The dogwood with sandpaper leaves

Species name: Cornus drummondii

Common name: roughleaved dogwood

Location: Western University campus

The roughleaved dogwood is a relatively rare species native to the midwestern plains in the United States. It's nearly native to Ontario, but stops just short at the border in Michigan (some would argue it's native to the southernmost areas near Windsor and Point Pelee in Ontario but no evidence suggests it exists there as a wild species). It is an understory species in the forest, but because it prefers full sun it is most likely to be found on forest edges. Because of the ever decreasing amounts of forest cover, this species is more and more difficult to find.

Unfortunately, I managed to catch this small tree (or large shrub) in what is probably the least exciting portion of its yearly cycle. In the spring and into the early summer it produces dainty white flowers on the bright red inflorescence branches. These flowers are pollinated, then mature into green fruits in the late summer (as illustrated above) and turn white in the fall. These white fruits are important food sources for many native species, including about 20 species of bird, and other small mammals like chipmunks, voles and mice (squirrels rarely eat the berries since they prefer hard-shelled nuts like acorns, but if they're hungry they'll eat just about anything). There are also many insect species that lay their eggs on the branches and leaves of this plant and the larvae ("caterpillars") eat the leaves before moulting into their mature forms. Because of the dense leaf cover and the dense branching growth, this species makes an ideal tree or shrub species for birds to seek shelter. It is relatively fast-growing and then growth is nearly halted when it reaches 4-6 feet in diameter, so makes an ideal candidate for a shrub hedge or other type of visual or noise screen.

Unlike its close relative the red osier dogwood (which you can read all about HERE), this small tree doesn't have much winter interest. The bright red inflorescence stalks that hold onto the white berries turn brown and fall off the tree when the leaves are shed in the fall, and they are produced anew in the spring. The rest of the branches on the tree are a typical brown, unlike the red osier dogwood's bright red bark. This doesn't mean you shouldn't plant one! Think about how happy you'd make some birds if you had one in your back yard :) Aside from the ecological benefit to birds and insects, this tree is incredibly resistant to just about every type of disease out there. It resists nearly all types of fungal infections, there are no known insect pests, and rabbits aren't big fans of eating the bark of this species during the winter (unlike hemlocks. The poor trees in our back yard get stripped of their bark during bad winters!).

The roughleaved dogwood is named that because of the very coarse hairs produced on the undersides of the leaves (the terminal branchlets are also covered in this coarse hair, as are the petioles of each leaf). Because the trichomes are short and fat, they give a very rough texture to the underside of the leaf (almost like sandpaper), unlike the long thin trichomes of many leaves that make them soft and pleasant to touch.

Mexican White Pines are better than our own White Pines in our own climate?!

Species name: Pinus ayacahuite

Common name: Mexican white pine, ayacahuite

Location: Western University campus

I have my suspicions about this tree, and it has nothing to do with the identification. There are three Mexican white pines all planted in a pretty clump; they are definitely ornamental trees and were planted after the arboretum was established on campus (so, believe it or not, these trees are younger than I am. Boy do they grow fast! Because...I'm not that old, no matter what my students would lead you to believe). They are most definitely Mexican white pines. What I have my suspicions about is their distribution and abundance. They are native to three very, very small pockets in Mexico along parts of the mountain range that runs straight through the middle of Mexico. These three pockets are now independent populations, and at the time of their assessment under the IUCN (the International Union on the Conservation of Nature) the three populations were non-interbreeding. This in itself isn't necessarily a big deal, but it's the rest of it that matters. Mexico is undergoing, like many countries in Latin America, a huge shift from rural rolling landscapes where you won't see a person for miles into a highly urbanized country with extensive urban sprawl. On top of that, all of these "Eco Resorts" are popping up all over the country. And then there's the drug running (there's no point in denying that it exists!). Oh, and on top of all of that the conversion from traditional vegeculture multi-crop agriculture to a more "North American" (I hate that description for it, since Mexico is part of North America) method of monoculture agriculture. These four things in combination amount to a lot of deforestation; doing this in an area that already contains three highly fragmented populations of a species, populations that exist nowhere else, probably means that the "Least Concern" status that this species has according to the IUCN is now incorrect. I would bet that at least one of those three populations no longer exists, and that the status of the species should, at minimum, be category NT or "Near Threatened", if not VU or "Vulnerable." But, as with all biodiversity research, you first need to find an organization that will fund the research to go out and study these populations (which hasn't been done since 1994!). To say this is a "Mexican problem," or even a "Third World problem," would be completely incorrect. Under the current economic climate in Canada, the only species reassessments done for species at risk are for species that grow in economically significant areas (like the Tar Sands in Alberta), or in areas where urbanization is slated to occur (in the case of Environmental Assessments). I like to think that Canada is a pretty "developed" country...!

