White out of yellow

Nargis, the most destructive cyclone in our recorded history, hit us on the second of May 2008. Until now I had known and remembered vaguely that the name Nargis stood for some yellow flower in some language of the Indian sub-continent. Now only after rereading the Wikipedia entry on Cyclone Nargis that I'd downloaded in June 2008 do I notice that Nargis is an Urdu word meaning "daffodil" and has its roots in Persian.

In my mind's eyes, I always see daffodils as carpets of wild or cultivated yellow flowers, though when I now looked at their pictures on Google or Flickr, I found other colors, notably white.

The Greek mythology of Echo and Narcissus described the origins of the echo and daffodil (or Narcissus) flower. Narcissus the beautiful hunter won't care for Echo who loved him. "Echo was heartbroken and spent the rest of her life in lonely glens until nothing but an echo sound remained of her." Learning of this, Nemesis, the goddess of revenge lures Narcissus to a pond. Narcissus fell in love with his own image in the water, realized the futility of his obsession, and committed suicide later and "The flower that bears his name sprang up where he died."

May be some time in the way distant future, when many, many generations have passed, our great-great-grandchildren would have invented their own brand of mythologies to tell their children about a monster wind that flatten hills and waves that rose as high as toddy palms and that it was named after a mysterious yellow flower. While there will certainly be heroes and villains in their legends we could only hope that they won't turn their stories upside down.

By the time all this happen I don't know if my one souvenir from Nargis would have survived the passage of time. For I had saved a small clump of an obscure orchid that seemed to have been struck down by a satellite dish blown down and have landed on a mango sapling the day Nargis made landfall. Only after the flood water had gone away did I spot this little orchid. So I attached it to a piece of wood.

                                                                                                               

It flowered on August 3, 2008 full three months after I saved it. After that the orchid did well but didn't flower for a long time.

A few days ago, on August 28, 2015 it put out seven flower spikes and flowered again for the first time. I had identified it as Eria fragrans and my friend, the former owner, told me that it comes from the Tanintharyi Division. Its flowers are deliciously fragrant, but unfortunately the flowers last only for about three days. This description is by Captain Bartle Grant in his Orchids of Burma, 1895:

This little orchid symbolizes the only good deed, though a pathetic one, that I had done with my own hands in defiance of Nargis. With that I could very well appreciate the selflessness and conviction and sacrifices the countless volunteers thrown in into rescuing or helping the people during the storm or its aftermath. Many times they have to swim against the current and that literally, oftentimes. Alas, some have to pay the ultimate price with their lives. It's worth it?

With the recent floods we all were glad to see not only this trend of helping each other been kept alive, but also that it is vibrant and actually growing. And again we saw some young volunteer lives lost.

We all will die, but our children and their children will thrive. The old orchid bulbs will shrivel and die, but new ones will grow and multiply. We die, animals and plants die, but life goes on. 

Shwe Ghost Orchid

Shwe in our language, or Gold, is the name Myanmars used as a pseudonym for identifying each other outside of our country. Myanmar refers to people, language, as well as the land. The common feature of all ghost orchids—American, European, Asian, or Shwe—is that they don't normally have leaves. While the American and Asian ghost orchids grow on trees, the European ghost orchid grows on the ground.

I didn't know that there are orchids called ghost orchids when I discovered this leafless orchid near Pinlebu Town in Upper Myanmar.

Unlike most of my drawings, I had not signed and dated this one. It must be in the period 1972-1977 because I was working in the Shwebo District that time. I'm not sure if the flowers were recorded when I cut the branch up, or when the orchid flowered at home later. My description reads:

Spls oblong, tip blunt, petals wider,

lemon yellow, lip boat shaped, fls 1 cm across,

rachis fleshy, bracts minute, rachis pubescent green in color,

I've forgotten about this drawing and this orchid for a long time, until 2004 November when I chanced to find out about the American Ghost Orchid and then the Asian ghost orchids. From this picture of Chiloschista unoides, an Asian ghost orchid, I came to know that my ghost orchid must be a Chiloschista:

