This site is devoted to creatures who live at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary. Plants mostly, sometimes animals and fungi, as well as the land in general. Consider us bipeds to be their agents: as pollinators, seed dispersers, spore bearers, gardeners and story tellers. Nature and culture, where does one end and the other begin?
Pink is the colour of my true love in the trees…. or mauve, orange, crimson, burnished copper, and fiery red!!
What a busy time this is for trees here. They are flushing (putting out new leaves), flowering, fruiting as well as dropping leaves. The canopy is host to raucous flocks of birds and humming insects.
In this post, some pictures of this gorgeous phase in the lives of trees at GBS.
Trees in tropical evergreen forests with a short pronouced dry season, can display behaviour associated with spring, summer, fall and winter in this period, which, in Kerala, is from December to April. For travelers from outside the tropics, this can be confusing, especially the synchronous and colourful flushing of entire canopies signifying leaf growth, and a fuller canopy to follow, instead of the bareness associated with winter in broadleaved temperate forests.
Above, Litsea leaves.
In temperate climates the orange and brown colours of fall are due to pigments called xanthophylls and beta-carotenes, which appear when the green colour of the chlorophyll gets broken down into colourless metabolites, as winter approaches. During this process amino acids get released which are stored in the roots and different woody tissues ready for spring when re-foliation occurs. Colour is also due to anthocyanin pigments whch are synthesized during autumn.
Above: Syzigium leaves begin white, then turn pink, before becoming green. Some baby leaves are white or very pale due to lack of any pigments which form as the leaves mature.
Above: Canarium strictum flushing.
New growth in tropical forests (with a seasonally dry period) tends to be shades of red, orange and pink only from anthocyanin pigments. Protected from herbivory by these pigments, the redness disappears as the leaves mature, replaced by chlorophyll which comes on only when the leaves are fully expanded. Delayed greening prevents tissue loss due to predation by invertebrate herbivores.
Above: Spying red through the Ochlandra bamboo leaves at the stream side.
Flushing requires a seasonal dry spell. This is not a feature found in typical rainforests with year-round rain. The forests of this region have a three month dry spell, which is stressful on all vegetation. And strangely enough, when trees are stressed out, they get very busy!
Look at the shades of leaf colour! from crimson, to pale grey-green.
Above: The big karivetti tree (Olea dioica) by the upper house looks autumnal. The truth is closer to spring! It’s full of new leaves, and the flowers are just about to open.
Above: Backlit Olea leaves.
Here the colours are crimson and red, a mixture of trees, but mostly karivetti.
Above: Edena, or Cinnamomum leaves, in the evening sun.
A young tree in the understory, in the oldest forest on the land.
Above: Vateria indica leaves pink-orange.
Above: A Vateria indica stand (group of same-species) close to the stream. Multihued understory.
Above: Fresh Litsea leaves in 30 year secondary forest.
The question of why tropical trees put out red coloured leaves has invited many hypotheses: a protection against UV light, protection against herbivory, and protection from fungal infestations. The anthocynanin pigments make the leaves “cryptic” or disguised, to insects that are blind to the red part of the spectrum.
Above: new leaves of a liana by the kitchen-side restoring forest.
The curious thing of course is how active they are, as they flush, many of them flower, and several have started to fruit already. This being said, these are all very well timed, for the trees need to repel herbivores, and then they need to attract pollinators as well.
For these forests, the dry season is very busy because the monsoon is stormy dark and very wet, which are not optimal conditions for reproduction.
Above, on the same tree from right to left, crimson to pink to cream to green! In some species these changes can be very quick, accomplished in a few days, in others it can take longer.
The most spectacular of all: wild Cinnamon leaves!
There are exceptions of course. Here are Actinodaphne new leaves, a silvery colour. These young leaves are covered in soft hairs, a different kind pf protection from herbivorous insects.
Above: the todayan, or Elaeocarpus tuberculatus flushes green, and its old leaves are red. The whole canopy never turns red at the same time, instead individual leaves as they age will turn a deep red. True for all Elaeocarpus species.
All the pictures are of trees on GBS lands, or the nearby reserve forest.
For people interested in phenology, notes from a GBS tree diary in 2001 talk about trees flushing in the first week of February!
Here are some links to various studies on why leaves flush red when young!
Believe it or not, at GBS we are concerned about humans too. These bipedal creatures above are every bit as precious as all other creatures of the biosphere. We wholeheartedly believe in conservation, restoration and rehabilitation of these beautiful beings!
In this blogpost we share a few photographs from our recent residential programmes (with educational institutions that are ready to send a maximum of 15 kids, for a week or more).
The programmes usually start at the end of the monsoon, but this year we had our first monoon session with Azim Premji University students. Later, we received students from Centre for Learning (Bangalore), Rishi Valley School, and Marudam Farm School, As this blog goes live, 14 students arrive from Shibumi school in Bangalore.
Students from CFL spent 12 days with us recently. They swam in the creek every day. In the above two pictures, they sun themselves after a swim in very cold water ( by tropical standards!). Brrrr!!
Rohan (teacher) in the water; students on the log!
Above: Maran, from Marudam Farm School climbs a forest giant on his own; no ropes nor instructions.
