plant in the news article was Hylandia and TPP has seen it once and then only because a field savvy colleague pointed it out. This is also of particular interest because the tree is named after Bernie Hyland, a taxonomic legend of this area and he ran the herbarium for the CSIRO's tropical forest research center in Atherton. Before people go crazy and start the "natural/herbal cure" stuff, let's be clear. This tree is a member of the Euphorb family and they are mostly toxic. Finding a compound that reduces cancer tumors in mice is a great start, but understand what this means. Researchers are looking for a toxic substance that kills cancer cells at a dosage that is still tolerable (safe?) for the organism with the cancer, and the wider the window the better. Researchers will now monkey around with the molecule to see if some derivative molecule is better than the "natural" chemical because natural is not always better. Here's an example. The bark of the white willow (Salix alba) made great poultices for say a sore elbow, but the salicyclic acid in the bark would really upset your stomach if you tried to take it orally. But then someone found out that if you acetalized it, the acetosalicyclic acid was much easier on your stomach and a great general pain-killer was born (Got it yet? aspirin!). Of course this is a great argument for rain forest conservation, and a great deal of the Atherton Tableland has been converted to agriculture already because the basaltic soils, where they occur, are fertile. Good thing this rate plant wasn't exterminated in the process of raising peanuts or potatoes. 

Rainforest birding in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a hot bed for birders, and the La Selva field station is a hot bed for Costa Rica.  Over 400 species of birds have been recorded here.  TPP is not a very good birder (that's Mrs. Phactor's arena); birds do not hold still so you can pick them up and look them over.  However every now and then a bird cooperates in such a way that even yours

truly can make an accurate identification.  So while looking for passion flower vines for a student deep within the darkest rainforest, this bird happened upon us.  Apparently a nearby fig tree had fruits just ripening and it was beginning to attract all sorts of attention.  Now in spite of its diminutive size and great distance the characteristic markings of a great curassow were unmistakable.  Quite simply TPP would not grab this bird even if he could.  The males (shown here) do some elegant courtship dances and offer their potential mates food treats.  So lots of birds have been seen but so far nothing new for the personal list, but then again, over a 20 year period of visits you do get to see quite a few species even if you aren't a very good birder.  How fortuitous that a curassow shows up so conveniently close to Thanksgiving!

A nasty plant

My old friend Woody introduced me to this plant on our first trip to Australia 30 years ago for another botanical congress. “Stand next to that plant for a size comparison”, he said. Pointing to it, the Phactor said, “This one?” And the pointed finger was too close and a small hypodermic needle of a trichome (hair) slipped under the edge of my finger nail. The stinging sensation that resulted was something to behold because even though there was no visible injury at all, it felt like a hot ice pick had been shoved under my finger nail. The pain was severe and it just throbbed, and after subsiding 3-4 hours later, it would begin throbbing again every time my hand was in water. The rather innocent looking shrub that does this is Dendrocnide moroides, the stinging bush, one of the nastiest members of the nettle family. Another colleague tripped and fell into one, and the reaction and pain required a trip to hospital. Imagine how his showers felt after this! The fruit is a rather attractive red raspberry looking thing, but all those stinging hairs give you real pause about trying it. So visual ID of this plant is one of the first things you learn before doing field work in rainforests of Queensland. Slow learners will get a lesson they won’t forget.

Into each forest some rain must fall

Students in an intellectual sense know that rain forest means a forest community of high rainfall, but until they experience rain in the tropics they will not have an true understanding of what we speak. Following a mini-drought of six rainless days a system has moved in from the Caribbean, bumped into the central cordillera and the rain began to fall. It's a medium high overcast and it produces a very steady rain, about a 2.5 out of 10 on the tropical rainfall scale, but after a couple of hours out in the forest, you are quite wet, except for your head and shoulders tucked under you umbrella. This is also when students learn that a good pair of tall rubber boots are their best friends, and when a mud hole trys to steal one, you'd better help pull your friend free. Still is was a productive morning for my ducklings splashing along behind me. The Phactor managed to help them find several ant plants, plants that interact in a mutualistic manner with ants: balsawood and cercropia saplings, a piper, and a melastom. Found a place where fruit-eating fish could be fed fruit. This is an important part of doing field research: if you cannot find your research organism say in a week or two, some die-hards would give it a month, then you'd better find something else to study. The Phactor has always found his plants; they've just refused to cooperate by flowering whenever he was present, but the nice thing about the tropics is that some other interesting thing is just right over there. The low rumbling from the east would suggest that the Aztec weather gods do not think students have learned this lesson yet, and as this is being typed, the rain has gone up another notch to about a 3. Still there is little chance this will set any records for us; a field trip back in the 1990s recorded 474 mm in 8 days. That's why they call it rain forest.