Our projected travel time back to Punta Arenas from Puerto Williams is 43 hours. But, before we set out, we have one last stop to make. Ernesto has arranged for us a private tour of the Museo Antropológico Martin Gusinde with the museum’s director, another one of his friends, naturally. I toured the museum once about 10 years ago, but no one else on the trip has visited it before. The museum has a two-fold focus, documenting the culture of the Yaghan people and presenting the history of European exploration in the region. It is a well-maintained museum and quite the tourist attraction despite all the exhibits being presented solely in Spanish. The namesake of the museum, Martin Gusinde, was an Austrian priest who lived for extended periods with the Yahgan and documented their social and spiritual life in the early 1930s through photography and ethnography. It is a surprising little museum with well curated and exhaustive exhibits. I am glad to get the refresher course in both of the museum’s foci.
The engines start up again at 6 a.m. and quite soon we arrive at Caleta Piedras on Isla Pictón. We knew ahead of time that today would be an early day of collecting because we need to also get back to Puerto Williams to gather up the specimens we left behind there. What we didn’t know was that there would be a substantial metal dock at this site, and a house flying the Chilean flag, too. The house is empty now, but presumably occupied seasonally.
Scott A. Mori, Ph.D., Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany has been studying New World rain forests for The New York Botanical Garden for nearly 35 years. He has witnessed an unrelenting reduction in the extent of the forests he studies and, as a result, is dedicated to preserving the diversity of plants and animals found there.
The wilted flowers of the four o’clock plant at 11 a.m.
At the time of this writing, I am in São Paulo Brazil to attend a multinational meeting of scientists, each participating in a study of the plants and animals of the Amazon Basin. I arrived the day before the meeting, and had time to walk through the area around the hotel, exploring for weeds and cultivated plants. No matter where I travel, even in the largest cities, there are plants to enjoy. When I spot one I know, it is like running into an old friend and trying to remember his or her name.
First, I try to identify the family the plant belongs to, followed by the genus, and finally the species. After recalling its name, I study the plant to find out if there is something about it I have not seen before. The secret to discovering new information about a plant is to study it carefully through a hand lens–I prefer one that magnifies the flower, fruit, and seed parts by up to ten times their normal size. Finding a plant that I do not know provides an even more exciting encounter, but that will be left for another post.
This morning I am not alone in rising early. Today is our only opportunity to go into the field on Isla Lennox. It is so warm and sunny that it is hard to decide on an appropriate outfit, one that is not too heavy and yet still waterproof when sitting on the ground. The plan is to spread out so as to cover as much of this substantial island as possible, all the while avoiding landmines.
Laura and I decide to work our way along what appears to be a river, but is indicated as an inlet of the sea on our map. The tannic water flowing down into the sea seems to indicate that it is at the very least brackish. It is not rich in moss flora, at least where I am, but I do find a few species of Ulota. Last year one of our traveling companions was Ricardo Garilleti, who is working on this genus in southern South America. Not only is Ricardo a great traveling companion, but he taught me how to be a better collector of this most frequently-encountered genus of epiphytes in this region. Without his knowledge I never would have guessed that different species of Ulota prefer different substrate, especially in terms of Berberis versus Nothofagus.
At 3:30 a.m. I hear the engine shut down, so I venture out onto the deck to see if we have arrived at our destination after taking the long way around. And in fact, we have arrived at Isla Pictón, the northernmost island of the grouping of Pictón, Lennox, and Nueva islands, and the last of our targeted areas for this year. Each of these islands still houses a naval outpost, left from a time in the 1970s when Chile anticipated Argentina would invade them. To this day, Juan feels pride in the fact that Chile defended these three islands and still holds them. On the downside, Chile also land-mined parts of the islands as part of their defense. This accounts at least in part for all the security and the hassles to get permission to visit them.
The ship begins moving in the early morning hours and the potentially rough seas never really materialize. I think for most of us it is instead like being rocked in a cradle. When we stop we are halfway up the north side of Seno Grandi. Our collecting site is along a large river that empties into a lake. About half of us go up the east side of the river, and the rest to the west. Although not cold or raining, a steady strong wind makes the Zodiac trip ashore wet and rough. As we approach the shore we can see quite clearly that the landscape is heavily disturbed. There are remnants of abandoned dwellings and piles of crab traps. It appears that beaver have caused significant damage to the landscape as well, and that the large peatland to the west of the river is courtesy of an ancient beaver dam.