I noted that while my description of my flower fits well with that, the color is different and mine is rather dull colored. Too bad, I didn't own a camera that time. As for identification I used to have a 1966 reprint by Central Press, Rangoon of the "The Orchids of Burma" compiled by Captain Bartle Grant, Adjutant, Rangoon Volunteer Rifles, printed in 1895. I remember buying the book at Sarpay-beikman book stall in Yangon at a price of 12 kyats. I couldn't have looked for my orchid in this book when I made the drawing because I didn't know the scientific name then. Later in Shwebo the book was eaten away by white ants and I got my current photo-copied reprint version from the Bagan Book House in 1999 March at a price of 2000 kyats. Now that I know this orchid to be a Chilolschista I looked for it in the book, but couldn't find the genus listed there. My other standard reference A Checklist of the Trees, Shrubs, Herbs, and Climbers of Myanmar gives two species found in Myanmar:

This picture of C. lunifera looks more like my orchid, though the flowers are spaced more closely on the stalk and more numerous:

The following original drawing of C. lunifera is from Annals of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, vol. 83: t. 276 (1891).

Internet search shows that C. lunifera could have variable coloring, for example, dark red, as well as lack of markings or with variable markings on the flower. So my orchid might be C. lunifera, but I am not sure. There might also be other Chiloschista species in Myanmar not yet recorded.

Chiloschistas or other little known botanical gems are gifts of nature to us. They are little known and cared because they are inconspicuous and their flowers are not showy nor they are being sought for medicinal properties. Because of that they may safely remain our ghost orchids and for Asia for a long time. However, locally popular orchid species and those known as good stocks for hybridization have been plundered for long. In more recent times we've heard of lifting truck loads of orchid plants to be illegally destined to "Big Country" for herbal medicinal uses.

Well, that will surely boost our list of real ghost orchids in addition to the couple of humble Chiloschistas we have for now!

Ghost Orchid

The most famous ghost orchid is the American Ghost Orchid found in the Fakahatchee, Big Cypress and Corkscrew swamps of Collier County, Florida. It is called the ghost orchid because the roots blends very well with the trunk or branch of the tree it is growing on and the flowers look as if hanging in the air. It has no leaves and its scientific name is Dendrophylax lindenii.

"The Ghost Orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii) was first discovered by Jean Jules Linden who observed this amazing orchid in the forests of Sague and Nimanima, St. Jaio de Cuba in September of 1844.  It wasn’t until 1880 until the Ghost Orchid was discovered in Florida by A.H. Curtiss in Collier County.  The range of the Ghost Orchid includes humid areas of Florida, Cuba, and Haiti, most likely existing on other nearby Caribbean islands in addition.  ... The Ghost Orchid has a five inch nectar spur containing sugar rich nectar.  The only local insect which has a long enough proboscis (tongue) to drink the nectar is the giant sphinx moth" (GhostOrchid.Info). 

The "Super Ghost" discovered growing at about 50 feet on a cypress tree in the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is said to be currently the only plant whose location is not kept secret. Normally the ghost orchid grows at about eye-level. It was discovered in July 2007 by a bird watcher looking for owls in the Corkscrew Sanctuary. Super Ghost has become a celebrity not only locally, but far and wide in the world. It is estimated to be about fifty years old and received a lot of attention by the public. The Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary website carries these messages:

On January 25, 2015, one of our volunteers discovered that it has one bloom!!!  The first of the new year!  It is a new record for the ghost orchid, blooming in January, the earliest in the year it had bloomed previously was late March of 2010! 

...

2015 Activity:

February 11 - no flowers in bloom

February 8 - 1 new flower opened

February 7  -  the first flower had closed

January 25 -  1 flower was discovered in bloom, the earliest known record of a Ghost Orchid blooming!

And also for the activities in 2014.  And so that's how they love a little big orchid!

