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A Pilgrimage for Rare Plants: A Research Expedition to Jamaica's Rugged Cockpit Country Turned Up Plants Not Seen in Many Decades

Posted on: Thursday, 19 October 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Georgia Tasker

SHERWOOD CONTENT, Jamaica -- A team of scientists from Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden embarked on an expedition to Jamaica's rugged Cockpit Country.

They scaled rocky cliffs, camped in the rain, hiked at 4 a.m., and endured wet boots, 70-pound packs and bites from hundreds of ticks.

Their mission? To find some of the Caribbean's rarest plants, some of which have not been seen for 100 years.

When they wrapped up after three weeks, they had rediscovered eight plants, found two species new to science and begun cataloging the rich biodiversity of the Caribbean island, home to plants not seen anywhere else in the world.

Cockpit Country, so named by the British in the 17th century because its valleys are surrounded by hills of rock resembling cockfighting arenas, "is a tremendous concentration of plant diversity in a very small area," said Fairchild's Lauren Raz, who led the research expedition in August. "I don't think you see that much concentrated diversity even in Amazonia."

The remote area -- with bowl-shaped valleys surrounded by deceptively benign-looking hills -- is the source of 40 percent of the water in Jamaica. Its tapestry of plants includes more than 1,000 species within 500 square miles. The entire Florida Peninsula -- at 66,000 square miles -- holds only about 4,000.

Among the targets of the six Fairchild biologists and horticulturists: the eight-foot Euphorbia alata, a poinsettia relative that Raz dubbed the ivory-billed woodpecker of Jamaican plants because it hasn't been viewed since 1906.

Rugged conditions have protected these hills, creating a refuge for ferns, Lypanthes orchids, birds, the endangered Jamaican boa constrictor, black-billed parrots and a swallowtail butterfly with wings up to eight inches across.

'IMMINENT' THREATS

Relatively isolated and without roads, the area nevertheless is coming under pressure.

"Threats to the area are imminent," Raz said. "We want to document what's there in order to help make the case for saving it."

Every year, tons of sapling trees are cut for growing yams. Weeds follow people who are pushing in from the edges, and aluminum companies are prospecting for bauxite mines.

Fairchild is working with Florida International University, the University of Puerto Rico, the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to catalog the Caribbean's plant diversity. Through their research, Fairchild scientists tallied 169 endemics in this biodiversity hot spot; Cockpit Country claims 64 of these.

"A lot of the species we're looking for are not protected because there's not enough known about them," Raz said. "So any information we collect can better inform the [Jamaican environmental and forestry] agencies."

During their stay, the Fairchild team rented a donkey named Gladys to bear water, food and equipment on one leg of the trek. They scaled a 75-foot cliff face on White Rock Hill to find the little shrub with rose-purple flowers called Vernonia verticillata, a daisy relative. On the way up, they found two other plants on their quarry list: an African violet relative, Columnea hispida; and a tiny bromeliad called Tillandsia adamsii.

They brought home an herbarium specimen of a tree previously unknown to botanists that will be named Cinnamodendron grantii for D'Owen Grant, a member of the Jamaica Forestry Department who worked with the expedition throughout the three weeks. Grant discovered the tree two years ago.

The team also found an Anthurium species new to science that has small, heart-shaped leaves and grows directly out of rock.

On the last outing, in search of a purple-flowering shrub, the explorers had to hack away vines smothering the steep trail with every step. Climbing meant wedging booted feet behind hacked-off saplings, with each advance seeming like a summit conquered in 90-plus-degree heat and 90 percent humidity.

Even Grant, who had marked the trail two years before, could not find the tree again. The effort was aborted, but Grant promised to enlist villagers for a future expedition.

Raz and biologist Kristie Wendelberger stayed in the field for three weeks, looking for leaves, flowers and fruit as well as DNA samples of the lost species. Horticulturists Jason Lopez, Jennifer Davit, Heather Jacobson and Christie Jones collected seeds or cuttings to grow in the nursery at the Coral Gables garden.

VETERAN BOTANIST

One of the team's resources was botanist George Proctor, who has lived in Jamaica since 1949 and is the resident expert on the island's plants. Proctor, 86 and still working, surveyed the region 30 to 40 years ago.

He accompanied the team for a few days and has a contract with Fairchild to write a checklist of the plants of Cockpit Country, the first compiled.

"He couldn't climb with us, but he could tell us exactly where to look," Wendelberger marveled.

On the final two days of the trip, the team worked well past midnight to catalog and pack. Each plant was collected in triplicate: one destined for Fairchild's herbarium, two for herbaria in Jamaica.

In all, about 1,500 individual herbarium specimens were packed. Along with descriptions, coordinates from a Global Positioning System pinpointing exact locations were recorded.

Close to 100 living plants were collected.

It took two pickup trucks to transport the gear and plants back to Montego Bay and the airport, where agriculture inspectors went over the paperwork and the containers -- a process that would be repeated upon landing in Miami.

At the end of the expedition, the Euphorbia alata remained elusive, perhaps gone forever, perhaps still living in an area as yet unexplored.

Source: The Miami Herald

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