Category: nature

Prickly Love

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May 10 is celebrated as Cactus Day in the US. It is “a day dedicated to recognizing and appreciating the unique and fascinating world of cacti. This day also serves as a reminder of the many cactus species facing extinction and the need for their conservation, especially in their natural habitats.” Cacti are flowering plants that produce seeds. They are able to bloom every year, but they will produce an abundance of flowers in response to heavy rains. The family Cactaceae comprises many species of flowering plants with succulent (water-storing) stems.

It is entirely appropriate that it is a day marked in the US. Because 1749 out of the known 1750 species of cacti are native to the Americas! In other words, cacti were not originally found in any other part of the world.

I have to admit, this kind of blew my mind. All of us, from the time we are children, when asked to draw deserts or make an exhibit around the theme, have always generously populated our deserts with our own versions of cacti.

But cacti occur naturally only in the Americas–from Patagonia in South America, through the US, to parts of Canada. Anywhere else we see them, they have been taken by humans.

There are however equivalents in other parts of the world. There are the Euphorbs, tamarisks, saltbrushes etc. in Africa, and succulent and spinifex grasses in Australia. In India we have khejri, thoor, acacias etc. all of which grow in our deserts. But these are not cacti. All them have various adaptations to dry conditions like small or no leaves, spines, thick stems and deep roots. But they differ from cacti in that they do not have areoles. The presence of a structure called the areole is what sets cacti apart from all other plants. Areoles are round or elongated, often raised or depressed area on a cactus which is equivalent to a bud and from which spines, flowers, stems, or roots grow.

Cacti were introduced to Europe by, no surprises, Christopher Columbus. In 1493, on his second voyage to the Americas, he brought back a specimen of the prickly pear—the first time a cactus was seen in Europe. It caught the fancy of botanists, horticulturists and the public, and led to widespread cultivation of these plants.

They came to India with the Europeans, most likely sometime in the 16th or 17th century. In recent times, there has been much interest in these plants. They are much prized for their dramatic looks and are a feature in every balcony garden and indoor succulent-tray.  At a commercial level, the dragon fruit, cultivated widely across the country and now found in roadside fruit stands everywhere, is a cactus. Known  as pitaya or pitahaya, it is native to southern Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America. It is a climbing cactus species. The fruit is low in calories, rich in antioxidants and is said to have many other wonderful properties. But frankly, I am yet to get used to the bland taste!

For a few years now, our Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), and ICARDA, an international organization, have been experimenting with cultivation of cacti, with a view to using it as fodder. Cacti as a fodder crop is seen as having the potential to help in the widespread shortage of green fodder, particularly during the summer months in many parts of the country. While still in experimental stages, it is thought to have some possibility.

India also has large and scientifically significant cacti collections. The National Cactus and Succulent Botanical Garden and Research Centre is located in the city Panchkula, the satellite town of Chandigarh. It is spread over seven acres and houses over 2500 species of cacti and succulents. The Regional Plant Resource Centre at Bhubenehswar has Asia’s largest collection of cacti. This Centre has created 200 new varieties and hybrids of cacti by breeding, growth manipulation, etc.

We said at the start that all except one cactus species was native to the Americas. The one exception is Thipsalis baccifera also know as the mistletoe cactus, which occurs naturally not only in the Americas, but also Africa, Madagascar, and close home in Sri Lanka. Scientists are still figuring out the how and why of this exception.

So look at cacti with new eyes. Love them, but don’t hug them!

-Meena

Celebrating Mother Earth: Pachamama

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This week the world celebrated Earth Day on 22 April. What started in the United States in 1970 as a one-day demonstration of concern about the threats to the natural environment, grew into a sustained global movement to conserve and protect our Planet Earth which is increasingly threatened in every way. Earth Day continues, to this day, as the largest secular day of celebrating Mother Earth across the world.

The reverence and celebration of Earth as the all-sustaining and nurturing Mother goes back millennia. All indigenous cultures believe that Earth sustains and nurtures all living things, of which humans are but one part. This belief is manifested in the traditions and practices of communities in different parts of the world. One of these is the deification of the Earth as a Goddess, especially in indigenous cultures of the Meso-Americas. This Goddess is Pachamama.

In the culture of the Andean people Pachamama represents the Earth and all its life forms. The word Pachamama comes from the Quechua, an ancient language of the Andean people. Pacha means ‘world’ and mama means ‘mother’, translating to ‘Mother Earth’. It represents the Goddess that exists in all elements of nature. It is the spirit of the land, the essential force that sustains life. Communities celebrate Pachamama through ceremonial rituals and offerings before embarking on any important activity: as a prayer for good crops; to overcome adversities, or requesting protection for livestock, people, and all living things. They also offer thanksgiving for each season’s harvest. The ceremonies demonstrate the integral role that Pachamama plays in agriculture and their daily sustenance. For the Andean people, who have a tradition of herbal medicine, Pachamama is also integral to health and well-being. They believe that honouring Pachamama supports both physical and spiritual health.