Not having the funding to do diversity studies and study species distributions isn't something that can be restricted to a specific geographic region. It's something we, as human beings inhabiting the world, need to think about. Where are our future medicines going to come from? Nearly 95% of medicines around the world are plant-based or plant-derived (or once plant-derived but now synthesized in the lab). Many of our most successful early cancer treatments originate from plants (taxol is the first one that jumps to mind, and you can read all about the plant that taxol comes from HERE). Our most widely prescribed (and most would argue, for good reason, over-prescribed) antibiotic comes from a fungus (penicillin from the Penicillium fungus). And where would we be without wine (grapes and an alcohol-fermenting fungus) or tequilla (agave and an alcohol-fermenting fungus)?! It would be a sad case indeed. Anyway, onto happier things, like talking about Mexican white pines... :)

The Mexican white pine is one of the most widely planted pulp trees, from which we derive paper. Nearly every large paper-producing country in the world (except Canada) plants the Mexican white pine as opposed to any other white pine species. This is because it is highly disease-resistant (especially to white pine blister rust, which is an ever-increasing problem in Canada and the United States, attacking all of our native white pine species), highly cold-tolerant (despite being from tropical Mexico, it can withstand temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius!), and highly drought-tolerant. This makes it ideal for planting in hot, dry countries, hot, wet countries, cold, dry countries, and cold, wet countries. Name a country that doesn't fall into one of those categories! I dare you :) Because of their large cones, and soft, feathery needles they are also a highly prized ornamental species. One great thing about this tree that makes it ideal to plant as an ornamental is that it doesn't actually get to be that large. The tallest Mexican white pine on record lives in Germany and is only 20 meters tall. That's not a very big tree for being the biggest ever recorded!

Three geraniums for your Sunday

Going along with the theme of "plants on display in the lab room of a course I TA," I have a series of three different, yet closely related, plants for this blog. The first one is a plant I've blogged about before, and the next two are unique (and I didn't even know they existed until I started with this course; now I'm trying to track them down to plant them in my garden somewhere!). The first image shows all of them together so you can get a bit of perspective about size difference and how they differ from each other on a "big picture" scale, then I'll profile each one of them separately.

This image gives away a bit of the surprise (hindsight: take the cardboard cheats out of the way before photographing next time!), but the major difference between these three species of geranium is how they smell. The one in the middle is the "ordinary" geranium, and the pots on each side are geraniums that each have unique smells that I force the students to identify (I'm awesome like that; I make my students use their senses in labs...I even make them taste plants! Don't worry, I ask about allergies at the very beginning so I don't kill anyone by accident). So let's get smelling!

Species name: Pelargonium x hortorum

Common name: common geranium

Location: teaching lab at Western

This first plant is probably the most easily identified species of any kind of geranium because they're so gosh darn common! Especially in North America, it seems like everyone, everywhere has planted at least one geranium plant in their garden in the spring (some climates in North America in the southern United States would provide ideal growth conditions to allow for the growth of geraniums all year; they are perennial plants in ideal conditions). The colour of flowers can differ drastically, as can the shape and general morphology of the leaves of the plant. The common geranium is native to southern Africa, where it is actually now nearly threatened in the wild because of habitat loss and the increasing frequency of severe drought. I have blogged about this plant twice before in two different forms; you can read all about the two cultivars HERE and HERE.

