From primary school, Filipino children are taught how rich the Philippines is in natural resources. But as a child I saw how the Caraballo mountain range straddling our province of Nueva Ecija in Central Luzon was being denuded of its forest cover, either by illegal loggers or settlers clearing the land for cultivation.
Six-wheel trucks loaded with logs roared along the provincial highway past my house. Once a year, after the rice harvest season, village men from miles away would ride their water buffaloes and head for the mountains, and on their return the animals would be pulling tree trunks that the men had felled to build a house or for fuel. The family of my best friend in high school had a kaingin, a piece of forest land they cleared to plant vegetables. At the time, there was no awareness of the importance of conservation; the word probably was not even coined.
I was in Grade 5 when whole families in northern Luzon migrated to the islands of Mindoro and Palawan, off the coast of Luzon, under a government scheme that divided forest land for distribution as homesteads to landless farmers. I remember it quite well, for my mother had relatives who relocated there in search of a better life, and we never saw nor heard from them ever again.
As I reached high school, deer and wild boar became extinct in Maangol, the mountain nearest my hometown, and much of the Caraballo mountains became devoid of forest. What resource could be derived from a mountain range with mostly cogon grass as land cover?
In my mind, the Philippines only has islands of forest cover, mostly secondary. During a visit to my home country last month, I realised I had been wrong in my assumptions, and that not all is lost after all.
A friend took me and four companions on a drive up the southern end of the Sierra Madre mountain range in Quezon province, just a three-hour drive southeast of Manila, and I was in for a big surprise. The route was a treasure-house of wild species of flora that any plant enthusiast would love to grow in his garden.
Fern-tastic: The roadside is a treasurehouse of ferns.
Preservation: Left, collecting ‘Medinilla magnifica’ cuttings in the wild. The Philippines is home to 23 native species of Medinilla.
Wet and wetter: Facing the Pacific Ocean, the Sierra Madre mountain range is said to have only two seasons a year: rainy and rainier.
On both sides of the road, there was a wealth of ferns, including some primitive species like Dipteris conjugata, which has circular, serrated leaves like a palm, and Sphenomeris chinensis, an attractive plant with lacy leaves that do not look quite like those of a fern. Ferns in the genera Gleichenia, a type of sun fern and known in Thai as chon, and Dicranopteris covered mountainsides which were made colourful by purple and pink flowers of melastoma in full bloom.
In Thailand, Melastoma malabathricum, commonly known as Indian rhododendron, or khlong khleng in Thai, has violet flowers and is usually found growing in coastal wastelands. The varieties I saw on the mountains had purple or pink flowers that were much bigger, but this could be because the plants were not lacking in water. Facing the Pacific Ocean, this part of the mountain range is said to have only two seasons a year: rainy and rainier, which make tree ferns, growing in profusion, very happy indeed.
The Philippines is the original home of the Medinilla, a genus of plants with panicles of attractive flowers followed by clusters of pinkish blue berries. It has at least 23 native species, the most well known of which are Medinilla magnifica, known in Thai as soi raya, and Medinilla speciosa, or angoon talay. We saw several specimens, some with berries, just a stone’s throw away from the roadside, and although it was raining we could not help but get some cuttings.
Thai growers plant medinilla in pots, but in fact it is an epiphytic plant. Its flower panicle is pendulous so you will be able to appreciate it better if you put the pot on a stand. Better still, mount the plant on the fork or branch of a tree. The planting medium to use is chopped coconut husk, which is kept in place by a net wrapped around the plant’s root ball. When the plant blooms, the flowers will be on your eye level so you will be able to appreciate them better.
Pretty in pink: Above and right, Melastoma, or Indian rhododendron, add colour to the Sierra Madre mountains in Quezon province.
Another tree endemic to the Philippines is the Macaranga grandifolia, which, as its name implies, has large leaves but it has a compact nature and can be grown as an ornamental plant in a big pot. We counted at least four species of Macaranga as we drove along the mountain; some had small leaves, while one species had leaves that were coloured maroon underneath.
As we went higher up the mountain the vegetation changed. At 800 metres above sea level, the tree ferns gave way to graceful casuarina trees. Although they look life conifers, they are in fact flowering trees with seeds. Had we wanted, we could have uprooted some seedlings, some growing right on the shoulder of the road.
What took my breath away, however, was the terrestrial orchid Arundina graminifolia, or bamboo orchid, which dotted hills as we drove down the other side of the mountain range. The orchid’s leaves look like miniature bamboo, and it is valued by the Japanese for Ikebana flower arrangements. Vying for attention were pitcher plants, which were also growing in abundance, although on this side of the road there were houses nearby.
Taking some cuttings here, and a few plants there, we collected quite a few specimens for a friend’s botanical garden, which aims to conserve native plants before they disappear in the wild. Located near the famous Taal Volcano in Tagaytay, it has about the same temperatures and humidity as the plants’ place of origin, so after the initial shock of being transplanted they will likely survive in their new home.
Yet we were only casual travellers making a stop here and there. What awaits the serious collector out to explore the mountains on a plant collecting expedition, I wonder. The mountains, however, are off-limits to the public, as they are under the control of the Philippine Army’s 2nd Infantry
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