Here, Shyam, a math-and-science teacher from Marudam shows he can climb trees too. With a youngster in tow!
Amogh admires the giant Cheeni tree (Tetrameles nudiflora). 12 children can hold hands circling the tree. Also seen in this picture, Chandu our local Forest Guard and old GBS associate, and Navneet, CFL teacher. Chandu says it’s a pleasure to take kids who come to GBS to the forest, they are so aware and interested.
Sneha and Navya from CFL nimbly climb the strangler fig.
Rishi Valley students and their mid day dip in the stream.
The stream is crucial to all our programmes!
Squelching through the marsh, CFL kids on a walk into the forest.
Crossing the log: Ishan, Anu, Polenta, Deesha and Jalen. Polenta needs no assistance!
Limbering up with Lorenzo, Rishi Valley students start their day.
At GBS we explore various kinds of body work: from yoga, to climbing, swimming, coordination and flexibility, balance and agility. We’ve developed our own unique set of exercises, but above, good ol’ crunches! Rishi Valley kids and Lorenzo.
Up the strangler fig and in the canopy at nearly 20 metres above ground. Aline Horwath and Marudam students and teachers explore the world up there.
Walking through the Diplazium ferns on the way back from the forest. CFL students cooked them too! Delicious!
Every winter, Lorenzo makes this simple shelter in the Manisseri valley in time for school visits. It becomes home for all the kids on our residential programmes. Here they do everything from sleeping on a mud floor, keeping elephant watch, cooking together, making tools and utensils, learning natural history, caring for the land, bathing in the river, and having a great time without mod cons. Above: a discussion in the dining area which consists of some logs for benches and a boulder for a table!
How to make a dish rack.
Kids make trays, baskets, tools and mats, whatever they need to make their home comfortable!
Deesha brings some firewood for camp cooking.
The daily hike for the bath and swim.
Tea time at the main GBS kitchen was a daily treat. Occasion to meet visitors, resident dogs, and indulge in great cakes made by Leela and Janu, long time GBS residents. Theo (Rottweiler) is enjoying himself too, so many scraps to savour! Manasa, (seatedin front of Suprabha), interned at GBS for a month, and studied plant biology. She had first come on the APU programme.
Youngsters do lots of work too. Here, Rishi Valley students make a permaculture plot for vegetables with Aline. Other work includes path raking, coffee picking and fetching water from a spring.
Learning about carnivorous plants with Suprabha, and Aline. Garden tours, and plant related activities are a crucial part of the student programmes, as are bird watching and night walks.
Above, Kavi Priya from Marudam school draws mosses.
Drawing plants is a popular and engaging activity. At GBS we encourage drawing so that students and adults learn to look, and learn.
Suma (senior plant conservationist) with Azim Premji University students, looking at orchids.
APU sent it’s 18 first year students for five days, divided into two groups. Since they came at the end of the monsoon they stayed at the main GBS visitor’s facilities, and not at the camp, which is set up only after the season dries out a bit.
Here APU students explore how to make a rock wall, the first steps in making habitats for plants. Roshan Sahi takes them through the process.
Group collage on plants in their habitats. APU students learned a lot of plant biology and ecology.
Polenta, above, is indisputably the most popular hostess of the residential programmes. Accompanying kids everywhere, this little doggess (a term invented by Manasa from APU) in indefatigable, daring and a teacher in her own right!
Photographs by Peter Oppenheimer, Suprabha Seshan, Shyamal Lakshminarayanan, Roshan Sahi, Arun Venkatraman and V. Santharam.
Ipsea malabarica, or the Malabar Daffodil Orchid, is an extremely rare species amongst the south Indian terrestrial orchids. It is endemic to the Western Ghat mountains. It is also one of the few brazenly yellow-flowered ones.
The genus Ipsea has only a single species in southern India, with its nearest relative Ipsea speciosa in Sri Lanka.
Nearly 30 years ago, three Ipseas were brought to GBS’s founder Wolfgang Theuerkauf, by P.K. Uthaman, an environmentalist who’d been involved in the actions to protect Silent Valley. In the event that they would not be able to protect the valley, he wanted Wolfgang to protect this plant. Luckily both the valley and the Ipsea found protection.
However, the pressures on wild plants are many, the latest being climate change. Ipseas need very heavy rainfall during their growing period.
From those original three plants, and another set brought to us by another environmentalist (from a place being trampled by tourists), Suma Keloth has propagated several hundred individuals at GBS.
2015 was the year for the most spectacular flowering of Ipsea malabarica at GBS.
Mass flowering of Ipsea malabarica at GBS Photo by Sora Tsukamoto
Ipsea malabarica can be seen on the steep slopes right at the entrance to Silent Valley in the tourism zone. For a long time it was thought to be only found in Silent Valley, and was used as a flagship species against the dam.
It’s now been reported from southern Wayanad, Silent Valley, Ponmudi and Munnar. But each population is tiny.
During some years, the flowering can be spectacular, as it was in August of 2015 at GBS. The whole area becomes yellow, in bright contrast to the dark green of the forest. Flowers tremble and bob up and down in the wind.