The easiest way to identify a "regular" geranium is by looking at the leaves (very fleshy and almost furry on both sides) and the flowers (the characteristic five petals with the stigma in the middle that's star-shaped; you might need to click on the image of the flower to make it larger to see it). Since other species of geraniums are less likely to flower both in general and in captivity (putting other species of geraniums in pots makes them significantly less likely to flower, but they do also have different flowering times so they might not have been "in season" at the time I took these photos), we'll concentrate on the leaves as methods of distinguishing these species.

Species name: Pelargonium crispum

Common name: lemon scented geranium

Location: teaching lab at Western

You can see right away that this species is quite different from the previous, "common" geranium in two ways. The first one is the way that the plant grows. Instead of it being a low, bushy plant, it instead grows thick, woody stems and the leaves are concentrated at the top of these stems. This is partly attributed to the general differences in growth habit of these species, but also a difference in breeding; the common geranium has been selectively bred over centuries to maintain a "low and bushy" growth form because it is more pleasing to gardeners. If you let the plant grow long enough indoors (or live in a climate where this species survives year-round), you'll notice it start to get taller and more wiry as it ages. Pruning can prevent this by keeping the plant short, but since the flowers only emerge from the top of the plant pruning is generally discouraged. It's much easier to just rip it out and replant it if you want to keep it short, or just learn to love a straggly geranium bush.

This species is also native to southern Africa, but is much more common in the wild because of its natural defence mechanism: the scented leaves. The plant hasn't just developed this ability to please humans; it has actually evolved as a way of deterring herbivores from eating the plant. The regular hairs on geranium leaves are called trichomes. The lemon scented geranium also has these trichomes on the leaves, but they also have specialized trichomes called glandular trichomes. These have a swelling at the tip of the hair that contains a tiny droplet of oil. When we separate the bulge from the rest of the hair we get this over-powering smell of lemon (the scent is very similar to Lemon Pledge, if you've ever used that for dusting then you'll recognize the smell immediately), but to a herbivore this means "STAY AWAY!" If a herbivore is silly enough to consume the leaf anyway, then they will in all likelihood be killed (if small) or learn to never do that ever again (if they're larger). The oil droplets contain potent chemicals that are toxic in large quantities; humans would have to ingest an entire plant in order to feel any ill effects so you don't have to worry about any accidental poisonings if you happen to own this plant (there is no reported toxic effects on cats and dogs, but you might want to play it safe and keep them away from it anyway). You will want to be careful, however, with this plant around very young children as the oil in the droplets can be very irritating to sensitive skin (and babies and young children generally have the most sensitive skin, especially on their hands, arms and face). As an aside (a relevant one): I have chewed on one of these leaves just to "try it out," and let me tell you. Not a pleasant experience. It doesn't taste AT ALL like it smells. Word to the wise.

The overall leaf shape of this species is also very different than a common geranium. The leaves are much more lobed than the common geranium, and there is a notch (or a "crisp," where the Latin name of this species comes from) at the end of every leaf vein. They are still fleshy like the common geranium, but another difference between them is that this leaf is much longer than it is wide, where the common geranium has almost a round leaf and at times even wider than it is long in some cultivars.

Species name: Pelargonium grassularioides

Common name: coconut scented geranium

Location: teaching lab at Western

The last plant we have as an example of the diversity of growth form in geranium plants is the coconut scented geranium. This species, also native to southern Africa, is much more common in the wild than the previous two, but not much is actually known about its current state of population abundance and successful reproduction. As it does share a native range with the previous two species, it can be assumed that this species would also be threatened by habitat loss but it can also tolerate much more harsh conditions than the previous two species; it can tolerate growing in really rocky conditions with little soil because of its vining growth habit.