Thu-ta-bat, Maya Fruit and the Extinct Dodo

It was in April 2013 that I tasted a fruit that I had never seen before. It was brought by my friend from Twantay, a town on the bank of the Twantay canal connecting Yangon River and the Ayarwady River. It was shaped somewhat like a pear with smooth yellow skin and cracked from a drop from the tree. My friend told me its name—Tuttapat fruit, and I had never heard of it either.

 Soon as I opened the fruit I saw the big brown seed that looked unmistakably like the seed of a Tha-gya-thee we can buy in fruit stalls here. Luckily, I knew that Tha-gya-thee (Malnikara zapota or Acharas zapota) is a member of the Sapotaceae family. So I looked for Sapotaceae on the Web and concluded that Tuttapat is a fruit of the genus Pouteria which are natives of the Central and South Americas but commercially grown in Africa and tropical Asia.

So I was very confident and said this in my presentation to friends:  'But it was easy to identify that the “Tuttapat” fruit of Twante said to be reserved for the royalty in the olden days is just a fruit of the Sapotaceae family native to Mexico & Central America. It is the “Canistel” (Pouteria campechiana).'

It is said that Mayan youths gather mature, green canistel fruit from dense evergreen trees planted near their homes. The fruit are placed in the cooled ashes of the fire and left to ripen to a golden yellow.

So Tuttapat is a Tha-gya-thee of a kind different from the familiar brown, rough skinned Tha-gya-thee (Manilkara zapota) we get in the markets in Myanmar. The latter is commercially grown in India, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Mexico.

As far as I am concerned, the case is closed. Tuttapat is nothing other than a fruit tree of the Sapotaceae family. Specifically, Pouteria campechiana the Canistel fruit, if I am not wrong.  However, my last minute check before writing this post was a real surprise. I discovered quite by accident that there is a tree in Myanmar called Thu-ta-bat according to the "A Checklist of the Trees, Shrubs, Herbs, and Climbers of Myanmar" (p. 366), of 2003. Its scientific name is Sideroxylon grandiflorum. The base version for that list, the "List of Trees, Shrubs, Herbs, and Principal Climbers etc. Recorded from Burma" of 1961, gives its Myanmar name as Thuttabat or Taw-thabut. From these it seems certain that there is a tree called Thu-ta-bat or Thuttabat or Tuttapat of Twentay (if it is the same as the former two names pronounced a slightly different way) native to Myanmar.

However, the search on the Web for Sideroxylon grandiflorum gives it as edemic to Mauritius. As can be seen, its seed is protected by a hard cover. The Tuttaput fruit from Twentay, on the other hand, has just the seed of a regular sapote fruit as I had tasted the fruit and seen the seed myself. This is the conclusive proof that Tuttapat couldn't be Sideroxylon grandiflorum.

As for the Sideroxylon grandiflorum it is interestingly connected with the extinct flightless bird Dodo of Mauritius.

Dodos were slaughtered in large numbers by sailors and settlers, and pigs which were introduced to the island voraciously ate the dodo eggs. The last dodo was killed in 1681—less than 180 years after it was first described.” (Creation 14(1):21 Dec, 1991, by Robert Doolan)

The theory that Sideroxylon grandiflorum needs Dodo for seed germination, once sensational news, was disproved (TopTropicals.com, https://toptropicals.com/catalog/uid/Sideroxylon_sp.htm).

In 1973, it was thought that endemic to Mauritius, Sideroxylon grandiflorum (Tambalacoque, Dodo Tree) was dying out. There were supposedly only 13 specimens left, all estimated to be about 300 years old. It was hypothesized that the Dodo, which became extinct in the 17th century, ate tambalacoque fruits, and only by passing through the digestive tract of the Dodo could the seeds germinate. However, further research proved that the situation is not as bad as it seemed. The scientists tried to force-feed Tambalacoque fruit to other animals, such as wild turkeys, and did get some seeds germinated. The Tambalacoque seeds, passed through digestive systems of Aldabra Giant Tortoise (Geochelone gigantea) had pretty good gemination rate, and yet the seedlings appeared to be more vigorous and disease-resistant. To aid the seed in germination, botanists now use turkeys and gem polishers to erode the endocarp to allow germination. Tambalacoque is highly valued for its wood in Mauritius, which has led some foresters to scrape the pits by hand to make them sprout and grow. So the species seems to be out of danger now; besides, young trees are not distinct in appearance and may easily be confused with similar species.

