Taiwan Expedition Log

August 9-29, 2008
September 5, 2008 update

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Monday August 11, 2008

Eager to start botanizing, we headed up the nearby mountains within the Yang Ming Shan National Park (shan means mountain). We maneuvered the winding roads until we reached over 3,000'+ elevation and pulled into one of the public parking lots and began our first hike. The sky was We backtracked about 100' up the road, then headed up a side road toward the top of Mt. Sinoguanyin. One of the first plants we saw was Rhododendron oldhamii, the species which imparted the everblooming habit to the Encore azaleas. Underneath it was Rubus pentalobus ... or at least that's what it appeared to be. We would continue to see similar rubus with varying leaf sizes throughout the island. The next plant we spotted was a fern, Dipteris conjugata, I had heard about from Dan Hinkley, who had also visited this area. Dipteris is without a doubt one of the most amazing and unusual ferns I've ever seen, but so far, no one in the west has had luck bringing it into cultivation. Adjacent was Farfugium japonicum var. formosanum, all growing at the base of a steep bank. The leaf forms on the farfugium ranged from slightly to deeply lobed, but all looked somewhat different from the Japanese forms of F. japonicum in the trade. The farfugiums were in turn topped by Hydrangea aspera ... a plant we would see throughout our trip, and the hydrangeas were then topped by Styrax japonica.

The further we walked, the more excited we got. Arisaema ringens growing with asarum and Liriope muscari (incorrectly synonymized in Flora of Taiwan as L. platyphylla), which then led to Podophyllum pleianthum, and then to 2' tall clumps of Paris bockiana ... all growing near an alocasia, which we assume to be A. odora. This was our first sighting for Begonia chitoensis with it's large outfacing flowers, which we would later find at many higher elevations throughout the entire island. There was an amazing euonymus growing here as a groundcover, which resembled a brighter version of Euonymus fortunei 'Wulong Ghost'. Did I mention the cicadas? These are not your grandmothers cicadas ... their ear piercing noise is eerily reminiscent of the Velociraptor sounds from Jurassic Park ... a sound that leaves you looking through the branches for hidden pairs of eyes.

Ferns were everywhere, especially epiphytic ones. It seems nearly every tree of any size was either covered in one of many climbing hydrangeas or epiphytic ferns including pyrrosias in mind-boggling numbers. We darted back and forth across the access road finding more goodies with each crossing. Before long we spotted what appeared to be an illicium, but without the typically fragrant leaves. We looked around for the parent plant, hoping it would be the sought after tree anise, Illicium arborescens.

We continued up the trail for nearly an hour and a half before we returned to the van to go for lunch. We were shocked to find the passenger side window smashed and my briefcase containing my laptop, maps, hotel reservations, plant references, and worst of all, my passport ... all gone. Thank goodness they were scared away before they could take the rest of our luggage. We phoned our rental car firm, who contacted the local police, which arrived after an hour. While we waited for the police, a Hitchcockian fog rolled in, engulfing the entire mountain. This would become a regular afternoon signature of the Taiwanese mountains, which certainly made driving more challenging than we anticipated.

Finally the police arrived, but unfortunately, our lack of ability to speak Chinese and their lack of ability to speak English hampered our communications. After taking our initial report, we followed the police back to the police station, where the report filing began. We were joined there by three members of the rental car firm, who helped us translate, brought us a light lunch, along with a replacement van. After two plus hours of fingerprinting our van and filling out forms, I was given police reports to sign, having no idea what they actually said. Not only was signing necessary on nearly 30 pages of forms, but I had to mark each signature with a red-inked thumbprint ... my green thumb had now turned red.

The folks from our car rental agency encouraged me to go to the Taiwan Immigration Department to file a report for my missing passport. I phoned the American Institute of Travel Services Office (the equivalent of our embassy, but since we don't officially recognize Taiwan as a country, we can't have an official embassy), but unfortunately, they closed at 3:30pm ... (now that's real customer service for American citizens). I asked what documents I needed to get a replacement passport and was told two forms of identification and the police report would be plenty ... no papers from Taiwan Immigrations needed. No problem, since I had a copy of my passport stashed in different luggage.

The rental car folks mentioned I couldn't get a replacement passport without first visiting the Taiwan Immigration Office, so once again, I phoned the "embassy" to ask if this was correct. After checking with their supervisor, I was assured again I did not need to visit the Taiwan Immigration Office. Our rental car folks still encouraged me to go to the Taiwan Immigration Office and offered to take me there before they closed at 5pm. Since it was now too late to head back into the field, Mark took our new van back to the hotel and I rode with the rental car folks to the Immigration Office. We battled the rush hour traffic, but uncertain of its exact location, our stopping to ask directions a couple of times caused us to arrive too late to be able to fill out the necessary papers. The rental car folks were kind enough to return me to our hotel, where, exhausted mentally, we picked up takeout at the Kentucky Fried Chicken adjacent to the hotel.