To me, this species doesn't smell too much like coconut unless it's been well taken care of. It smells much more like "chemicals" (the best way I can describe it; it doesn't really smell like any kind of fruit or vegetable or nut). When the plant is happiest, it smells almost exactly like coconut-scented sunscreen (which doesn't actually smell all that much like coconut, but certainly smells like tropical beach!). This is a great example of the properties of secondary compounds, or compounds produced by the plant that are not necessary for survival and often play a role in plant defences. When a plant is under stress, instead of spending a lot of energy making chemicals that it can store in leaves to deter herbivores, it will instead spend all of that energy doing basic metabolic processes like creating sugars and repairing tissues. Once the plant is no longer under stress, it will go back to producing secondary compounds as long as it has the energy to do so. This is a great example of allocation of resources, where the plant almost "decides" where it's best to use energy and what energetically-taxing activities should be avoided. Like me on a vacation: laying by the pool doesn't take a lot of energy so should be done often, walking or running takes a lot of energy so should be avoided :)

The leaves of this species look very similar to the common geranium, but aside from the smell there are a few differences that you can look out for. The first is the texture of the leaf. Instead of being thick and fleshy, this leaf is much thinner and "normal-looking" (which can be seen in the lower photograph where there's a leaf I just happened to catch straight-on from the edge of the leaf). Also, the upper surface of these leaves are completely smooth, unlike the furry upper surface of the common geranium leaf (which may actually vary in hairiness, depending on the cultivar, but will always have at least some hair on the upper surface). The lower surface of this leaf is where all of the glandular trichomes are located. The leaves of this species are also unique in their coloration, regardless of the maturity of the leaf. When very young, the leaf will be much darker green around the leaf veins than anywhere else on the leaf. As the leaf ages (from the middle picture to the bottom one), it becomes much more uniformly green but if you look closely you can still see a bit of a difference in "green-ness" in some areas of the leaf. The last difference with the leaves is the margin or the edge of the leaf. This is a comparison that actually should be avoided, however, as the margins of the leaves of the common geranium can look drastically different based on cultivar.

One of the most easily observed differences between these two species is the growth habit. This species almost entirely lacks a stem; instead there is a dense mass of tissue near the soil level that acts as a stem, and the leaves emerge directly from the level of the soil. All of the above-ground mass is composed purely of leaves. As the plant wants to explore more territory to find more resources, it will create underground rhizomes that will seek out pockets of soil to establish a new basal stem mass to grow new leaves. This rhizome can traverse rock surfaces if needed, and where it is above-ground it will look nearly black because of all of the melanin (yep, the same chemical that your skin makes as a result of skin damage; we refer to this melanin production as "getting a tan") that is produced in the rhizome. This acts as a UV protectant, and can prevent damage to the rhizome as a result of exposure to the sun. Deeply pigmented plant tissues are also generally avoided by herbivores, as digesting melanin is a difficult process and may actually be a toxic process to some insects. I have also tried chewing a leaf of this species, and also not an overly pleasant experience. Gives a much more "fuzzy tongue" experience, so I'm guessing this would suggest it would be toxic in smaller quantities to humans. It would still involve the consumption of a LOT of the plant to produce any kind of ill effects, but best to keep this one more out of the way of children if you can. On the bright side, the essential oils produced by this plant are much less irritating to the skin!

This plant has a few dirty little secrets

Species name: Gossypium spp.