Because of that if Sideroxylon grandiflorum really grows in Myanmar, either endemic or introduced, it would be great news to the scientific community.

As for the Tuttapat trees of Twentay, from what I could make out they are most likely the Canistel (Pouteria campechiana). According to World Agroforestry Centre, Canistel is an erect tree and generally not more than 8 m tall, but it may, in favorable situations, reach height of 27-30 m and the trunk may attain diameter of 1 m.

From the photos available, the Twentay trees look considerably taller than the norm and if they indeed are Canistel, they would be incredibly old and seem not so productive now. If so, they should be preserved under some form of monumental trees program and assist the owner to protect against the imminent danger of being cut down.

Myitzu-thaka-natpan for the masses

Myitzu-thaka the flower of the gods, when I first heard of it as a young government employee, was so rare that it was accessible only to the most powerful person in our country at that time for a regular supply for consumption. We commoners had no idea of what it looks like or how potent were its mystical powers.  As told by a fellow officer, I vaguely remember that the flowers were collected from a tall tree or a vine in some place at the west bank of the Ayarwady River, somewhere in central Myanmar.

Quite recently I heard about some oil produced from the seeds of a tree having the miraculous powers of healing wounds and preventing cancers. This tree is said to be found only in the Tanintharyi peninsula at the southern extreme of Myanmar and its name is Kanzaw.

Looking up for it at http://botany.si.edu/pubs/CUSNH/vol_45.pdf I found four species of Madhuca growing in Myanmar and was surprise to find out that Myitzu-thaka flower and Kanzaw oil come from the same tree. Another surprise is that Kanzaw is the same as Meze which I had heard of as an oil producing tree.

Moreover, the list shows that the Tanintharyi Kanzaw might be Ye-meze (M. lobii) rather than Meze (M. longifolia). I couldn't find the picture of M. lobii, but it may have more or less the same kind of sweet flowers that is edible. So, if anyone can have access to a Meze or Kanzaw or Ye-kanzaw tree nearby, this person can collect and eat the natpan or god's flower without paying high prices from hawkers who won't tell you that Myitzu-thaka and Kanzaw and Meze is the same tree, or from those who would sell you fakes.

All you need to do is get up early in the morning and collect the flowers that bloomed at night and drop at dawn. The flowers could be eaten raw or dried in the sun and kept for a long time.

Just look for the information on the Web about this tree on the uses and medicinal properties of its leaves, flowers, seeds and oil extracted from them if you are interested.

The tree is found in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar. It commences bearing at about 10 years old, and produces flowers in March and April and fruits in May and June in India.

I've read and heard about Meze tree, but haven't really seen it. So I asked two of my friends one of whom is living in Manadalay in central Myanmar. Here's a convenience guide for you to spot Meze trees.  They told me that there is a row of Meze trees under which you can get snacks and soft drinks close to the famous U Bein teak bridge in Amarapura, not very far from Mandalay. Too bad, I find lots of photos of U Bein Bridge on the Web, but none showing Meze trees.

The Tree Associated with the Birth of Buddha

In Asoka (Saraca indica Linn)—A Cultural and Scientific Evauation, 1972, Biswas and Debnath mentioned that Mayadevi while holding a branch of a tree in Lumbini garden gave birth to Buddha and according to Nidana Katha, it was a Sala (Shorea robusta); to Mahavastu it was a plaksa; according to Huien-Tsang it was an Asoka tree (Saraca indica).

