FEBRUARY BLOOMS AND BEASTS
February is here and the dry season is gradually wending its way toward its peak. Despite occasional light showers, the Chancellor hillside is gradually changing from a predominantly lush and intense, dark green, to a dryer-looking, yellow/orange and brown hue. Many of the trees are shedding their leaves, so that the canopy cover is wearing thin in places.
A very noticeable tree all over the Chancellor hillside at the moment is our native Cypre (pronounced ‘Sip’) or Cordia alliodora. Cypre trees, tall and beautifully proportioned, are now in bloom, their crowns adorned with numerous, large, bunches of tiny white flowers which are white at first, then become brown after a few days. The miniature, butterfly and bee-pollinated, white flowers, spin propellor-like to the ground with a tiny fruit attached. This fruit is described as ‘edible but not tasty’. I plan to sample my first Cypre (awful pun) as soon as I can pick a perfectly ripe one – no easy feat, as the trees can be up to 40 m tall! The most prized part of the tree is the termite and fungus-resistant wood, which is widely used in construction, joinery, and cabinet making, and is a beautiful, golden to dark brown colour. One tree that was cut down about 7 years ago when a portion of Chancellor hillside was (illegally) cleared, was rescued from the bulldozer and the fire, and upcycled into the table in the photo. The appeal of the wood is obvious, and it scores 890 lbf on the Janka scale – a scale of wood hardness, which measures the force required to embed a steel ball into a standard sample of heartwood. (Compare Teak at 1000 lbf )
Cypre trees and flowers, and furniture made from a Cypre tree.
This stunningly beautiful caterpillar is called Dirphia avia and is a member of the silkmoth or Saturniidae family. I’ve seen it in my garden on Chancellor for two years in a row at this time of year. Thanks to Dirphia, I discovered the words urticating and aposematism. The beautiful beast is covered in structures called scoli that bear numerous vicious-looking spines. These spines are urticating and – you guessed it, they induce a painful stinging or prickling sensation when touched. Dirphia caterpillars have spines with poison glands at their bases. These actually eject a toxin when the tip is broken. Aposematism is the caterpillar’s way of making it known to would-be predators, that they would be well advised to leave it alone. The very visible and elaborate, spines send a clear signal that this grub should not be eaten. While the Dirphia caterpillar might serve as inspiration for a wonderful, showy Carnival costume, the adult moth that emerges from its cocoon is rather less ornate. Its wingspan of between 7 and 12 cm, might inspire a more traditional mas’ type of costume, presenting more muted tones of velvety tan and brown. I will do my best to find one of these moths (if I don’t mistake it for a bat!).
In my own garden, there is a beautiful shrub which bursts into flower and becomes completely snow-white as Christmas approaches, and it remains a dazzling, lacy white for several weeks. This is Euphorbia leucocephala, (I’ve heard it called white lace poinsettia), and it is a relative of the popular red poinsettia. Amazingly, like the red poinsettia, (also pictured), this plant with the delicate, miniature white flowers, is photoperiodic. This means that the plant can actually detect when the days shorten and the nights lengthen. The increase in hours of darkness, triggers the tiny leaves that surround the buds, to change colour from green to white!
So, as the end of the year approaches, tiny pale flower buds appear and all the surrounding leaves begin to turn white. To top it all off, these exquisite flowers have a wonderful fragrance that I always connect with Christmas. In February, my lace poinsettia is approaching the end of its flowering season. A point of caution is that plants in this genus all produce a sticky white latex which can be irritant, so be careful if you decide to break a sprig off, not to get any latex into your eyes, or on to broken skin. Admire the flowers from afar!
One interesting, but unwelcome creature that I regularly see on a particular part of my Chancellor walk, is the Giant African Land Snail, GALS (Achatina fulica). This non-native snail, one of the largest species of land snail known, is a notifiable animal in Trinidad and Tobago – though I hope that you have better luck than I had, if you see one and try to notify the authorities. Our alien snail has the notoriety of appearing in second place among the Top 100 World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species on the Global Invasive Species database. This snail is a major agricultural pest, and a carrier of both parasites and bacteria that can cause serious illness in people, and other pathogens that are harmful to plants. Their decaying shells can change the properties of soil, affecting plant growth. They are however a good source of protein and are actually farmed for meat in some countries. I have even seen recipes using GALS – Pomegranite Glazed African Snails and Slow Cooked Giant African Land Snails to name a couple! Obviously, careful handling of the raw meat and thorough cooking is of the utmost importance. (I don’t recommend trying it ). Predators of the snail, include rats, fire ants, wild boars, crabs and carnivorous snails.
