Taiwan Expedition Log

August 9-29, 2008
September 5, 2008 update

click thumbnails to open large images in a new window

Tuesday August 12, 2008

I presented my documents and was told I must first have documents from the Taiwan Immigration Office. I explained we had gone through this yesterday and I had confirmed by phone twice that these documents were not needed. No, the officer explained, it was required because my police report did not say specifically that my passport was stolen. As it turned out, the police had sent me away with the Cliff's notes version of the report, but with it being in Chinese, I was not aware of this until now. I asked them to call the police office to verify my passport was stolen, which they did and things again seemed fine. That was until the next bureaucrat got involved. Bureaucrat #2 then explained again I couldn't get a new passport until I visited the Taiwan Immigrations Office. I went up the chain of command, even speaking with the US State Department representative, who, obviously feeling my pain, offered me a ride to the Taiwan Immigration office, which was about 10 minutes away. As it turned out, the office we arrived at was different from the office we had visited on Monday afternoon ... oops.

Upon arrival, I had to duck into another photo booth for more photos, then a relatively quick amount of paperwork before I was hailing a taxi back to the US Passport Office. Finally, then end was in sight. After more waiting, my passport was re-issued with the caveat that I must return again to the Taiwan Immigration Office to have my passport stamped so I would be able to leave Taiwan. Returning for more bureaucracy, I finally finished up around 1pm, then it was back to the hotel and out into the field. Mark had spent the morning, trying to reconstruct our hotel vouchers via email and get them printed for the remaining part of the trip. The way hotels work in Taiwan is you pay in advance and simply present a voucher of payment when you arrive. Obviously, without these vouchers and with our language barrier, problems would be sure to lay ahead. After a bite to eat, we were both eager to head back into the field.

Despite our earlier problems, we returned to see more of the flora of Yang Ming Shan Park. We first headed up past our fiasco parking lot, where a side road allowed us to head higher up the mountain to the Mt. Datung peak (Grass Mountain) at around 3,300' elevation. Much of the mountain is covered solid by miscanthus, which in spite of holding the soil in many of Taiwan.s steeply sloped mountains, doesn't allow much other vegetation to survive. Despite this thick vegetation, Mt. Datung and virtually all other mountains tend to slough (pronounced 'sluff') off in periods of heavy rain. I'm not sure how much the natural hot springs have to do with the instability of the soils, but it is fascinating to watch steam emerging from the side of the mountains.

The few plants we found near the top were growing right alongside the road including asarum growing in the edge of the asphalt and farfugium growing on a concrete block wall, both demonstrating an incredible will to survive. We finally found a small pocket of forested area just below the top and peeked down the steep bank, much of which was bordered with a retaining wall. After deciding it was simply too steep to reach, Mark spotted a stainless steel ladder which maintenance workers had obviously bolted to the retaining wall to allow them access ... a thoughtful gesture, surely intended for us. Down we went into what turned out to be a horticultural wonderland.

We were first greeted with more Arisaema ringens, which we had seen the day before. This time, Mark spotted a narrow-leaf form, which was much different from anything I'd ever seen in the wild. We began finding more asarums, polygonatum, calanthe orchids, heloniopsis, and even a plant that looked like a pinellia. The group of plants I had come here to study were the ferns, and those did not disappoint. From pyrrosia to asplenium to coniogramme, the woods were just rich with ferns, many of which are endemic to Taiwan. The fern that really caught our attention was the tree fern, Cyathea spinulosa, whose 10' trunks just looked out of place in the midst of a forest of seemingly temperate plants. There were other large ferns including one we couldn't identify to genus, but the 7' long fronds make it one to try. The other shocker was when we walked up on a giant birdnest fern (Asplenium nidus) growing as an epiphyte in the trees. We stared for several minutes at this horticultural anomaly, before concluding we obviously were not as temperate as we first thought.

Here, we found our first Araliaceae family member, a group that interested both Mark and myself. It appeared to be the Taiwanese Dendropanax dentiger, but Woody Flora of Taiwan seems very confused about this genus as it inappropriately synonymized this with other species. Another broadleaf evergreen that caught our eye was a plant we tentatively identified as Machilis acuminatissima ... a large shrub with very wavy and glossy leaves. It was here that we finally found a large specimen of the illicium from the day before ... a 40' tall Illicium arborescens ... eureka! All we could do was wonder what the horticultural world would think of a tree illicium ... very cool! After a couple of hours at this stop, we scaled the bank back toward the top when we were stopped with two other surprise finds ... a mahonia and what looks to be an edgeworthia. This couldn't be edgeworthia, since it is not listed in the Woody Flora of Taiwan, but there it was with edgeworthia's classic form and leaf shape. Bleddyn Wynn-Jones, who has tromped these parts more than I, advises me this is in fact Daphne kiusiana v. atrocaulis. The only other thing at this stop that could have been deemed stranger was the crab parading its way over the mountainous rocks ... either a remnant from the last typhoon our my first encounter with a land crab.

From here, we drove around the top of Yang Ming Shan and again visited the Mt. Sinoguanyin peak we had started to climb on our first day. Instead of parking in the same lot, we drove up the trail past the corner house with all the annual flowers out front. We started where we left off, encountering more hydrangeas, including what we think might be Hydrangea chinensis. The woods were filled with amazing woodies including a number of stunning machilis and one of my long-time favorites, Trochodendron aralioides (wheel tree). The mountain top was cleared for radio towers, and the two packs of barking dogs let us know we were not welcome there. Between the dogs and the Velociraptor cicadas, where did I towers, and the two packs of barking dogs let us know we were not welcome leave those earplugs? By now, we were losing daylight and dinner time beckoned. We drove back by our fateful parking lot one last time hoping to find any of our belongings, but instead found another victim's car window laying in the lot. It was very obvious these break-ins were not a random act.

We walked the streets of Peitou looking for an interesting dinner experience and wound up at a small, but exquisite 2nd floor establishment, Emily's Kitchen. We were served an amazing 5-course meal with steak, corn chowder, sauteed mushrooms, and delicious cheesecake. I'm going to like the food to Taiwan! The one strange thing we noticed throughout Taiwan is there were only four drink choices with dinner, hot tea, coffee, beer, or orange juice. Where's the Coke? In every country I've ever traveled in, soft drinks were always an option with dinner, but not a single time in Taiwan ... very curious. Hotel elevators capacities were another curiosity. Most of our hotels had them, but the maximum person capacities listed gave us a good laugh. Mark and I could easily fill most elevators listed as having a 12-person capacity ... I guess we both need to go on the rice diet.