Ipsea malabarica does not stand out unless it’s in flower. The plants are almost impossible to find in the wild, as they can be mistaken easily for Curculigo, Pachystoma and many species of grasses. And even in flower, it grows on inaccessible slopes, and flowers at the height of the monsoon. Abhishek went looking for them in August, and had a hard time spotting them in the heavy rains, even with binoculars.
He spotted them on a steep slope, on a big rock surface, in little pockets of humus surrounded by grasses.
Ipsea in natural grassland habitat. Photo: Abhishek Jain
Ipsea leaves, which are pleated, and almost palm like, emerge before the flowers, and sustain till the flowers drop. There are typically 3-8 flowers per stalk. Ipsea tubers are succulent and ginger shaped. They grow in a creeping way, and a single tuber can last a couple of years. Suma says the same individual plant can last at least 20 years, every year growing a new tuber, as the old one withers, having done its job of storing starch, minerals and water for the new leaves to emerge after the dormant period.
We’ve seen ladybird beetles, honey bees and solitary bees going in and out of the flower, and it seems that big insects are required to carry the pollinia, which are quie large and heavy.
Ipsea flower and seed pod. Photo: Abhishek Jain
The success in propagating Ipsea malabarica at GBS epitomises the best of ex-situ conservation practice. Highly endangered in the wild, reduced to tiny populations in a few locations, this orchid needs support from centres like ours.
This post has been coauthored by Suma Keloth, Abhishek Jain and Suprabha Seshan.
Ipsea plants in pots among other species in GBS nursery. Photo: Sora Tsukamoto
Above: a tall moss-covered tree in the forest near GBS, Wayanad. Photo Sandilya Theuerkauf.
Aline Horwath climbs very tall trees in rainforests to look at bryophytes in the canopy. Alongside the more publicised vascular epiphytes (‘air plants’) such as orchids and bromeliads, bryophytes form an important component of the canopy biome in mossy forests.
“Bryophyte” is a broad classificatory term covering mosses, liverworts and hornworts. Aline’s mission is to assess their diversity as well as the role they play in regulating climate. She spent a couple of weeks with us, at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary this year. I jotted down some notes while we talked. Here are some of the main points.
Bryophyte physiology is very specialized and also very simple. By “simple” I think is meant: all parts of the bryophyte can more or less do all the things it requires, structural differentiation is minimal, yet all bodily processes are achieved.
Bryophytes affect the water cycle because they retain moisture. Mossy mats can break the erosive power of raindrops, and turn them into gentle drips. With the ability to condense moisture and replenish ground water, cloud forests serve as important watersheds.
Above: mossy branches in a shola forest, condensing mist, cushioning rain, Mukurthi National Park. Photo Suprabha Seshan
Thus it is important to recognise that cloud forests are essential in the hydrology for lowlands, as the water that they sink into the ground form little seeps, which then join into little streams that go on to eventually to make rivers.
Clouds are formed as warm/moist air is carried by winds from sites of evaporation (primarily over an ocean) to cooler zones up slope, where the moisture condenses into mist/fog. The phenomenon of such cloud formation at the vegetation level gives rise to the so called cloud forest.
Aline clarified to me that a cloud forest is not a vegetation type per se. It is a tropical forest that experiences regular or persistent cloud immersion. Her work showed that moisture is recycled locally within the cloud forest. This recycled water represents an important moisture source for epiphytic bryophytes, especially vital during the dry season.
I’d like to mention here the biotic pump theory, narrated to me in great detail by a wonderful Earth Systems scientist in Brazil, Antonio Donato Nobre. The theory is proposed by two Russian scientists Anastassia Makarieva and Viktor Gorshkov. Their analyses reveal that lowland tropical forests help to drive wind currents from the ocean to the land, due to the volatile organic molecules (VOM) that trees release, which changes the atmospheric pressure above the forest, thereby drawing in the moist air from the sea, which, they say, is a kind of living pump.
Please click below for Antonio’s inspiring TED talk.
Above: clouds rise up to the escarpment of Mukurthi National Park from the lower New Amarambalam areas. Forests occur in the valleys, and grasslands on the open slopes and ridges. This is a cloud dependant ecosystem occurring at 2000 m elevation. Photo Suprabha Seshan
Aline talked of how, “bryophytes cannot control their internal water status. They dry out but also rehydrate with the environment. This is what makes them so well adapted but also so vulnerable to environmental changes. Most bryophytes (esp. liverworts which colonise persistently moist places such as cloud forests) do not simple revive/rehydrate after drying out completely. They just die. This is why they are so extremely sensitive to small changes in microclimate. Such bryos are classified as ‘drought evaders’.They exclusively live in moist places!”
In a 2007 study, Aline demonstrated that epiphytic bryophytes represent sensitive indicators of climatic variation. They reveal rainfall and humidity patterns, and they can be used to map cloud forest boundaries.
Above: A lone Rhododendron tree in Mukurthi National Park, full with epiphytic orchids and mosses in the middle of an open grassland. Year-round mist helps these tiny communities-within-communities to form. Photo Suprabha Seshan
When I heard this I remembered Sphagnum, a genus of moss, with a worldwide distribution of over 300 species, covering large areas of the planet, mostly in temperate areas, but also in tropical highlands, and humid forests, including the forests of the Western Ghats.
