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Taiwan Expedition Log

August 9-29, 2008
September 5, 2008 update

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Sunday August 17, 2008

After breakfast, we began a foggy morning by botanizing the slope above the Wuling Farm back parking lot. We finally cleared the thick weedy layer near the bottom and scaled the very steep hill to find a number of interesting plants. Although with the thick fog and overstory made it seem like it was late at night, we were able to find more paris and a splendid form of the groundcover euonymus we had found earlier. There were a number of interesting ferns including what appeared to be a 3'-tall form of Pteris cretica, a 2'-tall lepisorus, and more asarum.

After a couple of hours, we returned to the van and headed out, this time back to the north of Wuling Farm on Highway 7. Our first stop for the day was for an amazing patch of abutilon. While the yellow-flowered A. indicum is native here, our find appeared to be something else. The 15'-tall clumps were quite stoloniferous and covered with large orange bells with red netting. The flower color is identical to A. 'Marian Stewart', but the height and stoloniferous nature are quite distinct. Hopefully the 6,000'+ elevation will be an indicator of good hardiness. In this region, the slopes are so steep farmers have installed trolley systems to get their crops and probably themselves up and down the mountain to their fields, which occupy virtually every reasonably flat spot in the country.

Further up Highway 7, we found our first plants of the aralia relative, Sinopanax formosana. This was our first time to see this plant in person, which made a 30'-tall tree with thick foliage resembling a cross between a schefflera and a fatsia. Here at the same site was a silver leaf Arisaema taiwanense with 13 leaflets as compared to the typical 9 leaflets. Further down the road, we had climbed again to 6,200' and spotted a break in the obscenely steep forest we were actually able to scale. As we entered the forest, we were dazzled by the incredible array of plants. Asarums were everywhere, and in an array of patterns nearly unimaginable from solid green to silver leaf, to tortoise-shell patterned leaves.

We also found our first plants of Disporum shimadai as well as an array of amazing ferns.

The arachniodes with 4'-long fronds that emerge pink were simply to die for. The 3'-tall dryopteris with black stipes wasn't bad either, and the huge clumps of Pyrrosia sheareri ... well, as the late philosopher Fred Sanford used to say, "Ethel, I feel the big one coming."

This area was so humid due to the daily fog, epiphytic ferns grew everywhere ... even on buildings. This area was so humid due to the daily fog, epiphytic ferns grew everywhere ... even on buildings. As we exited this incredible strip of forest and climbed back down the roadside bank, we found our first plants of Tricyrtis ravenii, the recently named species and our first sighting of Pieris taiwanensis and Rhododendron oldhamii in flower. Oh my, what a day.

We still weren't done for the day as we climbed to 6,350' and stopped into another cryptomeria forest. At first we weren't expecting much, but as we walked further, it just kept getting better. We found polygonatum which doesn't seem to match any of the species in the Flora along with more plants of Tricyrtis ravenii, more cutleaf Fatsia polycarpa, and a delightful small fern... possibly a dryopteris with very ruffled leaves. One of the most exciting woody plants we found was a very cut-leaf form of Dendropanax pallucidopunctata. There was also daphniphyllum growing here alongside a wonderful species of ligustrum with tiny shiny evergreen foliage.

After returning down the hill, we noticed the trail led further up Nanhu mountain (Nanhu Da Shan), so off we went ... not sure why they locked the gate, but there was a well marked path around it. Before long, we discovered why the gate was locked ... it seemed the floods had caused large chunks of the road to become displaced along with an abandoned crane that probably formerly worked on this former road. Along the stream that bordered the path, we found more Pittosporum and viburnum, both in fruit, then Tricyrtis ravenii along with Aconitum fukutomei in full flower (I didn't make up the name), both growing underneath Styrax formosana, and alongside a splendid machilis. One of the most unusual plants we found was an amazing forked-leaved selection of Celtis sinensis. As the daylight waned, we only managed a couple more stops before it was time to head back to our Wuling Farm hotel for the evening. Did I mention I hate those screaming cicadas?