Plants
& Field Trips - October 2006
(Click
on thumbnails for larger images)
October 13
Luzon, Quezon Province, Quezon National Park, Pagbilao and Atimonan,
lowland dipterocarp forest (200-300 m)
I had my first official collecting trip to Quezon National Park.
Earlier in the week I faxed a letter from Dr. Fernando
requesting
permission to look for dipterocarps and Gomphandra
to the superintendent (PASu) of the Park. We left Los
Baños a bit before 6am and stopped at the PASu's office to
clarify what we would be doing.
The drive to Quezon was along roads through low-elevation hills.
There was no forest in sight - everything has been logged and
replaced with rice fields, banana plantations, coconut plantations, and
houses. There are a few native fruit trees and some shrubs
mixed
in, but as far as the eye can see, the landscape is dominated by
coconut palms. Even the steepest hillsides have no natural
forest
left. It's not surprising that landslides have become a
problem
in some areas - there aren't any trees to hold the soil down.
When we reached the Park at 9:30am, suddenly the hillsides were covered
by forest. We got out of the rented van and started walking
up
the road from Pagbilao to Atimonan. I didn't see to much
evidence
of typhoon damage, other than a few trees that were blown down and
fewer leaves than normal on the trees. We saw some massive
dipterocarps along the road Gomphandra
as well. We didn't find any until we were almost past
the exit
gates of the Park. According to my GPS unit, we started at
about
120 m elevation, then made our way up a big hill. The van
driver
picked us up before we made it to the hill. There's a giant
sign
that says "Quezon National Forest Park" on the hillside. The
road
makes a series of hairpin turns to switchback up the hill, and some of
the curves along the road are manned by flaggers because even though
the road is two-lane, it's too dangerous to have vehicles going both
ways around the curves. We got out of the van again near the
exit
gates of the Park, just where the boundary between Pagbilao and
Atimonan is.
I wasn't able to identify most of the species I saw, though I'm sure
Dr. Fernando knew many of them. He was photographing
dipterocarps, which are probably the largest trees in the forest at the
Park. I was able to spot several species of Ficus, a Mussaenda
(Rubiaceae, recognizable by its showy white inflorescence bracts), Schefflera
(Araliaceae) and a Strombosia
(Olacaceae).
At first we mistook the Strombosia
for Gomphandra
because they look similar, but the leaf-tear test proved that it wasn't
really Gomphandra.
The leaves of Gomphandra,
when torn, have cobwebby threads of protoxylem pulled from the midrib
and secondary veins, similar to what one can do with Cornus in the US.
Strombosia,
on the other hand, has a few clear projections of xylem or lignified
tissue that protrude about 1 mm from the torn midrib. Up the
hill
just past the exit posts, I saw tree ferns (perhaps Cyathea), a
yellowish-orange ground orchid (perhaps Malaxis?), Ficus pseudopalma,
and Donax
sp. (Marantaceae). Then on the left
side of the road, down a
very slippery and muddy bank, we found the first Gomphandra
of the day. It was a sterile plant, but we collected a bit
anyway, just in case it was the only one we found. I fell
going
up the bank - all my field pants are brown for a good reason, although
now that pair is several shades of brown instead of just
one.
Down the road a bit, within sight of the next manned curve, Dr.
Fernando found a nice specimen of Daemonorops
mollis (Arecaceae) in fruit. There was a big Shorea polysperma
(Dipterocarpaceae) nearby, along with Artocarpus cf. altilis and a
palmately lobed Sterculia
(Malvaceae). On the right side of the road, around the curve
and just over the concrete drainage ditch, we found Gomphandra sp.
in fruit. The fruit were still green, but they had the
characteristic persistent stigma of the genus, and the tree passed the
leaf-tear test. It was about 6 m tall and 7.4 cm dbh, with
fruit
in short axillary clusters of 4. The fruit were strongly
asymmetrical and were probably close to their mature length, though the
seed inside was still soft and white, with no apparent ridges.