Its crucial role in the global carbon cycle has only recently been understood; with peat bogs storing a huge percentage of organic carbon on a global basis. These peatlands are often highly acidic, with pH values below 4, a result of H+ ions being released as the base of the Sphagnum tussocks die out and accumulate.
Above: A rich epiphytic community in a shola in Mukurthi National Park, with foliose lichens, mosses, orchids and ferns. Photo (late) Dr Mayilvahanan
Bryophytes are found to be incredibly rich in many important biochemical compounds, the drawback (for research) being, the quantities available for extraction, are really small per unit body weight. There are laboratories in Japan trying to extract various chemicals from bryophytes. They have the highest diversity of secondary metabolites, some called terpenoids, which are powerful deterrents against herbivores. I had never heard of the massive research programmes underway using mosses.
I googled around while writing this blog: there are even bioreactors, where mosses are grown in suspension cultures, and shaken about constantly to extract recombinant protein to make bio pharmaceuticals with.
Above: Shola forests hang heavy with moss: mist catchers of Mukurthi. Photo Suprabha Seshan
Aline also talked of how carbon credit calculators attribute carbon stocks to trees, but not to the herbs that grow on trees, and that they dismiss the value of upper elevation montane forest. Apparently, the analysis of carbon stocks shows that this is a a gross error, that higher forests and epiphytes are crucial in terms of their contribution to carbon sequestration.
Above: A shola interior, large branches of old trees laden with moss and ferns, Mukurthi National Park. Photo (late) Dr. Mayilvahanan
She spoke of something called Vapour Pressure Deficit, which is the relation between temperature and humidity, in other words the drying power of air, and that this is zero in cloud forests, whereas in lowland forests VPD is very high. We know this from the monsoon months, the VPD is for sure zero, or rather, it used to be zero for many months in the year (we had 100% humidity!). Now with the changing rain patterns, we get days that are palpably drier even during the height of the monsoon, a very worrying sign.
Above: Not algae, these are leafy liverworts proliferating midstream in the monsoon, Kodagu. Photo Sandilya Theuerkauf
I also learned from Aline that it’s not possible to have healthy water systems without the bryophytes and then remembered Wolfgang saying many years ago, that a sign of a sick forest in the rain forests of the Western Ghats is an absence of mosses, and also ferns.
Above: Mossy forest in Kodagu.Photo Sandilya Theuerkauf.
Aline chatted with me as she planted a moss and liverwort display so that we could show visitors “acrocarpous and plerocarpous mosses, and thalloid and leafy liverworts”.
I asked her why she was drawn to mosses, and she replied:
“mossy forests appeal to the unconscious, they are fairylike.”
And then she added: “ I love mosses, but it’s the liverworts that really fascinate me!”
Above: Aline plants her bryophyte display for visitors to GBS. Photo Suprabha Seshan
While Aline investigates the role of bryophytes in regulating climate as part of a top notch research team from Cambridge University, here at Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, Laly Joseph, Purvi Jain and Suma Keloth cultivate and conserve over 150 species of mosses and liverworts from the Western Ghats. Besides these cultivated species, there are many more on the trees all over the land, in the old forest, as well as the younger regrowing habitats. Aline did a little survey and found 70 species on a short section of a trail going through mature (but selectively felled) forest.
Above: Just so we can tell what the main different groups of mosses and liverworts are, Aline left us some aids. Photo Sora Tsukamoto
I remember the time when I was mad about moss some 15 years ago (I still adore them, but no longer chase them!). I crept around the place looking everywhere for bryophytes, and tried to get my head around the differences between mosses, liverworts and hornworts.
Above: Bryophytes often grow in mixed colonies of several species. Here’s a little patch at GBS showing at least three species. Photo: Abhishek Jain
In a funding proposal I wrote: “we simply need moss. Much as we are captivated by their aesthetic appeal and their diversity, we know that we just cannot do without them. The well being of many flowering plants is rooted in moss”. We got the funding, undoubtedly, due to the ample charms of bryophytes.
In a talk I gave back then, “our lives have thus became entwined in moss by sheer necessity. For years we had collected one kind of droopy moss for cultivating some of our species such as the epiphytic Impatiens and orchids. Not dissimilar to the use of moss sticks by nurserymen. Over time however, we observed that this species would sometimes inhibit growth. It soured the substratum. We figured this happened as the base of the mat died out. The pH dropped. A fatal change to other plants, especially tender ones.”
I wrote endless purple prose: “Ancient plants. They’ve been around a long long time, they’re part of the planet’s growing up, and they are here defending it still, not just bearing witness to its devastation. Small green things, daily redefining the word green. Moss green, liverwort green, bryum green should be an entire palette in itself. Psychedelic moss green, dull dark moss green, hornwort green, furry moss green, tipped-with-light moss green; tender liverwort green; rich absorbent moss green; decaying moss green.”
Embarrassing as all these writings are in retrospect, I am also comforted by the memory: the effort was intrinsic to a serious and well intentioned bryophyte service.
