Wind Damage
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.
Very interesting as usual. The two main things I took from this blog entry is 1) the reason banana leaves shred and 2) that the bijao leaves change position from the rainy to dry seasons.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your remarks. I should have been more clear on the bijao. The difference is not simply rainy-season/dry-season appearance (although I think the color is that). The “prayer” movement is due to the intensity of sunlight and on a sunny day, the leaves go vertical, whereas on an overcast day the leaves stay flatter.
Did you have much wind damage at Cerro Azul?
The force of nature can indeed be frightening…
What interests me the most is the banana. Do we generally need to put crutches on bananas there or is it just specific for those in the pictures?
Because here (middle Java, Indonesia), on my garden and around the neighborhood, they ripen and do fine by their own… (seeing your picture, I have a hunch that the “trunk” on bananas here is much thicker)
Another point is the bag on the bananas. I’ve never seen it used around here, but people do put bags on mangoes to keep bats from eating it.
Agro -
Interesting differences between Panama and Java, eh? The crutches are standard for this part of Panama until the banana plants are very tall. Ours are just at the edge of not needing crutches. What I don’t know is whether the commercial producers in this area also use crutches. I’ll try to find out.
Of further interest are the bags – Panamanians use them for bananas but not for mangoes, and I haven’t heard of bats eating mangoes around here. Again, I’ll see if I can find out.
Thanks very much for commenting. I enjoy learning about these differences.
Mary
[...] of those trees is the palo blanco – a brittle tree that suffered quite a bit of damage during the recent high wind [...]