Common name: cotton

Location: teaching lab at Western (first 6 images) and Samana, Dominican Republic (last 2 images)

Cotton is probably one of the most well-known plant products and the single most important plant fibre around the world, yet few people would recognize cotton growing in plant form, let alone if none of the "bolls" (more on that later) were present. Cotton plants are actually becoming more and more popular as ornamental species around the world because of their beautiful flowers which come in a huge variety of colours and sizes (partially dependent on species, but also on cultivar). Most back-yard gardeners would be lucky to end up with actual cotton seeds covered in fibres growing on their plant; cotton crops are the single most susceptible agricultural or horticultural crop to diseases and pests of all kinds: viruses, bacteria, fungi, insects, and even competition by other plants. As I'm sure you can assume now, the crop that requires the most "-icides" in the world is cotton: herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and fertilizers. This makes cotton growing very, very detrimental to the environment, and there are some interesting side-effects to this type of spraying that I'll talk about later in this blog.

There are four main species of cotton grown around the world, and each one is selected for different reasons. Believe it or not, all four of the commercially cultivated cotton species are now at risk of becoming endangered in the wild because of over-harvesting. For a crop we grow so much of, that's almost hard to believe! Gossypium hirsutum, otherwise known as upland cotton or Mexican cotton, is native to Central and South America and represents 95% of cotton cultivation in the United States (about 80-90% of cotton cultivation worldwide). Gossypium barbadense, also known as extra-long staple cotton, is native to tropical South America and is highly sought-after for creating fine cotton garments and cotton cloth (Egyptian cotton and Sea Island cotton are almost always derived from this species). Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to grow because it requires high amounts of humidity in the air, high amounts of rainfall, and full sun to grow properly. This combination is rare in cotton-producing countries; where there is a high amount of rainfall the temperature isn't optimal, and where the temperature is optimal it is very dry. These factors contribute to why this species only accounts for about 8% of worldwide cotton production. Gossypium arboreum, tree cotton, is native to India, Pakistan, and surrounding areas of the Old World. This species was previously used to make fine textiles for traditional garments, but because of its difficulty in harvesting the cotton fibres (there's a reason why it's called tree cotton!) is now only accounts for less than 2% of the world's cotton production. It is still grown in cultivation in some areas in India for its traditional purposes. The last species used as an agricultural crop is Gossypium herbaceum, Levant cotton, is native to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. While only accounting for less than 2% of the world's cotton production, it was the first cotton species to be represented in art form. It was first noticed by European traveler Sir John Mandeville, who described the growth of the plant as producing a melon-like fruit that when planted grew sheep. I couldn't make this up if I tried. He also drew exactly that: a melon in the ground with roots coming off of it, and the plant above it with a giant sheep growing on top. Granted, this was the 14th century and they didn't know much about basic biology back then, but still. Sheep don't grow on cotton trees! It wasn't until the 1800s that this story was officially deemed a fable; up until then there were actually Europeans that traveled to Arabia and sub-Saharan Africa in search of sheep growing on trees. A bit ridiculous when you look back!

Cotton fibres and the cotton seeds are produced in structures that are commonly termed the "cotton boll." These bolls contain anywhere from four to seven seeds, depending on the species. Each seed is covered in a dense layer of very short hairs called cotton lint, and then that is covered in a thick layer (or thin layer, depending on the species) of very long hairs called cotton linters. When we harvest the cotton from the plant, there is a machine that all of the cotton bolls are fed into that has razor blades that rotate very quickly, literally "shaving" the cotton seed of its fibres. The fibres are shaken, which eventually separates the lint from the linters and the linters are spun into long threads that can be used to make fabric. The longer the linters the stronger and smoother the thread. So what happens to all the rest of the "stuff"? Well, there's definitely a dirty side of cotton production, and that is the sheer amount of chemicals applied to most cotton fields. When the seeds and the plant flesh enclosing the cotton seeds are tested for toxic chemical levels, they are found to be containing dangerous chemicals at levels that are even too high to feed to pigs. This is a shame, because cotton seeds are actually incredibly nutritious, and being able to feed cotton by-products to animals would be a great use of these plant wastes! Today, most of it is either composted or burned. G. hirsutum is one of the species of cotton used most often to produce cottonseed oil, which is often produced from organic or nearly-organic cotton. This type of cotton cultivation results in a severely reduced yield of cotton fibres due to the cotton boll weevil, which uses the flesh around young cotton seeds as its primary food source. This doesn't harm the development of the seed (much), but does severely reduce the amount of protective covering the seed can produce (aka the seed hairs or the cotton fibres).