Above: Impatiens seedlings germinate in mossy mats on rocks, at GBS. Photo Sora Tsukamoto.
As our work with epiphytes unfolded, we were driven to explore mosses and liverworts as well. We made notes. Brought some home. Planted them out. And allowed them to proliferate. Laly planted them, Wolfgang set up a sprinkler system. I loved the idea that the Sanctuary was growing into a bryophyte conservation centre.
When we discovered little clusters of hornworts in the garden, we were really excited. Hornworts are the smallest of the bryophyte groups, and very difficult to see if they are not in their “horn” stage. There is a rare epiphytic species of hornwort, but even Aline hasn’t seen it. Hornworts have unique organelles called pyronoids, which play an important role in concentrating carbon.
Since our knowledge of bryophyte taxonomy was virtually non-existent, we made our own distinctions. Our mosses were remembered and referred to in terms of their habitats, habits and associations. Slowly, we came to see more and more. Our efforts at growing them improved as well. And the best reward: impatiens,orchids and many other groups of flowering and non flowering plants liked them too. We found out that habit and habitat are good criteria by which to distinguish bryophyte species. We started to note than many species which we’d assumed were mosses, were in fact, leafy liverworts.
Then Dr. Manju from Calicut University Department of Botany, gave further clues into how many bryophytes were growing here. She estimated over 150 species.
I investigated bryophytes a little further, packed off samples to her, so she could identify more. At the time Dr. Manju was working on her Ph D thesis on the Bryophytes of Wayanad district. She has recorded over 450 species in this tiny mountainous area.
Above: Is this a moss, a clubmoss or a filmy fern? The kinds of things we puzzle over at GBS! Photo Abhishek Jain
No doubt the first land plants shared a common algal ancestor with green algae, but it was the bryophytes that were the most successful to overcome the harsh conditions on land. They were simply best adapted to survive! In fact, bryophytes are the oldest group of land plants. True survivors! Plant paleontologists tell us that the thalloid liverworts bear the closest resemblance to the earliest explorers from the sea, fossils of which have been found.
Just think: from ocean edges slick with algal slop, procumbent beings sallied forth, on life’s greatest adventure. A monumental journey, away from the supportive and nourishing salted seas to dry land, at that time harsh, buffeted by wild winds, and rocky, bereft of creatures. Then, slowly, in a transition lasting tens of millions of years, life became independent of sea-water, truly one of the most revolutionary events in creation. In other words, life poked its head out of the water, took a deep breath, and stepped away from surf-sprayed coastlines. Land, ahoy!
And then for another period, many millions of years long, the continental plates would have been explored by plants that hugged the open surfaces, like a fine gorgeously green soft woollen living shawl, feeding upon rocks, and turning them into snug habitats for the rest of life.
Above: Bryophytes and water are closely associated. They need water to reproduce sexually. Another colony with both liverworts and mosses at GBS Photo Abhishek Jain.
I’d always believed that it was the bryophytes who invented stomata, those pores on the outer layer of leaves that control gas exchange and water vapour loss. Aline educated me: “A group of liverworts, the complex thalloids, do have pores & air chambers in their gametophytic tissues which share functions with the anatomically quite different stomata of vascular plants. It is thought that these pores aid ventilation to the multilayered tissue and play an important role in gas exchange (most mosses & simple thalloids as well as leafy liverworts consist of a single layer of cells, so there is no need for such complex structures). However these primitive structures are not stomata as there is no control for the aperture of the pore due the lack of guard cells”
Above: A closeup of Polytrichum, a genus of moss with more “structure”. Out planted at GBS Photo Abhishek Jain
The life cycle of bryophytes is fascinating and deserves a whole post in itself. The alternation of generations, the fact that the haploid gametophyte is the visible, photosynthetic form, while the diploid sporophyte is slender, tiny, and harder to see, bearing capsules with the spores only seasonally. I’ll invite you instead to dip into an incredible online resource that Aline pointed me to: Janice Glime’s ebook on Bryophyte Ecology, a real treasure trove of information on all matters bryophytic.
I remain enthralled by the idea that these plants have discovered something so clever so long ago, and continue to still deploy these ancient strategies. Bryophytes, clearly, are very successful. When visitors come to GBS and we look at mosses and liverworts, I have the sense we’re partaking of some of the oldest stories on the planet.
Above: Out planted epiphytic mosses, grasses and orchids at GBS. Photo: Sora Tsukamoto
Thus, to end with, at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary we pay homage to this passage in life’s history. Our garden happily rests on mossy foundations. It celebrates the beginnings of terrestrial tenancy, as well as the continued role of bryophytes in global ecology, and in rainforest community. We are proud to work closely together with the very first of the landlovers, the mosses, liverworts and hornworts. They have free rein with us: they almost never get weeded!
Above: Western Catchment, Mukurthi National Park, mosses, Impatiens acaulis and various grasses in the monsoon. Photo: Suprabha Seshan
A final final note to end on: would you like to join a growing tribe of guerrilla gardeners who make moss graffiti on city sidewalks and walls? Aline introduced us to this notion, and it’s very simple, one among many creative and ecological things you can do with moss.