Pachamama is a vital life force encompassing four cosmological Quechua principles of Water, Earth, Sun, and Moon, which she embodies as the ultimate Earth Mother deity. The word thus is also taken to mean Mother Cosmos.

For the Andean people Pachamama’s presence is woven into the daily fabric of their lives. As a powerful force that sustains and nourishes, they are careful that their actions should not provoke her wrath. They believe that earthquakes are a manifestation of her displeasure. The rituals and traditions such as challa a ritual where a small portion of chica a fermented corn drink is poured on the ground as an offering to the Goddess, and offerings of cocoa leaves are a symbol of the respect and reverence of the people for Mama Pacha or La Pachamama as she is also called. Another ritual includes burying food, throwing sweets and burning incense to give thanks for the harvest. This is an expression of Ayni, the principle of reciprocity, a giving back to the earth, fostering a balanced relationship between Nature and humans. Shrines dedicated to the goddess are also constructed from natural materials such as tree trunks or rocks.

As in all cultures, culinary traditions also play a part in expressing gratitude for the sustenance that the earth provides. The preparation and sharing of Pachamanca, as part of community feasts is rich in symbolism. The word comes from the Quechua words for ‘earth’ and ‘pot’, and refers to the feast of potatoes, meats, vegetables, and sweet potatoes and corn that have been steamed in a stone-heated, herb-infused underground oven. The oven is made in a pit in the earth, lined with a sequence of layers of stones which have different heat holding capacities. The stones symbolize Inti, the Sun God, and the source of warmth. The ingredients are wrapped in banana leaves and also layered according to their cooking time, from meat and potatoes at the bottom to fruits such as plantains and pineapples at the top. Following a smattering of herbs and beans, the earthen oven is covered with soil and the buried ingredients cook slowly as they are imbued with aromatic heat and smoke. The ritual of burying the food signifies a return to the womb of Mother Earth. Pachamanca is a tribute to Pachamama, with all the offerings fed to the Earth before they are ceremonially dug out and shared to be eaten by the community. Even today this traditional feast symbolizes the community’s history and tradition of thanksgiving and reverence for the all sustaining Pachamama.

The concept of Pachamama symbolizes the interconnectedness of all living things who are sustained and nurtured by a healthy and vibrant Earth. This concept has resonated with ecological movements across the world. And yet, day-after-day, this Earth is being damaged, disturbed and pushed to the brink in every sphere.

It is in such dire moments that we need to look for some rays of hope. The concept of Pachamama is a reminder that we need to look beyond our own needs, wants and luxuries to remember and respect the source of all that meets these human demands. 

Several years ago I was part of an international project that invited contributions from young people around the world to read the UN Global Environment Outlook Report and send in their reactions and responses to the state of the environment, as well as suggest possible ways of tackling these issues. Case studies and examples of positive actions were also collected. The enormously rich inputs (text as well as visual) were sorted and edited also by a panel of young editors. The outcome was a heart-warming book. The unanimous choice for the title: Pachamama: Our Earth Our Future.

This stemmed from one of the young editors: I have visited South America and I have a personal relationship with Pachamama. I know her—she exists. She breathes in the forests, she rages in the earthquakes and volcanoes, she flows through the rivers and crashes on the shore with the sea. I feel her arms around me, nurturing me and all she asks of me in return is to love her, care for her, nurture her.

–Mamata

Woolly, Woolly

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The recent weeks have seen a number of news items starting with ‘Woolly…’. That is not very normal—the phrase ‘woolly-thinking’ is too archaic to be used as a pejorative across the lines in Parliaments.

But this bandying about of the word is neither from debates nor about shearing of sheep and records set therein.

The references all come from the world of science.

The first set of references stem from experiments of mixing mutations from the extinct mammoth and extant mice to create a woolly mouse! No, creating mice, woolly or otherwise, is not the purpose of the group of scientists which is working on this. The ultimate objective is to actually re-create the woolly mammoth itself. This is only a small intermediate step.

Now who would want to do such a thing, and why? Well, a company appropriately called Colossal Laboratories and Biosciences is behind this. Colossal refers to itself as a ‘de-extinction’ company. In a throwback to Jurassic Park, this company has retrieved the DNA of the 8-ton giant woolly mammoths which walked the earth over 4000 years ago from permafrost. They have mixed this with the genes of mice through complex gene-editing processes and have, after over three years of trials and experiments, created litters of normal sized mice which however have the ‘long, wavy, woolly hair of the mammoth’. They also have fat metabolism that mimics that of the giants. Colossal sees these mice as the first step in the route to actually re-create mammoths. They plan to work up to editing Asian elephant genes to express the traits of the woolly mammoth, and introduce the stem cells into an elephant embryo. The embryo would then be implanted into the womb of a female elephant, and lo and behold, a mammoth would be born to her!