GALS are native of East Africa, in particular Kenya and Uganda. They have now reared their ugly feet (?) in many tropical and subtropical areas of the world. They eat many types of plant, including hundreds of food crop species, other crops of economic importance e.g., cotton, teak, mahogany and rubber plants, as well as garden ornamental plants. GALS will consume both live and decaying material, and because they have a very great need for dietary calcium, they will even eat stones, cement, stucco and bones of animal carcasses! They are well equipped to survive even the harshest of dry seasons because they can aestivate, sealing themselves into their shells with an impermeable plug, and slowing down their metabolism for up to 3 years, or until environmental conditions become favourable.
GALS capacity to multiply is phenomenal! These creatures can reproduce from as early as 6 months after hatching. Each adult snail contains both male and female reproductive systems, so produces both eggs and sperm. Mating involves transfer of sperm in both directions. Eggs can be laid within 8 days or can be stored internally for up to 2 years – then laid, 500 at a time, 5 or 6 times a year, for as long as 9 years. Reproduction of this is definitely NOT at snail’s pace.
And now, a twist in the snail, sorry, tale. Snails show chiral symmetry both of the shell and the internal organs. This means that some snails are ‘righties’ (shell and innards coiling clockwise) and a few are lefties (shells and innards coiling anticlockwise). Mating between righties and lefties is impossible. What a conumdrum!
Most of us have heard of the mountain immortelle – a tree that was brought to our shores over 300 years ago from South America, to provide shade for young cocoa and coffee plants on hillside plantations. The immortelle (Erythrina poeppigiana aka Erythrina micropterix) is not common on the Chancellor slopes, but a few specimens are conspicuously in flower at the moment – with spectacularly beautiful crowns of bright, orange-red flowers. The vividly coloured, nectar-rich, flower clusters are loved by hummingbirds, tangers and honeycreepers, and by bees, and are edible. Monkeys and parrots consume these flowers, and in Colombia and Guatemala, they are used in traditional cooking. Immortelle leaves have been used medicinally on sows by Trini farmers, but the seeds of its pod-like fruit are reportedly poisonous.
Not only are immortelles absolutely stunning as they play the role of ‘cocoa mamas’ or madres de cacao, but these remarkable trees are able to improve the soil in which they grow, by working in partnership with microbes that take up residence in their roots, to take nitrogen out of the atmosphere and turn it into a form that they themselves, as well neighbouring plants can use. In exchange for trapping and converting the nitrogen to a more useful form, the immortelle tree supplies the microbes with energy for the whole process. It’s a win-win situation!
The Frangipani caterpillar, Pseudosphynx tetrio, is well known, because its preferred host plant, the Frangipani or Plumeria, is a common one in suburban gardens, and the caterpillar is familiar and easily spotted, because of its large size, and bright colouring. Each caterpillar starts off life as one of about 100 eggs laid by the parent moth. For about 30 days after hatching, it wanders, gorging on frangipani leaves, moulting five or six times, and growing up to 6 inches long. Entire trees can be stripped bare of leaves in just a few days, but they usually recover completely despite this assault. The pupa stage follows, well hidden in leaf litter, (so I don’t have a photo to show), and lasts about three weeks, then finally a large brown, grey and white moth emerges. (and I mean large – wingspan can be 14 cm!)
One of the caterpillar’s monikers – ‘Frangipani hornworm’ is given because of the long ‘horn’ that protrudes from the 8th segment of the abdomen. I think it looks more like a tail, or even a sting, but ‘horn’ is the official term for this add-on. This caterpillar is eye-catching! It is velvety black, with a red head, its body is interspersed with bright bands of yellow, and its neck, legs and tail segment, are orange mottled with black spots. As I discovered when researching the Dirphia caterpillar, this snazzy coloration is aposematic. It is clamouring out to would-be predators – “Leave me alone, I taste revolting!”. These cunning creatures, feast on Frangipani leaves and in doing so, consume the plant’s toxic, white latex – which doesn’t harm them. They then cunningly sequester the noxious goo, and use it for defence when challenged! As if this weren’t enough, the caterpillar when troubled, rears its head from side to side, snake-like, (some say Coral Snake-like), in a further attempt to discourage predators. If these measures fail, the Fangipani caterpillar will nip! All in all, I recommend it’s best to admire the dazzling colours from a safe distance. Even so, some years ago, my toddler daughter actually put one in her mouth and sucked out the insides. I retrieved the hollowed-out exoskeleton from her mouth. She suffered no ill effects and we both lived to tell the tale.
Here’s a snail poem – by William Cowper, an 18th century British poet. Enjoy!
The Snail
To grass, or leaf, or fruit or wall, The snail sticks close, nor fears to fall. As if he grew there, house and all Together
Within that house secure he hides, When danger imminent betides, Of storm, or other harm besides Of weather
Give but his horns the slightest touch, His self-collecting power is such, He shrinks into his house with much Displeasure
Thus hermit-like, his life he leads, Nor partner of his banquet needs, And if he meets one only feeds The faster
Who seeks him must be worse than blind, He and his house are so combined, If, finding it he fails to find Its master.
Lady Chancellor Flora and fauna 