A Neotropical Savanna

In June we experienced a record rainfall of 43 inches. The previous record was 41 inches and the average for this area is 22 inches in June. Here’s a graph of the erratic 2010 rainfall (red line) compared to a 16-year average (blue line).

Back in May, I noted the early blooming of Miconia rubiginosa after the heavy rains in April.

Now, in July, I’ve seen two plants in bloom that I normally see bloom in August: a tree with large bunches of yellow flowers, Senna hayesiana, and a miniature relative of the Elephant Ear herb, Xanthosoma mexicanum. I’m also seeing flower buds on an unidentified Miconia that usually blooms in September. I’m sure more’s going on along this line than I’m seeing.

Maybe these large swings in time of blooming are relatively normal for the tropics. But I’m starting to think that it’s more than coincidence that different plants from three unrelated families (Senna = Fabaceae or bean family, Xanthosoma = Araceae or arum family, Miconia = Melastomataceae or “black mouth” family)  are blooming immediately after uncommonly large monthly rainfalls.

One of the events I look forward to in June is the blooming of the iconic tree of our area – a canillo. It is Miconia rubiginosa. It has a distinctive look – trunk a little gnarled, bark rough and reddish, leaves in clumps at the ends of the branches.

When it blooms, in June as I said, the whole grove lights up.

But this year it bloomed in early May, nearly six weeks earlier than usual. (Sorry, but my pictures from that day are horrible. The blooms, though, looked like these, above and below, taken in June last year.)

Why such an early bloom?
Plants may not bloom at exactly the same time every year, but it struck me that this year’s early blooms might possibly have something to do with the heavy rains in April.

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The winds earlier this month caused more damage than a downed Miconia tree, and the damage was more extensive than I realized until I compared the most severely injured area with an earlier photograph. Here are the before (November 2008) and after (February 2009) shots. (Click on image to enlarge.)

The wind damage is compounded by the contrast between the conditions at the end of the rainy season and conditions two months into the dry season. Before I go into that, I should explain the sticks leaning against the banana plants. These are crutches put there to support the plant once a bunch of bananas develops. If the plant is not supported, the bananas will pull the plant down. The bag is placed over the ripening bananas in an attempt to keep the birds away (Black-chested Jays are especially noisy and destructive).

Okay, here’s the damage report. (Click on image to enlarge.)

In the upper left corner is a leaf-less tree (deciduous in the dry season) that I have not yet identified. A large limb split off it and fell onto an already fallen Miconia and onto one of the banana plants. The Miconia has been mostly cleared away, but it also damaged banana plants and for awhile provided a highway for squirrels to get to the ripening bananas under the bag. The Miconia also pretty much demolished the fern stand. As noted, banana leaves normally take on a shredded appearance in the dry (and normally windy) season. They are designed to do that without causing damage to their vascular systems.

And here’s the comparison between the seasons.

At the end of the rainy season the grass is green; in February it is brown. The banana leaves are fairly intact in the rainy season and are shredded in the dry season.

The bijao (the large-leafed plant at the extreme right of both images, Calathea lutea) is bright green in the rainy season, and not all of the leaves are erect. In the dry season, the leaves are grayish, shredded like the bananas, and nearly all are completely erect to expose themselves to less sun than if they were more parallel to the ground (this movement of the leaves is a characteristic of this groups of plants and for this reason they are known as “prayer” plants).

Between the bijao and the bananas is an Eugenia biflora, which has just finished blooming and so looks a little paler than it normally would because it is studded with pale green developing berries.

All in all, with the wind damage and the normal drying impact, the pleasant little area looks pretty devastated. However, it’s a miniature ecological event as well. At the edge of our tiny forest, a new “gap” has been created. It will be interesting to watch as it responds to this new situation.

It may not look like much to one who doesn’t live here, but I was really, really sorry to see this small Miconia tree downed this afternoon (click for a larger version).

We’ve been through four days so far of high winds, and they haven’t stopped yet, although they lessened for a few hours this morning. Today for the first time we started seeing small trees felled. They are mostly this Miconia rubiginosa, called canillo, and a tree in the Aster family called palo blanco. Both are fairly brittle, and palo blanco branches break off the tree at the slightest excuse. But the Miconia rubininosa is one of my favorite savanna trees – partly because they make nice groves in our area, partly because they are so pretty when they bloom, and partly because it was one of the first trees that I sought professional botanical help to identify.

The winds were caused by a plunge of the North American Jet Stream down into the Caribbean, wreaking all sorts of havoc for us in Central America, and worse for our Caribbean friends. If you really have nothing better to do for the next few minutes, you can watch the wind play with our blurry nance trees topped by cecropia trees and our sigua tree (which is about to bloom). The fenced area is the dog run, the yellow building is the bodega (storage shed), and the clothes lines are the clothes lines. The brown grass shows you just how dry this dry season is.

P.S. Berry Go Round # 13, a carnival of blogs about plants, is up, with some seriously interesting posts.