For those who thought only a few years ago that this was the height of woolly thinking, well, maybe with the birth of the woolly mice, they are re-thinking!

Apart from the mind-boggling technical prowess required however, there are many debates about the ethical and environmental dimensions of ‘de-extinction’. (A TED Talk by Stewart Brand titled ‘The Dawn of De-extinction: Are you Ready?’ offers interesting insights).

The second set of woolly references is nothing so controversial. It is the recent discovery of a flowering plant whose flowers, rather meanly, have been called Woolly Devils. The plant or the flowers don’t seem to do any harm to anyone, but have been so dubbed because the flowers are hairy-looking, have florets which resemble devils’ horns, and the plant has been discovered in the desert in Chihuahua  (an ecoregion that covers areas of northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S., including west Texas, parts of New Mexico, and southern Arizona) along some paths in in an area known as the Devil’s Den. The plant belongs to variety known as “belly plants”—because scientists find it comfortable to study them while lying on their bellies! 

How unfair it is to name this newly-discovered plant (Ovicula biradiata) as Woolly Devils is borne out by the fact that scientists think they may produce chemicals of medicinal value.

Only time will tell where the quest for the woolly mammoth leads, and what benefits the woolly devil brings us.

In the meantime, we can pray for an end to woolly thinking.

–Meena

The Leaves Come Drifting Down

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At the moment, leaves are the bane of my life.

They drift down in their tens through the day. The lawns, porch and verandahs are no sooner swept that they come drifting down to make a mess, yet again.

And Saturday, when Bangalore was hit with unexpected torrential rains, our house almost flooded because fallen leaves had covered the water outlets on our terrace and there was a good six inches accumulated before we realized it and cleared the outlets. A few more minutes and the water would have entered the house.

But in general of course, who doesn’t love leaves: the variety of the shades of green, their shapes and sizes, the shadows they cast, the way they rustle in the breeze or when birds and squirrels play among them.

There are some people who take this love and appreciation to aesthetic heights. They are the leaf-artists.

Some people of course consider the leaf itself as art.’ There is artistry to a leaf that I find hard to put into words. In looking at leaves, the colours and veining, the patterns and textures, I get a good feeling. Leaves are nature’s artistry on display’, says Hank Erdmann, a leaf-photographer.

Others use the leaf as the medium. These leaf-artists express themselves through various creative expressions using leaves. This spans leaf printing, leaf carving, leaf painting and leaf collage. All of these are based on highlighting the leaf’s natural colours, shapes and textures.

It is likely that leaf-art is as old as our cave-dwelling ancestors. One can easily imagine our grandnmother picking up a leaf and carving a design on it with a sharp stone. And from these projects must have emerged the use of leaves as a medium for writing on—palm leaves were used for writing since the 5th century BCE in India. The ephemeral nature of the medium however has not left much proof of art on leaves.

But two contemporary artists have taken leaf-art to a new level.

The first is the Colombo Ecuadorian photographer, Yinna Higuera. Her recent collection ‘Traces’ is a series of portraits of rural Ecuadorian women, made on banana, cocao, coffee and other leaves. The collectoin documents the lives of these women, and portrays their link with nature and its cycles. The exhibition has been shortlisted for a Sony World Photography award, 2025. This is based on the technique of ‘chlorophyll printing’. The images are printed leveraging the leaf’s photosensitivity, merging photography with nature. This is an alternative photographic process where photographic images are developed on natural leaves through the action of photosynthesis, and goes back to the 19th century.

Another artist making waves (or gentle breezes) with his leaf art is Lito, a Japanese artist. He uses a completely different technique. He carefully selects a leaf, makes an intricate drawing on it, and painstaking carves it. The scenes often depict animals, birds and landscapes. Lito makes one leaf-carving every day! For him, this is not just a means of artistic expression, but also a way of managing his ADHD. It helps him focus, be calm–he sees it as a form of meditation. And importantly for him, leaf-carving is a means of earning a livelihood.

So I am going to re-calibrate. And appreciate each leaf as it drifts down to land on my verandah. Before muttering irritably at it!

And to end, here is a poem on leaves by Sarojini Naidu, whom Mamata wrote about a few weeks ago:

Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow,
   The sunset hangs on a cloud;
A golden storm of glittering sheaves,
Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves,
   The wild wind blows in a cloud.

