Monday August 25, 2008

Being our last day in the field, we knew the botanizing would be brief since we needed to make it to the coastal town of Taichung in Northwest Taiwan by evening. We headed back down Ali Shan on Highway 18 to connect with Interstate 3. Our first stop was just down from the Ali Shan police checkpoint, where we entered another cryptomeria forest at 6,600'. One of the first plants I found was an impatiens with amazing black calyxes and white petals. Only later when we saw it again, did Mark correctly suggest it was instead a gesneriad, Hemiboea. We found more of the red foliaged form of Begonia chitoensis, but at 1,600' higher than before. A dark-foliaged schizophragma and an array of epiphytic ferns adorned almost all of the trees here. We even found Alpinia here, much higher than we had seen it before, along with many more calanthes. Some of the most interesting ferns included a glossy form of the normally dull-leaved pyrrosia, an arachniodes that produced plants from leaf bulbils, another naked rhizome polypodium, and a stoloniferous woodwardia resembling W. virginica.

Heading further down the mountain, a stop at 6,000' yielded an amazing 8' tall callicarpa with huge clusters of developing fruit growing among lithocarpus (evergreen oaks), and a patch of acorus growing nearby in a dry rock stream. Further down at 5,500', we stopped by a sheer roadside cliff covered with Tricyrtis growing right on the rock face without what appeared be a speck of soil. We initially assumed this to be more T. ravenii, but a second stop several hundred feet lower with more advanced plants revealed this to be our third tricyrtis species of the trip, T. lasiocarpa. Also here, we found a carex resembling C. morrowii, and a peperomia. What I initially assumed to be an escapee turned out to be one of many native species of peperomia. Another strange find was what appeared to be a ramonda in flower (later id'd as Conandron ramondioides), growing near the peperomia. In the fern world, there was a very long leafed pteris here, that look superficially like P. cretica and a lovely small white-backed cheilanthes with deeply cut foliage...possibly C. farinosa.

At 5,300', we stopped to check out another slope of cryptomeria and bamboo, only to find it rich with understory plants we hadn't seen before. Underneath the cryptomerias were masses of Alocasia odora...a strange looking combination. As we meandered down the steep, but rich slope, we encountered the wonderful Zingiber kawagoii in full flower along with paris (Pic 2)...a plant we certainly didn't plan to find growing with alocasia. Above us, we again spotted large clumps of the epiphytic Aglaomorpha meyeniana fern in the trees. There were numerous masses of aspidistra here, some solid green, while others were heavily spotted yellow. Nearby plants included Disporum taiwanense, both in a branched and unbranched form, more of the 4' tall cane-type begonia, along with more Arisaema grapospadix including a stunning silver center form Mark spotted, among large patches of lepisorus fern. The scheffleras had switched here from the higher elevation Schefflera taiwanense to the mid-elevation S. octophylla. We wondered if this might be hardy from this fairly high location? Along the roadside was an interesting clone of Colocasia esculenta with silver speckling on the leaf. Initially I thought this might be insect damage, but none was evident and none of the other nearby clones showed the same pattern. Down the road just a bit, we even pulled off to see a massive patch of Tradescantia zebrina...a nice and unique form that was obviously an escapee.

Our final stop of the trip at 4700' was a steep sunny bank topped with a solid line of more Tricyrtis lasiocarpa. This clumping species has one of the most spectacular flowers of the genus, and to my knowledge, all of the material in the trade represents a single population. I was surprised to find it growing in full sun and producing large 2'+ tall plants, some with leaves reaching 8" long x 4" wide. It was hard to tear ourselves away, but realizing it was already 2:15pm and we hadn't made it far past our starting point or stopped for lunch, we drug ourselves away.

As we continued toward our hotel in Taichung, we continued west on Highway 18. Not far away, we stopped at a small country store where we purchased instant noodles which we enjoyed on their public picnic deck, overlooking the forest below. One of the interesting things we noticed around the town were more Lilium formosanum, but all without the purple back we had seen in the high mountains. This form was also much taller than what we'd seen earlier, perfectly resembling the form widely cultivated in the US. As we traveled further along Highway 18, we continued to see this same form of Lilium formosanum dotted along the roadside...only one flower in the wild, but when brought into cultivation it had between 5-10 flowers just as it does back in our home garden. It appears the commonly cultivated form is simply a lower elevation form, but is indeed L. formosanum. When I relayed this to Dr. John Grimshaw of the UK's Colesbourne Garden on my return, he shared a passage from the 1950 publication in Woodcock & Stearn's, Lilies of the World, which quotes William Price: "'In the plains the flower is pure white, but as one ascends the perianth becomes faintly marked with red on the reverse. Above 6000 feet it is wonderfully different, being quite a small slender plant about one foot high with a perianth of confirming size. At the higher elevations the red markings become deeper and take the form of rich red bands on the keels of the perianth segments. The change is so gradual and continuous that it is obviously the same species all the time.'" That's pretty cool!

We had hoped to find Amorphophallus hirtus, which grew near Highway 18, but despite our best efforts, it was nowhere to be found. If there was anything disappointing about the trip, it was our inability to find any of several Amorphophallus species that grow here including A. kiusianus, A. henry, A. paeonifolius, and A. hirtus.

We continued west on Highway 18, then north on Interstate 3 into the huge city of Taichung. Although it took a bit of backtracking in the city to find Highway 12, the main route through town, we finally found it. Riding down through the city, we couldn't believe our luck when we spotted our hotel, The Splendor, right on our road in the midst of 5 o'clock rush hour traffic. We were greeted by the concierge...a first for Taiwan and directed to the front desk, who directed us to the hotel check-in on the 12th floor. Things were certainly looking up. We arrived at the 12th floor to find a lush lobby, complete with a variety of restaurants, a business center, and virtually anything a traveler could ask for. Our room was equally as amazing. I've stayed at plenty of nice hotels, but this probably tops the list...especially with our expectations being quite low.

I must thank travel agent Dale Mackie of Whose Travel in Taiwan. I had struggled for months trying to make reservations in Taiwan with folks who spoke little or no English. I was ready to give up when I stumbled on an on-line article mentioning Whose Travel and the American who ran it. All I had to do was tell Dale where we wanted to stay, our requirements, and how much we wanted to spend, and he found us hotels that fit our needs. If anyone plans to visit Taiwan, I can't say enough good things about Whose Travel. Whose Travel was started by Dale, who moved to Taiwan in 1997, where he taught English to groups of travel agents. Dale eventually married one of his students, Vivian, and the two of them formed Whose Travel in 2003. When booking hotels rooms in Taiwan, you must pay in advance of your trip, for which you will get a paper travel voucher. All you have to do when traveling is to present the travel voucher when you arrive at your hotel and you're in like Flint.

Our dinner buffet at The Splendor Hotel is hard to describe. The spread from which to choose was literally the size of a football field...I've never seen anything like it. Overindulging was the order of the day, from soups, to entrees, to deserts...simply outstanding!

Back to the beginning       Part 1       Part 2       Part 3       Part 4       Part 5       Part 6       Part 7       Part 8       Part 9       Part 10-11       Part 12       Part 13       Part 14       Part 15