Aside from the fibre use and the new-found ornamental use that cotton plants have, they have also been used for centuries as a medicinal species. In both South America and in Africa, the leaves of the plant are pounded and ground into a paste and applied to the skin to treat hypertension and joint pain. The ground leaves can also be consumed to treat delayed or irregular menstruation. There is, actually, a high likelihood that this second use would be incredibly effective. Most of the time, especially before the advent of contraceptives, a delayed or irregular menstrual cycle is the result of pregnancy. One of the chemicals contained in cotton leaves (as well as raw cotton seeds and the tissues surrounding the cotton seeds) is called gossypol and it is a highly toxic chemical to all animals with only one stomach (like humans and pigs; cows are ruminants and so are, for some reason, immune to this chemical). The way that this plant is most toxic is as an abortifacient, or an abortion-inducing chemical.

Cotton production does have a dirty little secret in American history, and that is the use of African slaves. People were shipped over to the United States to spend all daylight hours picking cotton in the fields with little to no rest, and were paid meagre wages (if at all). The only reason why the United States is a major cotton producer today is because of their slave use: the more slaves you have, the more cotton you can produce. In fact, cotton production was the single most important driving factor of the importing of African people to the United States. Granted, cotton is no longer cultivated that way today (thank goodness!) and instead is part of a mechanized process. I often wonder what types of crops would be grown in the southern United States if the slave trade had never existed. Would they be as important in the cotton industry? What about peanuts? Or soybeans? All of these crops required a large amount of human input to grow, and so the only reason why they were ever grown is because of the opportunity to use slave labor. Interesting to think how such events in human history (and not just in the United States, but anywhere in the world where people are brought in to perform manual labor and especially farming) can drastically change the product exports from a country!

Cotton is also an important fibre crop in the paper-making industry. Paper doesn't require wood pulp in order to stick together; it can be made perfectly well from an old pair of jeans blended into a very fine pulp! Cotton fibre paper, sometimes referred to as "rag bond" (but not true rag bond as that's made out of linen or flax fibres), is also called archival-quality paper as it strongly resists decay. For every percentage point of cotton fibres in the pulp that goes into making the paper, an extra 1-5 years is added onto the life of the paper. The paper used for printing theses (which my monstrosity of a PhD thesis will be printed on and permanently bound one day) is 95% cotton fibres, so that adds an extra 95-475 years of life to my thesis. I'll have to provide explicit details in my will that once I die someone I know will go back and visit my thesis every few years between 95 and 475 years after I have it printed to see how long it takes before the pages fall apart. A morbid experiment, but could be a fun one!

The "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary," or the Scythian Lamb, as depicted by Sir John Mandeville (left) and Henry Lee (right) (images both from Wikipedia).

The tree with the yellow wood

Species name: Cladrastis kentuckea

Common name: American yellowood

Location: Western U Campus, London, Ontario

First of all, I've decided after doing a whole series of blogs about Sandra's garden that I'm going to start being more specific with where I took pictures of the plants I'm featuring in my blog. Featuring GPS coordinates would be silly (especially of rare plants, plus you would all also know where I live since I feature plants in my back yard a lot) and impractical since I don't own a proper GPS unit, but "Ontario" is a bit too vague. So this is the first blog to feature a more detailed location description. Blog evolution!