Hark to a voice that is calling
   To my heart in the voice of the wind:
My heart is weary and sad and alone,
For its dreams like the fluttering leaves have gone,
   And why should I stay behind?

–Meena

PS: Today there are even Leaf Engraving Machines, ‘specialized for intricate leaf designs, perfect for crafting unique art pieces!’

The picture is from Lito’s Instagram page, art_dailydose

Ants and their Homes

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For every one of us, there are about 2.5 million of them. Yes, that’s how much ants out-number us. They inhabit every corner of the world other than Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, and some islands.

We humans swing between appreciation of these insects for their qualities of team work and hard work, and irritation when they invade our homes or kitchens. The ants probably swing between the same two emotions—appreciation of the humans who feed them, and disapproval of clumsy or mean humans who step on them or kill them.

Beyond human approval or disapproval, ants have a huge role in the ecosystem. They serve as seed dispersers for plants, hosts for a wide range of associate organisms, and act as both predator and prey. The role of ants in nutrient decomposition and soil turnover is enormous–they are estimated to excavate up to 13 tons of soil per hectare annually and increase local nutrient availability by a significant order.  Moreover, they create and maintain of microhabitats for a variety of other organisms.

The subject of today’s piece is their homes. They make their homes in a variety of places, and these structures are made with an enormous amount of labour by thousands of the creatures working together.

Most species of ants are soil-nesters. Soil meets their needs for food, moisture and protection. Since these ants move a lot of soil in the process of building their nests, they provide a valuable service to the soil-based ecosystem they occupy by their tunnelling and de-compacting of the soil. Some soil nesting ants construct a simple nest with one vertical tunnel, which has branches on either side for ant food, eggs and larvae. But other ground nesting ants build elaborate below-ground galleries going several metres below ground, with a network of interlocking interconnecting tunnels.

Wood-nesting ants are the next category. Carpenter ants are the best examples of these. They nest in wood that is rotting, dead, dying, or with a high moisture content. The ants bore into the wood and make elaborate nests. They do not eat the wood but deposit the wood they bore outside the nest. While they usually build outdoors in trees, it is not unknown for them to build in wooden structural elements in our houses.

There is category of ants which are called opportunistic nesters. These will nest almost anywhere, including under rocks, concrete slabs, air conditioners, inside holes in walls etc.

Ant nest

A fourth category, which are most visible to us at the moment are arboreal ants which construct nests on trees using leaves. These light red ants Oecophylla smaragdina, popularly known as weaver ants, stitch together individual leaves using larval silk to form nesting cavities.  The nests are round-oval and use leaves of different sizes ranging from 8-32cm. About twenty leaves are used to make each nest. These ants are aggressive in defending their territories, and a colony may take over an entire tree with nests distributed throughout.   Incidentally, these ants, called “Rukkung” in Arunachal Pradesh, are consumed in various forms in some of the North-eastern states.. 

I see these every evening on my walks—the falling leaves in this season leave the trees bare, which make the nests very visible. And marvel at the intricacy of the nests and the hard work that goes into each of them. What wonders there are around us, if only we take a minute to look!

–Meena

Spineless!

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Fountain of Bees, Rome

They make up over 90 per cent of life on earth.

There are about 1.3 million species of them.

They are found in every part of the world.

They range from one-fifth the thickness of a strand of your hair, to the 30 ft long giant squid.

These are the invertebrates—animals without a backbone. Why backbones, in fact, invertebrates don’t any bones at all! Invertebrates include ants, spiders, worms, snails, bees, butterflies, corals, lobsters, crabs…they are the spineless majority!

As the famous biologist EO Wilson put it, ‘Invertebrates don’t need us, we need invertebrates’.  Critically, they pollinate flowers, hence allowing plants to propagate so that there is food for all. They are at the base of all food-chains.  Humans also eat invertebrates—think crabs, lobsters etc. They maintain the ecological balance by eating each other and being eaten! Earthworms and some related creatures help dig up and aerate the soil, and make it fertile. They are important in another way too—most parasites are invertebrates!

All invertebrates are cold-blooded and about 80 per cent of them are terrestrial. Most of them undergo metamorphosis.

They fall into nine phyla, compared to vertebrates which all belong to one phylum.

In spite of their ubiquitous presence and the role they play in our lives, we don’t pay enough attention to these co-inhabitants of our world. For instance, while most countries have national animals or birds, few have national invertebrates. Exceptions include Denmark, which lists the Small Tortoiseshell as its national butterfly; Estonia which lists the Swallowtail; Finland which lists the Seven-spot Ladybird as its national insect and Latvia which has the Two-spot Ladybird for its. Several US states have State Insects, as does Karnataka (the honeybee). Many Indian states also have State Butterflies.