In Forests and Trees Associated with Lord Buddha (http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ancientnepal/pdf/ancient_nepal_139_02.pdf), Bisanta Badari, mentioned many different trees and the forests existing at the time of Buddha. Of particular interest is the association of five types of trees associated with birth of Buddha, of which the Asoka tree (Thawka in Myanmar) is said to be identifiable from the leaves depicted in various sculptural panels of Buddha's nativity scene. He listed Asoka (Thawka), Pipal, Sala or Sal, Mango, and Plaksha. 

The birth of Buddha is described in Nidana Katha (http://www.kelasa.org/book/English/rhys_davids__buddhas_birth_stories.pdf) as:

Now between the two towns there is a pleasure grove of sal-trees belonging to the people of both cities, and called the Lumbini grove. At that time, from the roots to the topmost branches, it was one mass of fruits and flowers; and amidst the blossoms and branches swarms of various-coloured bees, and flocks of birds of different kinds roamed warbling sweetly. The whole of the Lumbini grove was like a wood of variegated creepers, or the well-decorated banqueting hall of some mighty king. The Queen beholding it was filled with the desire of besporting herself in the sal-tree grove; and the attendants carrying the queen, entered the wood. When she came to the monarch sal-tree of the glade, she wanted to take hold of a branch of it, and the branch bending down, like a reed heated by steam, approached within reach of her hand. Stretching out her hand she took hold of the branch, and then karma-born winds shook her. The people, drawing a curtain round her, retired. Standing, and holding the branch of the sal-tree, she was delivered.

I am ignorant of the exact source from which most of us Myanmar Buddhists have drawn our belief on the tree of Buddha's birth. In our traditional notion it has been an Ingyin tree.  Because of that, at least one source of our belief could be the Nidana Katha as we have seen. Leaving aside the possibility that Buddha's birth tree could be another kind of tree like Asoka (Thawka in Myanmar) or other, I felt we need to be clear about what the Sal tree of Lumbini is, and what it is not.

When I googled for Sal tree images I was surprised to find half of them are pictures of Cannonball tree labeled wrongly as Sal (Shorea robusta). So I wasn't surprised when I found one webpage [Flora in Myanmar Culture: Ingyin and Myatlay in Waso (July), 31 July 2014, Today magazine] by a Myanmar scholar that committed the same error.

The Cannonball tree with the mass of flowers on the trunk seems to me a most unattractive tree for a queen to hold onto a branch while it is in flower, or in fruit, or even when it is bare of flowers or fruits. Besides, the tree is a native of south Americas and not of India or Nepal.

In one webpage for example, Significant Buddhist Trees (not Bodhi tree), 1 April 2013 (http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?t=16314), Shorea robusta was mentioned but the picture of Couroupita guianensis was shown and the error becomes glaring when it says " Sal is one of the most important sources of hardwood timber in India, with hard, coarse-grained wood that is light in colour when freshly cut, but becomes dark brown with exposure.  The wood is resinous and durable, and is sought-after for construction, although not well suited to planing and polishing. The wood is specially suitable for constructing frames for doors and windows. The dry leaves of sal are a major source for the production of leaf plates and leaf bowls in northern and eastern India."

That was in fact the description for the Shorea robusta of the family Dipterocarpaceae that include, for example, Myanmar hardwood trees like In, Kanyin, Thingan, Thitya, and Ingyin. In contrast the Cannonball tree is a softwood tree of the family Lecythidaceae native to northeastern South America (see Encyclopedia Britannica).

I looked in my standard references for "Ingyin".

The last two sentences in the above dictionary entry referring to the Cannonball tree clearly state that (i) the tree is called Cannonball tree due to the shape of the fruit, and (ii) though not a member of Ingyin (Dipterocarpaceae) family it is wrongly called Lumbini Ingyin in Myanmar.