The yellowwood tree is a spectacular tree to have growing in your garden: it grows quickly but not very tall (the tallest yellowwood in the world is only 27 m tall), has a broad reach with its branches to provide a large patch of shade, and has incredibly attractive flowers during the spring. Unfortunately, it has a few downsides, too. The tree trunk tends to branch repeatedly close to the ground to get a "multi-trunk" type of tree so sometimes pruning is required to get enough space under it to park a lounge chair. Also, when the flowers start to drop it literally looks like it has snowed under the tree. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; it's a lot of organic material going back into the soil to support the soil microbes living in symbioses with the tree's roots. A lot of gardeners think it makes their lawn look messy, and so this tree is sometimes avoided. This is a shame since the seed pods, once they start to develop, are a great oily food source for animals during the fall and into the winter. Since these seeds are a preferred food source, very few of them make it into the ground to produce seedlings. Good if you don't want your lawn to look like a yellowwood nursery, bad if you're a yellowwood tree trying to reproduce. This same phenomenon can't be noted throughout the tree's range, nor is that seen further south; it actually has the potential to become an invasive weedy tree further south than its native range so be careful where you plant one. It is native to the United States as the name suggests, to a relatively small area bordered by North Carolina, Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana and Alabama. Due to habitat loss it is becoming increasingly more rare throughout its native range, so if you live in that area and have the opportunity to plant a yellowwood, do it!

Aside from their obvious aesthetic value due to their flowers, yellowwood trees have traditionally been very valuable species in the woodworking industry. Because of the multi-trunking phenomenon they can't be used to produce many 2x4s, but they have been highly prized amongst furniture makers for their yellow heartwood to use for inlays and sometimes veneers. Wood turners have also valued yellowwood for its ease of carving yet very dense wood. Some of the most famous guns in American history also have their gunstocks made from yellowwood, although many other species of tree were favoured for this purpose.

The last of the palms: Otto von Bismarck's tree

Species name: Bismarckia nobilis

Common name: Bismarck palm

Location: Dominican Republic

Well, we have finally come to the end of my images from Dominican Republic, and this is my last plant species to profile from my lovely vacation in February (I can't believe these pictures have lasted me until May! I need to go on vacation more often...). I figured since it's the last one, I should probably go out with a bang...

The Bismarck palm is native to, like almost all palm species, Madagascar and is declining in numbers there (like many, if not most, of their endemic plant species). The fertile land is being cleared and converted to agriculture, with a few select trees being saved to represent landmark "specimen trees" throughout the landscape. Bismarck palms can be incredibly long-lived, have enormous canopies if given enough space, and provide great shade and habitat for other species. By leaving even just a few Bismarck palms, Madagascar is potentially saving tens of species who use these trees as refuge. Unfortunately, agricultural crops are worth far more money to the economy of Madagascar, and these trees likely don't stand a chance of sticking around for long. It's a shame; a country that was once one of the most biodiverse locations in the world is now becoming a barren agricultural landscape. I know I've poo-poo'd on Madagascar in a few blog posts, but the more people know about their biodiversity crisis the more that can be done about it. World economies really need to start putting pressure on countries that house the most diversity to stop cutting down forests because the species themselves have some sort of economic value. It's a slippery slope once you put a price on diversity, but it's true what they say in the business and commerce world: Money talks. Fortunately for the worldwide population of Bismarck palms, they are planted in huge numbers around the world as ornamental species (in the tropics and sub-tropics; they can actually survive temperatures as low as -6 degrees Celsius for short amounts of time). There are two main varieties of this tree: the green kind that's pictured above, and a variety that is almost blue because of a very thick layer of wax that is deposited on the outside of all of the leaves (which you might guess would be much more tolerant of drought and cold snaps; you would be correct with that assumption).