Associated species included a tree fern, Ficus variegata,
and a small Fagraea
(Loganiaceae) with large leaves. The species is quite
different
from G. luzoniensis,
in leaf shape, secondary vein number, and
infrutescence. I had hoped to determine the distribution
range
for species of Gomphandra
in the Philippines, but given the extent of
deforestation, I don't think that will be possible. At least
in
the areas where I've been so far, forest occurs as islands in a sea of
agriculture. It's like looking for tallgrass prairie in the
US
Midwest, except given the high degree of diversity and endemism here, I
have to wonder how many extinct species used to grow in what is now
coconut plantations.
We had a lunch break at the Atimonan Tourist Information Center, near a
fruiting fig tree, and
then hiked up the stairs opposite the center to what used to be a
visitor center and is now just overgrown ruins. To his
delight,
Dr. Fernando found that a new species of Calamus
he's been describing was in fruit, which will allow him to complete and
publish the description. We headed up a trail that eventually
leads to a survey plot. I didn't go very fast because there
were
many species to look at, some of which I recognized. Curculigo palmata
(Hypoxidaceae) looks like a little immature palm on the forest floor.
Macaranga
grandifolia
(Euphorbiaceae) lived up to its name with huge peltate leaves
that would never fit on
an herbarium sheet. I saw a climbing
fern (Lygodium)
and Flagellaria indica,
looking much more robust than it ever did at Cornell
University's
greenhouse. There was another ground orchid along the trail -
greenish yellow with red spots (perhaps Trichoglottis?).
I took pictures of a couple butterflies, and then there was
another Gomphandra,
also in
fruit, but with its fruit turning a bit yellow.
We went down a little gully and then climbed up to the survey plot.
Leaves of Anisoptera
aurea
(Dipterocarpaceae) littered the ground - black above and golden brown
below. I took a picture of another ground orchid, this one
with
small white flowers in a terminal raceme (another Malaxis?).
I saw a sapling that
I recognized from my work with trees of
borneo - it's either a Brackenridgea
or Neckera
(Ochnaceae) - I have to check in Flora Malesiana. The
venation is
distinctive enough that I remembered it. The best part of the
day
(aside from finding Gomphandra
of course) was the forest at the survey plot. Large trunks of
Tristaniopsis
decorticata
(Myrtaceae) glowed orange-brown in the afternoon light. The
color reminded me of some species of Bursera
I've seen, but the bark peels off in long strips. The
typhoon
must have taken all the strips off because there were piles of bark at
the base of the trunks but none on the trees themselves. It
was
easy to spot all the individuals of Tristaniopsis, but
there was also at least one Dipterocarpus
grandiflorus
around. Its huge two-winged seeds
were sprouting, and a
downed
branched showed that the tree has a large gray-brown terminal bud,
similar to that found in some species of Carya. A
number of mushrooms grew under the trees, including a large
brown-topped Russula
(?) that was being a leech
stool rather than a toad stool.
Many
other interesting trees that I couldn't identify grew in the area as
well - one with thick
punctate leaves and Terminalia
branching, one with 2& collateral buds in each leaf
axil, a Myrtaceae or
Clusiaceae with a midrib that was distinctly raised above, and more.
I'd love to go back and identify all the species in that
area. I also saw a Dischidia
(Asclepiadaceae) with small inflated leaves, several species of
epiphytic orchids, and a script lichen.
One rule of botany is that you always see different things on the way
back. Opposite the fruiting Gomphandra,
I noticed a scroph with alternate toothed leaves and beautiful large
purple-tinged flowers. I use the
term "scroph" in the most
general sense, since families in that area have been rearranged and I'm
not sure where this plant would have fit in the old arrangement, never
mind the new one. Next to it was an interesting shrub with Calophyllum-like
secondary venation, except the leaves were alternate and the fruit was
an orange four-parted capsule (in all likelihood). As we were
leaving
the forest, I stopped to take several pictures
of what Dr. Fernando said was an
endemic Philippine species, Gloeocarpus
patentivalvis
(Sapindaceae). Apparently this is
a rare species and I wasn't able to find any pictures of it on the
internet. We only saw
saplings, but they had beautiful
red fern-like leaves emerging. All in
all, it
was a good botanizing and
collecting expedition.
Last
updated: January 3, 2006