India is unique in that it has named a National Microbe—the Lactobacillus bulgaricus. This was done in 2012, based on a nation-wide completion. It was selected based on its importance in making yogurt or curd. Some US states also have State Microbes. The first state to declare an Official State Microbe was Oregon which chose brewer’s or baker’s yeast as the Official Microbe because of its importance to the craft beer industry there.

Designating such national and state symbols is important, given that we don’t focus enough on these creatures which make up about 95 per cent of all species on earth. Creating a buzz brings attention to them, hopefully leading to more studies and research, ensuring their well-being which is so critical to ours.

In order to increase awareness about invertebrates, last year the well-known British newspaper The Guardian started an ‘Invertebrate of the Year’ contest. This was confined to the UK. This year’s competition, the second of the series, has gone international. So any of us can send in a nomination for an invertebrate, along with reasons why we favour this particular one.

To give you an idea, last year’s winner was the earthworm, which was voted in with 38 per cent of the total votes. The least number of votes was garnered by the invasive Asian or yellow-legged hornet.

Surely you have an invertebrate you love or hate. This is your chance to put it on the world map. Submit your entries at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/12/nominate-your-invertebrate-species-of-the-year by midnight (GMT) on Tuesday 4 March.

–Meena

Avian Ambassadors: National Birds

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A news item that President Joe Biden had signed a bill on Christmas Eve 2024 that designated the bald eagle as the national bird of the USA was confusing, to say the least. One had always assumed that this had always been so, given that it was seen on all official US documents, and indeed even the US passport. It turns out that while the bald eagle has been the national symbol since it appeared on a copper cent in 1776, and has been appearing on the Great Seal of the US since 1782, the bird had never been legally recognized as the national bird till 24 December 2024.

Behind this lies an old story. On 4 July 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed whereby the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain. Following this it was decided that the new nation should have an official seal. It took three committees and six years before the seal was finalized on20 June 1782. The seal denoted a bald eagle grasping an olive branch and arrows in its talons. The significance of this is explained thus: ”The olive branch and the arrows held in the eagle’s talons denote the power of peace and war. The eagle always casts its gaze toward the olive branch signifying that our nation desires to pursue peace, but stands ready to defend itself”.

The bald eagle lives only in North America and to the people of the newly-born republic this bird was a symbol of courage, strength and freedom. It soon became a cultural and political symbol appearing on official documents, US currency, military insignia, and popular merchandise. Thus the bird remained a national emblem in the US for nearly 250 years, but it had not been officially designated to be the national bird until Congress passed the bill.

Many countries have a national bird. These are usually representative, in one way or another, of the country that they are the designated symbol of. The designation is done in different ways. The approaches range from the official, semi-official or unofficial, ranging from government decrees to popular vote. The choice is usually from among birds that have a high recognition factor.

Some countries in Central and South America have selected flamboyant birds as their national symbols, while some have selected bird species that are unique to their country. Among these are Gautemala’s Resplendent Quetzal and Papua New Guinea’s Raggiana Bird-of-paradise, which are spectacularly colourful. A beautifully matched choice is that of the Cuban Trogon or Tocororo whose colours exactly match the colours of Cuba’s flag. These birds cannot survive in captivity, and thus symbolizes the people’s love of freedom.

Some countries have selected threatened species in the hope to promote their conservation measures, like Bermuda’s Cahow or Bermuda Petrel (endangered) and Cambodia’s Giant Ibis (critically endangered). While Dodo is the unofficial mascot of Mauritius, seen as a symbol everywhere, it is sadly extinct. Thus the country has officially adopted the Mauritius Kestrel as its national bird. This is a rare bird of prey, endemic to the island and its recovery from near extinction (only four known individuals in the wild in 1974) to over 350 kestrels today, is a successful conservation story.  

Some Arab states have also designated other species of falcons as national birds. These birds represent grace, elegance, ability and alertness, and are considered a symbol of bravery. A variety of eagles have been a favoured choice of several countries for these very attributes. These include golden eagle (national bird of Albania, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Scotland, Serbia, and Germany), African fish eagle (Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe), harpy eagle (Panama), Javan hawk-eagle (Indonesia), Philippine eagle (Philippines), and the white-tailed eagle (Poland).

The raptor with the largest wing span in the world, the Andean condor of South America has been designated the national bird by several countries in that continent for its different qualities–Bolivia (for boundary-less pursuit), Chile (for strength), Colombia (for liberty and order), and Ecuador (for power, grandeur, and valour).

Whereas Japan could have adopted the Red-crowned crane as its national bird because of its scientific name Grus japonensis, it has chosen the kiji or Green pheasant. This bird is said to be particularly sensitive to earthquakes, to which Japan is prone. It is also features in many literary works.