Bismarck palms are some of the most easily recognizable palm trees in the entire world...once you know what you're looking for. They have characteristic fan-shaped fronds with a very thick petiole connecting the leaves to the trunk of the tree. These petioles, as you can see from the image with the pink arrow, are curved presumably to allow the fronds to sway from side to side but prevent the snapping of the fronds if shaken up and down (since we all remember from elementary school that an arch is much stronger than a straight line...right?). This also provides a really unique habitat for animals, other plant species, fungi, and even bacteria since all of the rain that the fronds catch is funnelled down the petiole towards the trunk of the tree. Because the bases of these petioles are so warm and moist, they usually rot right off the tree before the leaf has a chance of dying, especially in very warm, wet areas. The inflorescences produced are also quite characteristic, and look a bit like marine ropes emerging from the base of a leaf. These mature into flowers (some male flowers are pictured in the 8th image; you can tell because they are full of stamens and very little of anything else), which either produce pollen or ovules. These trees, like the pacaya palm (which you can read all about HERE), are dioecious meaning one plant either produces male or female flowers but never both. The trees with the female flowers end up producing the fruit, which starts off green when immature and ripens to be yellow or brown (you can see the green fruit in the bottom image). The fruit are not reported to be edible by humans, although I'm sure someone somewhere has tried them. These are the preferred fruit of some birds and other animal species, so these trees do play an integral role in the food webs of the ecosystems they're living in.

I keep mentioning that these trees are integral parts of their ecosystems, so I think it's about time to show you what I mean. In the two pictures below (the same image, the first one is unaltered and the second one has a bunch of boxes around interesting features) you can see symbiotic plants and animals all living in the same tree:

The green and yellow boxes show the fruit of the Bismarck tree: the green box shows the immature green fruit and the yellow box shows the more mature yellow and brown fruit. Inside the pink box are three different species of plants, the heart-shaped leaf vine, the oval-shaped weedy plant, and the roundish-shaped weedy plant. What these species of plants are I have no idea; they were about 15 meters in the air and I wasn't about to climb the tree to find out! There are also a whole lot of sticks at the top of the tree, which is weird (in the purple box). In fact, I'm guessing that's the way those three plant species managed to make it up into the top of that lone tree; there are no trailing stems or roots to suggest that they "climbed" up there. In the orange box we have a lone bird, who seems to just be hanging out on an old petiole of a leaf. But is he really?

Well, Mr. Bird there isn't actually just hanging out on a petiole by chance; he's protecting his nest. Yes, that massive thicket of twigs was more than likely made by that ridiculously tiny bird (you probably are aware of the species; we call them "that brown bird that makes all the noise at 5 am during the spring" and this common name probably reflects about 500 species of bird). In fact, we stood under the tree for a while and watched more than one of these little brown birds fly to and from the nest; there's likely a whole family of them living up there. In hindsight, it was probably pretty stupid standing under the tree staring up at them (not that I'm afraid of a tiny brown bird or anything): if you're really observant you'll see white patches all over the underside of the palm fronds. Those aren't patches of fungi. Those are patches of "bird paint."

Here's another example of plant species that exploit this tree. Again, I have no idea what species this is since they're just tiny seedlings, but these are growing from seeds that would have been blown down those arc-shaped petioles and landed at the base of the leaf where there is likely an accumulation of organic material that is damp and warm: perfect conditions for plants (amongst other things) to germinate. These plants likely won't last long being squished into a petiole like that, but depending on what species they are they might be able to complete their entire life cycle without ever leaving the protection of their host plant. If those are species that are perennials or require much more space to grow, they'll likely die before producing anything substantial.

And, like I promised in my first blog post about pictures of plants I took while in the Dominican Republic, lizards also call this tree home. These pictures represent what is likely two different species of anole lizard (Anolis spp.) that are in all likelihood native to Dominican. If you think about it, these trees are absolutely perfect habitat for lizards to hide from predators in the petiole hollows, build nests at the bases of petioles, and jump from leaf to leaf to catch bugs to eat. They were pretty curious as to what I was doing holding a camera so close to their home; I guess I did neglect to ask them permission to photograph their treehouse. Next time I'll make sure to bring "lizard waivers" with me!

I hope you've enjoyed the rather long series about "Plants in the Dominican Republic" over the last few months!