We leave Puerto Inútil about 7 a.m. and arrive at Wulaia a half-hour later. This is one of the most famous sites in the region and one I have visited several times. Charles Darwin arrived here on January 23, 1833, 180 years ago–minus one day–today. The site has changed considerably since my last visit. There is now a metal dock for unloading cruise ship passengers, and a large, old slaughterhouse has been transformed into a museum which is open when cruise ships arrive. A plaque celebrating Darwin was put up in 2009 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth. There is also a plaque commemorating Robert FitzRoy, the captain of the HMS Beagle and a pioneering scientist in his own right.
In a nice change from the norm, we manage to leave the field station on time this morning. But that doesn’t mean we leave the harbor straight away. We load our gear back onto the trusty Don José Miguel and essentially move back in and then we do a little last minute grocery shopping. As we enter the Beagle Channel I am surprised by the rough seas. I look to the skies, which don’t look particularly threatening, and decide to blame the turbulence on our running perpendicular to the waves, rather than parallel. But, even when we turn west, into the wind, the choppiness continues. That said, it cannot delay lunch.
The author climbing a small tree with French climbing spikes.
One of the most beautiful arboreal observations I have made during my long career occurred during an ascent into a large tree, one that happened to be adjacent to a legume tree scientifically named Hymenaea courbaril–more commonly known as the stinky toe tree. It was given this repugnant name because of the similarity of its fruits to a malodorous human toe. While botanical literature had already reported at the time that this species relied on bats for pollination, I wanted to confirm this observation by climbing a nearby tree from which I could see into the canopy as night fell, just as nocturnal animals started to make their appearances.
I was especially eager to make this climb because one of my research focuses has been the interactions between bats and the plants pollinated and dispersed by them. This was a rare opportunity to observe the crown of this 115-foot-tall tree in full flower, and as my job was to document the species that occur in the lowland forests of central French Guiana, as well as to discover the interactions that the local plants have with animals, I could not pass it up.
Dr. Robert F.C. Naczi, the Arthur J. Cronquist Curator of North American Botany, at the New York Botanical Garden, delivered the following keynote speech at the School of Professional Horticulture, Class of 2013’s graduation, March 1, 2013. This post features photographs ofThe Orchid Show which this year has a scientific focus and is designed by Francisca Coelho, the Garden’s Vivian & Edward Merrin Associate Vice President for Glasshouses & Exhibitions and School of Professional Horticulture graduate.
The Critical Importance of Scientific Training to Today’s Horticulturist
Congratulations to you, the 2013 graduates of the School of Professional Horticulture! You have much to celebrate because you have achieved so much. First, you rose to the challenge of the rigors of the program. For example, in a little over two years, you took over 40 courses, and passed them all. Yes, I know first-hand from you that some of these courses caused you considerable pain, but you made it! You deserve praise, too, for completing a whopping 30 plant walks and all the quizzes that followed them. As well, you completed internships that were, all at once, innovative, demanding, and fulfilling. All through these activities and many more, you excelled at multitasking, delaying gratification, and working really hard. On top of all this, you kept your cool. Sure, each one of you shed blood, sweat, and tears, but you persevered.
It is good you persevered. For this is an exciting time to be a professional horticulturist. One of the aspects of your education in the School of Professional Horticulture that sets you above many other horticulturists is your grounding in science. Your foundation in science opens doors for you to a whole range of scientific advances, and will continue to open these doors. Today, I would like to address the promise and power of a scientifically-grounded education in horticulture, such as you now possess.
Our projected travel time back to Punta Arenas from Puerto Williams is 43 hours. But, before we set out, we have one last stop to make. Ernesto has arranged for us a private tour of the Museo Antropológico Martin Gusinde with the museum’s director, another one of his friends, naturally. I toured the museum once about 10 years ago, but no one else on the trip has visited it before. The museum has a two-fold focus, documenting the culture of the Yaghan people and presenting the history of European exploration in the region. It is a well-maintained museum and quite the tourist attraction despite all the exhibits being presented solely in Spanish. The namesake of the museum, Martin Gusinde, was an Austrian priest who lived for extended periods with the Yahgan and documented their social and spiritual life in the early 1930s through photography and ethnography. It is a surprising little museum with well curated and exhaustive exhibits. I am glad to get the refresher course in both of the museum’s foci.