Check out this link: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Moss-Graffiti-1/
If only bryophytes could rule the planet once more! We need a moss and liverwort revolution!
Above: Impatiens acaulis in a rocky habitat at the Sanctuary
It’s the tail end of the south-west monsoon. The north-east rains are about to begin. The gap between the two is very short this time. I’m sitting by some Impatiens plants in the shola habitat of the Sanctuary’s plant conservation area.
The petals of each and every Impatiens flower glisten from the last shower, and the whole slope above me is backlit in the morning sun. There are several different species of Impatiens here, some on trees, some on rocks, some growing tall and shrubby, others that are annual, among grass. I watch them dipping their leaves in the warm breeze. They seem to thrive in large gregarious huddles. They also snuggle up with mosses, grasses, orchids and all kinds of other plants. I watch the dazzle of colour, pinks and whites and crimsons and reds, offset by greens of every hue.
Above: Outplanted epiphytic Impatiens
Impatiens flowers are notorious among botanists for their so-called changeable characters. J. D Hooker, who attempted the first classification of the species within the genus in the early 1900s complained that they are a ‘terror to botanists’ and ‘deceitful above all plants, and desperately wicked’. And this too at a time when only 158 species had been described by botanists of the day. Now, over 850 species are described, mostly distributed in the tropics, from Africa to India, South Asia, southern China and Japan. The fact that there are only a handful of species found in America and Europe, presents a puzzle to phylogeneticists studying the group.
Above: A closer look at the flowers of a scapigerous Impatiens
I perch on my rocky ledge and wonder how Noah would have dealt with the Impatiens. How would he have decided on what is a kind, in his mission to have on board the ark, two and two of every kind? How would he have distinguished between different species in what’s arguably the largest genus in the whole world, at 1000 species (including the ones not yet described but still being debated). And would he have allowed them to multiply on board, and to further speciate too?
I’ve had a lot of problems with Noah, and not just because of his high handed choice of limiting the lucky ones to only two per kind, but also for all the assumptions he must have made about sex and biology, about what constitutes a minimum viable number, and whether individuals can exist outside of mixed species communities, in other words, whether there can be meaningful conservation if individuals removed from habitat.
Above: Another scapigerous Impatiens
For if I were Noah, I would, in a heartbeat, choose my personal friends and family (human and nonhuman) of course, but then I’d assume each of them would want to make their own further choices, and I’d acknowledge the interdependency between all of us, that is, between all creatures: animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria; and then I’d leave it up to everybody, to gather all those who they felt a belonging with. All this assuming that I, and I alone, had this choice, which of course begs a whole other series of questions on how any of us has the right to choose the fate of another.
The ark concept, on closer look, is quite fraught, and needs to be rethought for those of us who work in conservation, and those of us who use the word ark as a metaphor to describe these refugia, and those of us who think of our captive breeding and ex-situ conservation centres as arks, where we-in-control, exercise choice, restriction, and the power to include or exclude one or the other. Which is not to say we don’t have limitations on what we can or not do (especially considering how the wild world is being further rapidly decimated).
We acknowledge at the Sanctuary, that these choices are born out of space and time constraints partly, but much more out of our own abilities or lack of. Cultivating specific plants such that they happily grow into populations, and into communities, takes a long time, and the learning curve is very steep. We have to make sure we don’t lose any in the first place. If things work out, then it leads to better skills for growing other similar plants. Besides, we have to encourage habitat growth at the same time as well, which in turn leads to conditions that other plants prefer, and these together, sound horticulture, combined with habitat rehabilitation or restoration is a far more effective way to support the plants we bring in through our search and rescue operations for rare and endangered species.
Above; Epiphytic Impatiens have pronounced juglike spurs
To complete the Noah issue, I would also have a problem on deciding on kind, or species, as a (taxonomically defined) discrete entity, when, pretty much everyone I see on this slope, is cohabiting in community, and I see the influence of environment on the bodies of each, and the behaviour of each, and how these so called discrete characters, are actually quite flexible, and certainly in the case of the Impatiens, they seem to be very flexible for they seem to be speciating under our very noses!
The point being, these Impatiens are happy with these grasses, and these mosses, and these Wendlandia trees. And that perhaps left to themselves, they have entirely another approach to the question of who is necessary, not on the basis of kind only, but on the basis of community.
Above: Annual Impatiens grow profusely in a grassland habitat at the Sanctuary
All these are purely personal thoughts that arise as I marvel at the daily work of plants, and the daily work of my colleagues at the Sanctuary. The spectacular achievements of Laly Joseph, in growing more than 100 species of Impatiens are evident firstly in the exuberant responses from the plants themselves.
Laly’s ability to recognize similarities and differences between related plants, and her ease with modern taxonomy, as well as her own set of mnemonics derived from 25 years of close association with these plants, and a lifetime in this place, is a whole study in metacognition in itself, for it comprises an extraordinary memory for Impatiens biogeography across the Western Ghats, an awareness of their conservation status, a fine apprehension of their ecologies in each and every place, as well as hard skills in cultivating them so that they grow well in a living habitat, which, though primarily of their own making, is supported by techniques born from her understanding of what conditions they prefer.