Curiously, Grus japonensis was selected to be the national bird of China through an internet survey which was launched by the Chinese Wildlife Animals Protection Association and about 20 news organizations in 2004. The Red-crowned crane was the choice of about 1.3 million Chinese netizens to be the national bird.

Britain was pretty late in the naming of its national bird. In 2015 there was an online poll of over 200,000 people in Britain to vote for a national bird in response to a campaign started by ornithologist David Lindo. From an original list of 60 birds, online voters arrived at a shortlist of 10 birds. The Robin won first place with 34% of the vote, followed by the barn owl and blackbird.  

Another popular vote led to the change in Denmark’s national bird. Till 1984, the Skylark was the national bird, but a poll held by a TV show indicated that the more popular choice was the mute swan. The mute swan’s Danish name (Knopsvanen, literally meaning ‘the knob swan’) refers to the black knob it has over its orange beak. This selection was not based on natural history criteria but rather the association of the bird with Hans Christian Anderson’s famous fairy tale about the ugly duckling that grew into a swan.

Thus there are many reasons and many avenues that make a national bird. Closer to home, there is an interesting tale. In the 1960s the Government of India was encouraged by international bird conservation organisations to select a national bird. It was suggested that this could be a bird species that was in immediate need of protection, and thus attention. The most obvious choice at the time was the Great Indian Bustard that was already endangered then, with less than 1300 individuals in the wild. The famous ornithologist Salim Ali emphasised that this spectacular bird required “an urgent, nation-wide effort” to save it from its impending doom. As the story goes, in this respect, the Bustard was a logical choice. But there was a concern that its name could easily be misspelt or mispronounced, leading to much embarrassment! Whether this is just jest or a fact, it was the peacock which made the title in 1963, not because of its conservation status, but because of its cultural significance, religious and legendary associations, beauty, and widespread distribution in the country. 

–Mamata

Contested Hedges

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Contested borders are in the news every day. You can’t miss the claims and counter-claims between neighbouring countires—in our case, mainly China.

But it seems that disputes between neighbours on humble garden hedges are as serious. In the UK, disputes between neighbours on this issue have even resulted in deaths, with one Mr. Wilson of Lincolnshire, dying from gunshot wounds sustained during an argument over hedges, and a Mr. Reid dying of a heart attack after a heated dispute with his neighbour on the same subject. While not so drastic, many people have been levied stiff fines on the charge of trespass for cutting their neighbours’ encroaching hedges. In all, there were 1,00,000 hedge disputes in the UK prior in 2003.

Why do these disputes arise? A major reason is that the hedge blocks too much light to a neighbour’s house or garden; or that the hedge blocks a view. Or a neighbor’s overgrown hedge may encroach on your property. Also, branches or roots may cross into your property from a neighbor’s property or a public road.

This serious situation led to the passing of laws to manage the situation. In 2003, UK passed laws to manage disputes related to hedges. The UK Law essentially is about ‘high hedges’ defined as those over 2 meters in height. Transgressions of hedge-related law come under the definition of Anti-Social Behavior, since 2003!

The situation is understandable, given the extent of hedges in the UK. Laser scanning has shown that the UK has 390,000 km of hedges and hedgerows (1-6 metres tall) on field boundaries– enough to go round the world almost 10 times.

A step back. What is a hedge? A hedge is a line of shrubs (and occasionally trees), planted closely (3 feet or closer) which form a barrier or mark the boundary of an area, such as between neighbouring properties. Hedgerows on the other hand are hedges used to separate a road from adjoining fields, or one field from another, and which may incorporate larger trees. Apart from demarcating boundaries, hedges and hedgerows may serve as windbreaks to improve conditions for crops, as. A hedge is also called a “live fence”.

Under the UK Law, these disputes don’t go to court. Neighbours are encouraged to reach negotiated settlements. If this does not work, a written complaint may be given to the local Council, which will look into both sides of the argument and give a decision. Either the Council will reject the complaint, or they will give an order to cut the hedge to the mandated height. The cutting has to be done keeping in mind The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 which makes it an offence to destroy any bird’s nest that is either in use or being built!

Few other countries have such elaborate laws on the subject. However, some local authorities in the US do regulate the height or placement of hedges. For example, a resident of Palo Alto was arrested for allowing her xylosma hedge to grow too tall.

So go ahead. Do grow your Photinia, Duranta, Golden Cypress, Nerium, Hibiscus, Copper Leaf, Ixora, Tecoma, Vilayati Mehendi or whatever else takes your fancy. But make sure they don’t inconvenience your neighbours and get your behaviour labelled as anti-social—at least under the UK laws!