On the other hand, source-4 in the above table stated that Shorea robusta is a cultivated species known as Lon-mani-ingyin or sal. I think herein is confusion with what Myanmars popularly called Lon-mani-ingyin (or Lumbini Ingyin) which is the Cannonball tree, with the correct species: Shorea robusta. I very much doubt that Sal (Shorea robusta) would be cultivated for flowers. It is common knowledge that the Cannonball tree is cultivated and its flowers sold as Lon-mani-ingyin in Myanmar. Myanmars cherished this flower all the while assuming that it is the flower associated with the Queen Maha Maya giving birth to Buddha in the Sal grove of Lumbini.

As for a good deal of confusion over misidentifying the Sal with the Cannonball tree internationally, I can think of no good explanation. In the post How Sal Trees arrived in Sri Lanka, Dr. Lakshman Ranasinghe (http://www.nation.lk/edition/fine/item/38684-how-sal-trees-arrived-in-sri-lanka.html) told how the Cannonball tree as well as the Sal arrived in his country.

Sal is not native to Sri Lanka and the first tree was sown at Paradeniya Botanical Gardens in February 29, 1980, by the late King Birendra Bir Shah Dev of Nepal, and, flowered in May, 2012. Lately, seeds of the Indian Sal were brought from Nepal, and were germinated in Peradeniya Gardens. More than 900 plants raised from the seeds of the Sal Tree of Southern Nepal, have been gifted to temples around Sri Lanka. 

The Cannonball tree was introduced into Ceylon in 1881, and has abundantly flowered and flourished since 1898. It is often seen beside the temples and has been in effect the Sal Tree substitute for Sri Lanka. Because of the religious linkages, it seems quite possible that we got our Couroupita guianensis from Sri Lanka. We could not rule out the possibility that we got this tree from India also. Incidentally, it is interesting that two movies on the life of Buddha, one in Sri Lanka and another in India has been released quite recently. According to Dr. Ranasinghe, they both depicted Queen Maha Maya giving birth to Buddha under a Cannonball tree in the Sri Lankan version, and what looks like the Cannonball tree also in the Indian version. He felt they should correct the scenes to show the Sal tree instead.

This nativity scene painted in Myanmar traditional style quite some time before the Cannonball tree became established around 1898 in Sri Lanka, unmistakably shows Shorea and not the Cannonball tree. So the mistaken identity of the Buddha's birth tree must have come into the life of we Myanmars at least after this picture had been painted.

Nevertheless, the following notes by Bikhu Nyanasushita (What is the Real Sal Tree?, 2010) make me realize that such confusions may not have existed solely between Sal and Cannonball tree or confined only to countries like Sri Lanka or Myanmar or Thailand and could have extended to more diverse tree species and countries.

There are no reports of cannonball trees forming groves and they are not growing in the wild in Asia.

... Since its introduction from South America, the cannonball tree has become a sacred tree in both the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. In Hindu India it is planted in Shiva temples and is called Shiv Kamal or Nagalingam. The flowers are said to resemble the hood of a Nāga (sacred cobra) protecting a Shiva linga. The planting of cannonball trees as sacred trees can only be a recent addition to these traditions for it is certainly not the sal tree of the ancient Buddhist and Hindu texts.

In Japan yet another pretty tree with large white flowers, the deciduous camellia or Stewartia pseudocamellia, is regarded as the sal tree. It is called shāra, 沙羅, from Sanskrit śāla. Being native to the mountains of Japan, it can withstand the cold winters, and is often planted near temples and in parks, with signs stating that in the shade of this tree the Buddha was born and passed away.

Could the Cannonball tree been introduced and then adopted in Myanmar by the common people innocently as "simple Sinhalese peasants could make this harmless and innocent mistake".  We don't know. The confusion could just have been accidental. Or was it due to the expatriate Buddhist missionary monks zealously spreading to the world in good faith the misidentified "Sal", as Shravasti Dmmika said (Thoughts At Vesakha, 25 May 2013).

One difference between Sri Lanka and Myanmar is that we have close relatives of the Sal as native trees. In fact source-4 referenced earlier gives 17 species of Shorea as growing in Myanmar among which is our Ingyin (Shorea siamensis).