Above: Epiphytic Impatiens in nursery
Various scientists have been trying to understand historical biogeography, speciation and diversification in the Impatiens. By evolutionary biology accounts 100 species in a narrow mountain range, is a very high level of diversity. Scientists want to work out a tree of relationships (phylogeny) to see which of the forms would be the most ancient, the proto-Impatiens, the one from which all others arose. They also look at the genetics of flower colouration, and they collect leaf samples from as many species as possible to formulate what are called molecular protocols. Their field studies also look at pollinators that like the Impatiens. A very good friend of ours, Dr. Bhaskar, has written a monograph on the south Indian Impatiens, the most comprehensive and exhaustive work to date.
Above: Impatiens raziana close up
But what defines the Impatiens? Here are some simple and straightforward clues to the genus : Herbaceous or shrubby plants, with fleshy watery translucent stems (which occasionally can be woody), prominent leaves which are also soft and membranous and usually toothed at the edges, bright irregularly shaped flowers with 3-5 petals, often spurred, and fused stamens forming a cap over the ovary. It’s the springy action of the seed pod or the capsule that gives the genus its name (old folk name: Touch-me-not from the Latin noli-ma-tangere), the way it explodes on being touched, when ripe, so that the seeds may disperse widely. Erasmus Darwin, great grandfather of Charles Darwin has a verse on this peculiarity, in his long poem ‘The Loves of Plants’, published in 1791.
“With fierce distracted eye Impatiens stands, Swells her pale cheeks and brandishes her hands, With rage and hate the astonished groves alarms, And hurls her infants from her frantic arms.”
I’ve never understood how he got away with that, perhaps because he was Erasmus Darwin!
Above: Impatiens maculata
And for those who like to muse upon the meaning of flowers, Impatiens, in traditional European flower lore, signify “ardent love”. Further, the family Balsaminaceae derives its name from the word balsam, meaning: liquid resin or resinous oily substance. Chambers also provides the following interpretations for balsam: any healing agent; fragrant (balsamy). The word balm, incidentally, has its roots in balsam, which itself has ancient roots in the Greek word : balsamon.
Someday I would love to know more from our Paniya neighbours and Kurchiya neighbours about plants like the Impatiens. There are so many parallel and intertwined taxonomies still alive in places like Wayanad with its rich human diversity, that to tease out one would be a lifetime’s study.
Above: Outplanted scapigerous Impatiens with epiphytic grass
The Impatiens have presented a problem to taxonomists for two reasons primarily: they make very poor herbarium specimens because of the succulent and watery nature of their tissues; they are indeed highly variable in nature, hybridizing rapidly to form all kinds of intermediate forms which bridge the gap between species that are often very distinct, and this over relatively short periods of time, within our experience for instance.
In our work in plant conservation we deal not only with this variability of plant form but also with life histories, ecologies and preferences - big and small. So, of course we are continually brought face to face with the link between plants and time and space (the crux of biogeography): the past in the present as it were, through form and hue, the sense that there are aeons of time rolled up in one curve, one shape and then its relationship to the land that we, the plant and us, together inhabit today. And in evolutionary biology terms, this movement and adaptation of beings across the planet, over vast stretches of time, leads to the endless variety we see around us.
Above: Impatiens grandis
In the monsoon the Impatiens are everywhere, and there are more than 100 species in these mountains, which would be like having 100 species of the Panthera genus in the same area. It’s almost impossible to go anywhere in the mountains in this season and not see them, and what’s fun is that there are special ones to each of the plateaux and peaks and ranges within the whole range, and different species at different elevations, and also lots of different types of Impatiens, from annuals to perennials, and stemless ones, to shrubby and epiphytic ones.
I love meeting different species of Impatiens in different parts of the Western Ghats, there is something about them that seems to give a very special character to a place, almost like the yellow browed bulbuls and the slaty headed scimitar babblers, which to me, are inextricably part of waking up here everyday. Why only the Impatiens speciated in this “rapid” way is still a mystery, but they do indeed seem to love cool wet places, they are clearly tropical mountain plants: orophytes. They tend to congregate in altitudes over 1000m and they love high rainfall.
We’ll await the findings of evolutionary biologists: Why did so many species come about in this mountain range, and do they go back to an ancestral single one that was common to the mountains of Africa and India, and is it that, over the sixty million year drift, the mountains grew hot and cold, grew higher, were isolated from other mountains, and that this mountain building process, went hand in hand with the speciation of Impatiens?
Some scientists insist we have to go deep into the cell, to find the conclusive factor to explain the endless transfiguring beauty of Impatiens variety, and how after all this time, and all this circumstance, one genus should attain such richness. Others say, something in the environment reciprocates with something in their genes, that the two play upon each other, that a twist in the chromosomal structure of the Impatiens group leads to their mutation under stress, especially under stress from excess or insufficient water. One theory goes that the size of Impatiens chromosomes is affected by the amount and periodicity of moisture available to the plant. And this in turn leads to an unusual degree of hybridization between species. As gardeners we don’t dwell too long on the why question, we have so many other more pressing issues to deal with, but we all love to hear good stories!
Above: Impatiens scapiflora growing on trees and rocks at the Sanctuary.