If everyone could plant hedges and learn to maintain them with discipline, maybe we will also learn to manage other boundary disputes without resorting to violence.  It could make for a world where boundary disputes become a thing of the past!

–Meena

Christmas Island: Galapagos of the Indian Ocean

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This week the focus revolves around the numerous facets of Christmas–from festive decorations, to feasts and family gatherings. An appropriate week to share something that does not really share much in common with these facets except for its name. That is Christmas Island; so named because it was first discovered on Christmas day.

The island however may have been there millennia before its formal discovery and christening. A small speck in the Indian Ocean, Christmas Island is the peak of a steep basalt volcanic seamount that rose 5000 metres from the ocean floor about 60 million years ago. Located in the Indian Ocean 2600 km northwest of Perth in Australia and 350 km off Indonesia, this island is today a part of Australian territory. However it has a chequered history of human settlement.

For centuries the small island’s isolated location and its rugged coasts provided a natural barrier to human intrusion. Its sighting was recorded in the charts of British and Dutch navigators in the early seventeenth century. But it was named by Captain William Mynors of the Royal Mary a vessel of the East India Ship Company when his ship approached the island on 25 December 1643; but he was unable to land on the island. The first recorded landing on the island is believed to be by the English ship Cygnet under Captain Swan in 1688.

It was in the 19th century that several explorers visited Christmas Island. Some of these were naturalists who collected plant and animal species from the island which was rich in biodiversity. It was in 1887 during one of these collecting expeditions that the crew of a ship called HMS Egeria also discovered that the island had rich resources of phosphate which was a valuable fertilizer. This led the British to annex the island in 1888. Human settlement of Christmas Island began in 1888, when George Clunies-Ross, the owner of the Cocos Islands, sent his brother Andrew and a small party of Cocos Malay workers to form a settlement at Flying Fish Cove. He did this to pre-empt any other claim to the island’s phosphate resources.

The British leased the island to John Murray, a naturalist who had first predicted the presence of phosphates and George Clunies-Ross who initiated the first settlement on the island. Together the two set up the Christmas Island Phosphate Company which started mining and exporting phosphate from the island from 1900. The operation needed a large labour force for which they brought in Chinese, Malays and Sikhs as indentured migrant labourers. These were the early settlers who, over time, grew into a multicultural community. However at that time these workers lived in appalling conditions, and in the early years, hundreds of them died from beri-beri caused by malnutrition. But conditions gradually improved and the island’s phosphate industry continued to flourish in the period till the First World War, with Japan as the biggest customer.

During the Second World War, the island was targeted by the Japanese who wanted to capture the phosphate deposits. In 1942 Japanese troops took over the island and the phosphate mining provided rich fertilizer for the Japanese Empire. The island was an arena for several acts of war between the Allied and the Japanese forces until 1945 when Japan surrendered. The island was re-occupied by the British in October 1945.

The Australian and New Zealand governments purchased the Christmas Island Phosphate Company in 1949, and administrative responsibility for the island shifted from the UK to the British colony of Singapore. When Britain was giving up many of its colonies after World War II Australia expressed an interest in acquiring Christmas Island. In 1958, sovereignty of the island was transferred to Australia. As part of the transfer, Australia paid Singapore £2,800,000 as compensation for lost phosphate revenue. Christmas Island became an Australian Territory on 1 October 1958. This day is celebrated on the island as Territory Day.

The centuries of mining and exploitation for phosphate had left huge scars on this island which with its unique geology supported rare species of endemic plants and animals not found anywhere else. Many of the flora and fauna unique to this ecosystem had reached the point of being endangered. In the 1970s it was realized that this exploitation could have a serious impact on the Abbot’s booby a bird that nests only on Christmas Island. In 1974 a committee recommended that conservation of such endangered species was critical. This resulted, in 1980, in the creation of a national park on the south-western part of the island. This was further expanded in 1986 and 1989 to create the Christmas Island National Park. Today the park extends over 64% of the island’s land area as well as extending 50 metres offshore. The area protects rainforests, wetlands, freshwater mangroves, sea cliffs and coral reefs, each harbouring a rich diversity of life.

Red crab migration on Christmas Island

Perhaps the most significant of this is the great variety of crabs that have earned it the sobriquet as the kingdom of crabs. Among these crustaceans is the enormous robber crab, and the red crabs whose annual migration from the rainforest to the ocean in an unforgettable spectacle. Every year, millions of red crabs move from Christmas Island’s interior rainforests to the ocean to breed and lay eggs. A single female can lay up to 100,000 eggs. Red crabs must keep their bodies moist, so they wait for the rainy season to provide conditions that are ideal for the difficult journey. During migration, red crabs climb over and around obstacles in their way, following the same migration paths every year. 

The island’s 80 km coastline is an almost continuous sea cliff rising up to 20 metres in height. In a few places the cliff descends to shallow bays with sand and coral shingle beaches. The island is surrounded by a narrow circling reef teeming with swarms of tropical fish species. Dolphin, whale sharks, turtles and manta rays are easy to spot.  Today Christmas Island has become a naturalist’s paradise. Often described as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean, Christmas Island has replaced phosphate mining with ecotourism. A heartening case of exploitation transformed into caring conservation.

–Mamata

The Ultimate Flower-Clock

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Wouldn’t it be beyond-beautiful if we had a clock which did not tell time by mundane numbers and needles, but by a particular flower blooming? Imagine if you peeped out of the window and you could look at this clock, and tell if it was 12 noon, or 1 pm or 2 pm by the flower that was blooming!

This was the kind of clock that Carl Linnaeus dreamed of.  Linnaeus’s flower clock or Horologica Floræ is a garden-plan thought up by Linnaeus that would take advantage of plants that open or close their flowers at particular times of the day, to accurately indicate the time.

As most of us would remember from school-biology, Linnaeus was the Swedish naturalist who laid down the principles for defining genera and species of organisms, and created a uniform system for naming them (the binomial nomenclature). His book, Systema Naturae (The System of Nature) consisted of only 11 pages but laid the foundations of taxonomy. It presented a hierarchical classification or taxonomy, of the three kingdoms of nature: stones, plants, and animals. Each kingdom was subdivided into classes, orders, genera, species, and varieties. All modern classification systems in biology have their roots in the Linnaean classification system which is based on similarities—for instance, Linnaeus grouped together organisms that shared obvious physical traits, such as number of legs or shape of leaves.

The Linnaean system of classification consists of a hierarchy of groupings, called taxa (singular, taxon). Taxa range from the kingdom to the species. The kingdom is the largest and most inclusive grouping. It consists of organisms that share just a few basic similarities. Examples are the plant and animal kingdoms. Then come the phylum, then the class, order, family, genus, and finally the species–the smallest and most exclusive grouping. It consists of organisms that are similar enough to produce fertile offspring together.

Linnaeus greatest contribution to science was his method of naming species. This method, called binomial nomenclature, gives each species a unique, two-word Latin name consisting of the genus name and the species name. An example is Homo sapiens, the two-word Latin name for humans, literally meaning “wise human.”

But if Linnaeus saw order in the natural world around him, he saw beauty too. In around 1748 he started thinking about the flower-clock. It builds on the fact that there are species of plants that open or close their flowers at set times of day. In his publication Philosophia Botanica, he gives 46 examples of flowering plants that are open during particular parts of the day. He brought together 43 of these under the heading Horologium Florae, or Floral Clock, arranging them in a time sequence from 3 am to 8 pm. The time at which each flower opens and closes is given in whole and half hours.

To give you a glimpse, here are a few rows from Linnaeus’ table:

Botanical nameCommon nameOpening timeClosing time
    
Tragopogon pratensisGoat’s-Beard3 a.m.–
Cichorium intybus L.Chicory4–5 a.m.–
Reichardia tingitana (L.) RothFalse Sow thistleby 6 a.m.10 a.m.
Taraxacum officinale WeberDandelion5 a.m.8–9 a.m.
Crepis alpina L.Hawk’s beard5 a.m.11 a.m.
Hieracium umbellatum L.Hawkweed6 a.m.5 p.m.

Though Linnaeus worked for years on this, the observations and hence selection and organization of flowers were not complete.  Linnaueus’ son Carl the Younger was given the task for completing the table so that the clock could be built. Unfortunately, Linnaeus the Younger’s floral clock was never completed, and his observations on the opening and closing of flower have not been found among his surviving papers.

Alas, no one has actually built such a clock, and it is not even clear that it is possible.  There are many practical issues to overcome. For instance, it would only function for part of the year since plants don’t flower through the year; the time shown would be indicative at best since blooming times are in a range and would vary with specifics like weather and other atmospheric conditions; many of the plants that Linnaeus observed and selected were wildflowers from Sweden and may not be found in other places, or would behave differently in other places. And then, the clock may not work at all in some seasons, if there are not enough flowers which bloom then.

Well, in this digital age, there are some ingenious people who have created an app based on the idea. They have selected 24 flowers, one for each hour that would normally flower at that time of the day or night. Floræ – Linnaeus’ flower clock app is free on appstore for Apple and iPhone.

So maybe we have make do with that, till some genious actually builds the Horologica Floræ to blow our minds!

–Meena

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/nature/curious-questions-what-is-linnaeuss-flower-clock-259032

Wikipedia

Wikimeida Commons (Picutre)