Laly knows their biogeography really well. She and I made a table some 15 years ago, long before we got a computer. We did two versions of this table, so we could see all the species on the left first column, and against each all the places and all their ecological preferences, and their conservation status, and horticultural details. In the next table, we had all the places from north to south in the left column, and then for each place, all the species found there. This was our first handwritten database, and was really interesting, because we could see clusters of subgroups within the genus, and then see how these clustered in particular places.
I remember almost the exact moment I got hooked by them, traveling up a winding road up the steep Nilgiri escarpment, how suddenly my attention was commanded by them, because I had learned to see them. Those roadside succulent weedy plants with pretty pink flowers, that I just glanced at on previous journeys now began to turn my head. In that mountain area alone there were some 38 species, all endemic to that locale, found nowhere else in the Western Ghats, let alone Asia or the world.
Above: Impatiens dalzelli, an annual
All this thought on a group of plants, is just to demonstrate the surprises in store when anyone starts to engage with the natural world. I’m presenting the Impatiens as a synecdoche, that is, using a part to talk of the whole.
For conservation gardeners at the Sanctuary, the genus signifies: a particular complex of physical, climatic and evolutionary factors, without which we would not have the Impatiens in such diversity and abundance; the abundance of sweet water, both atmospheric and ground, cascading down rock slopes and vertiginous cliffs, and in gusting deluges from the sky; the beauty of a season, a magical monsoonal beauty, with meadows and dark sholas and mossy tree trunks coming alive in a blaze of colour; the intensely contrasting phases of dry and wet, leading to peculiar stresses on Impatiens physiologies and growth preferences; and of course, the presence of all kinds of other beings, from butterflies and birds and frogs, to mosses and orchids and grasses and if you look further, to tahr and sambhar and tiger and elephant.
The Impatiens genus also signifies the decades of collective time given over by various botanists, Hooker and Gamble and Fischer and Wight and Barnes and Bhaskar, who were all mystified by the taxonomic slipperiness of the group!
Above: Maya Goel near her home in Kodagu
But mostly, Impatiens signify most profoundly, home. Like for young Maya, in the picture above, for me, home is where wild balsams grow free.
We know that the forest would take over our human dwellings if we didn’t do a little bit of maintenance work, which we reluctantly do once in a few years. In between, we enjoy the fabulous ecologies we live under, and within.
The Sanctuary roofs deserve a whole post in themselves. As do unplastered brick pillars and walls, and little ruins that can be left alone to be dens, and piles of rubble that soon become thriving hubs of activity.
This post is partly a farewell to a roof that once was. The library roof (above) needed rescue this year, it was bearing down with the weight of layers of humus, and leaf debris, and the entangled branches of a bougainvillea, and the rootmats of many different plant species. The picture shows how it looked like for many years during the monsoon months.
Such a wealth of plant diversity makes for a wealth of animal and fungal diversity. From rat snakes, cat snakes and pit vipers, to beetles, birds, bats, rats, shrews, spiders, ants, butterflies and worms of all shapes and sizes, this particular roof was a fascinating place, packed with action.
Below: A closer look at Impatiens gardneriana on the library rooftiles. What a perfect place for this sun loving gregarious plant, an annual species, endemic to these mountains, flowering profusely in the monsoon, now self propagated all over the Sanctuary in open sunny areas, particularly on courtyard walls, and roofs. This signifies that they like rocky banks, and cliffs, and the closest we can get to that kind of habitat, is a terracotta tile roof, or a drystone wall.
Co-existence is a delicate business, and how not to step on different kinds of toes, or tails, or probing roots, as well as keeping one’s bed for oneself, calls for lots of negotiations, as well as different degrees and types of awarenesses. While niche creation is delightful, as it is educational and ecological, every now and then, somebody suffers, usually nonhumans at the hands of our human choices.
Sadly the library roof is bereft of most of the flowers now, and the bougainvillea is no more, the little tree saplings taking root in the humus are gone, the succulent Remusatia (a native aroid) is nearly all gone, in fact, the entire mini-forest up there is gone, barring some mosses, and a few scattered individuals of different species.
Of course, this is a temporary gap. In a couple of years it will be lush again, for we’ll leave it alone. The Impatiens will surely be fully back, as will orchids, ferns, nettles and mosses.
Impatiens gardneriana
We once did a project with 12 year old school kids on the habitats just around us, within which we live, and how we share our most intimate spaces with myriad species. They examined every nook and cranny in the house, and how a firewood pile is home to all kinds of insects, the life in a drystone wall, and the incredible diversity even on paths. The lists of animals and plants found were impressive!
This is both a sobering fact, as well as one to work with. Living beings are adept at making bare places into homes, given the slightest chance. Imagine how beautiful the whole world was, before industrial civilization hit it. With over 90% of most habitats gone, every little physical toehold that we can give other creatures, is also a toehold in time for those species. Protecting what remains of the wild world is the first most important thing we need to do, and giving more and more destroyed, or degraded spaces back to wild creatures to make their homes is the next. This also includes perceiving our houses as homes of other creatures. To invite them to be co-creators of a shared home is a great way to bring beauty and ecology together. There is room and roof, for many! If not all!
