We met with the young lady and her entourage early in the morning for permits and photographs. To our relief, it was obvious that she had no intention of accompanying us as she was dressed in a short fur jacket, ultra-short miniskirt, and stiletto heels. Our guide, Gary Luo, had arranged for a porter and local guide at a nearby village, so off we went. We had stopped briefly for some select cuts from a pig being parted out on a roadside table when Steve said “Gary, you know we like beer with our dinner – we’ll have beer won’t we?” This was good for a laugh all around as we knew it was already a lot for the porter we were meeting to pack up the mountain.
We arrived at the end of the road where it literally stopped against the wall of a house in a remarkably scenic village built on steep slopes and surrounded by rice paddies. The beautiful homes were simple but with such perfection of design, function, and ornament that we all could imagine living there. We met our porter, who lived in one of the houses. He was a very slight fellow, perhaps five feet five inches (165 cm) in height and surely no more than 120 pounds (54 kg). He had a split bamboo carry pole with notches on the ends for hanging bags and which rested diagonally across one shoulder, rounded side down. He started hanging the four tents, five sleeping bags, pads, pork, vegetables, rice, pots and pans, firewood, etc., on the pole. It was a staggering load. At that point, Gary came over with a case of nine beers and hung that on. We erupted in mortified laughter, “No! No – we don’t need beer – we were kidding!”
Fortunately, our local guide pitched in to carry half the load. Just about then, the rain started so we all repaired to the shelter of a house where the tents and sleeping bags were put into plastic bags with the hope that they might stay dry in what had become a deluge. With both porters loaded up, the little guy tucked a long machete in front and a stout curved sickle in a wooden sheath on his back and headed uphill. We left feeling a bit odd with our high-tech rain gear and boots while our porters had pretty much nothing.
Winding our way between and behind houses, zigzagging up the slope, we came out into rice paddies. Rice paddies in China never fail to amaze us, hills completely transformed by the industry of generations digging by hand. Taken as a whole, the immense scale of the hill paddies of Asia must be considered a wonder of the world. They have such a pleasing and uncomplicated design made possible by an extensive and subtly complex irrigation system which brings water down from the hills to flood the paddies as needed.
The paddies are always beautiful. From the simplicity of bare mud or water before planting to the bulwarks of pounded earth walls supporting these ponded fields, they clothe the hills like the ridged scales of some great fish. From the fresh green of newly planted rice, to the lush tallness of ripening seed heads, to the harvest and staging of bundled sheaves, it is all beauty. Tom, who has been on twenty-plus trips to China alone, shot photo after photo, saying “These will look just like all the others” while we all did the same.
As we were walking along these narrow trails, Tom turned back to us saying, “You into epimediums?” Our sudden intensity was answer enough. Nestled in the hacked and grazed bramble at the base of a shrubby birch was a fine epimedium. Despite its hardscrabble existence, we could tell this would merit a good spot in the garden. It looked like Epimedium wushanense, with narrow, toothed leaves, but we weren’t in the Wushan. Darrell Probst later told us we had found the newly described E. pseudowushanense, which seemed perfectly named.
It was a good long day, climbing up through unremarkable scrub forest in the rain and persistent hill fog with just enough punctuations of botanical excitement to keep our spirits buoyed. Steve groused about the fine young lady’s glowing description of the beautiful forest, and we suspected, given her attire, that her definition of “forest” was different than ours.
One of the highlights was hulking large shrubs of Daphniphyllum macropodum marching uphill as the trail passed through a relatively open area. These somber forms, like brooding rhododendrons, were evocative of the hunkered mass and stoic perseverance of musk oxen in a winter storm. Three or four were declining and obviously dying. This was sad to see but, like many plants nearing the end, they opted to spend whatever reserves they had left in an explosion of fecundity and were covered in black fruit.
Another plant that grabbed our attention was one we saw on our lunch break on the trail. As we ate our apples, bananas, and hard-boiled eggs, we admired a couple of nearby Malus cf. prunifolia, which were simply covered in small lemon-yellow apples not much larger than the fruit on a mountain ash. After we finished our lunch apples, we got a handful of the smaller ones to go.
We soon came upon a sizeable 40 foot (12 m) tree of the coveted hornbeam Carpinus fangiana which had eluded us on Leigong Shan. Seeing the impressively long, hop-like seed structures of overlapping brown bracts lifted a weight from our minds as this was a species we all keenly wanted to find. In flower, these pendulous structures are greenish and have been recorded to exceed 20 inches (51 cm) long, which easily places them as queen of the genus. This finding went a long way in relieving our disappointment at not seeing any old-growth forest.
Steve and Tom headed up the trail, but we lingered as there were trifoliate Arisaema on the slope below to investigate. Nearby, a small drift of Reineckea carnea called. This is an under appreciated evergreen ground cover allied to Convallaria and we have taken an interest in it since our introduction, in 1997, of a distinct form of the species from the Gang Ho Ba. As a result, we don’t pass up collections of Reineckea in the field to assist in future DNA work on the genus. Science aside, we just like their evergreen grassy leaves and small candles of scented white flowers, usually colored mauve on the reverse.
We caught up to the boys who had become glamoured by what Steve described as the largest Rhododendron calophytum he had ever seen. These were massive individuals, with one forming a 35 foot (11 m) tree, wider than it was tall, whose open habit well displayed the muscular horizontal side branches.
We noted what we presumed to be Lilium brownii, a widespread lily in western China with white fragrant trumpets touched in mauve in the throat. These had seed capsules that were immature and green, but such pods can often be collected if necessary and carefully ripened for a few weeks. A grouping of Hydrangea aspera Villosa Group drew us off the trail as there was some definite variation in the lace cap flower heads. One had very dark sterile florets while in another, the florets were noticeably larger than usual.
Not much further, we found Tripterospermum pallidum, which is a vining gentian relative, closely related to Crawfurdia. This had climbed up seven feet (2 m) into a tangle of branches and the narrow white flowers were nicely displayed against the rich green of the broadly ovate-elliptic leaves. Tripterospermum is an amusing genus with its late-season flowers followed by an extended seed capsule that is often reddish and looks a bit like a tube of lipstick.
The rain had ceased, and we eventually made it to the top, which was a large plateau covered with a perched bog. There was sphagnum moss among the tussocks of grass and you couldn’t see more than 50 feet (15 m) due to the thick fog. At this point, Gary, who was waiting for us, started to get a little twitchy as the path had petered out. There were no landmarks, and the two porters had long gone on ahead. He was feeling stranded in the bog to which his bright tennis shoes were not quite suited. Kelly picked out little high points to step on and got him out of the deepest part. Gary started calling for the porters, but no answer came. He looked left, then right, then stood in indecision. Which way to go?
We had traveled with Gary in 2010, and he should know not to pause on a trail with us. Predictably, we all headed off to the right where we could just make out Enkianthus chinensis standing like gaunt shrouded sentries in the high meadow. The leaves had mostly fallen from this deciduous rhododendron relative, which was too bad as they would have had brilliant wine red and orange coloration. We cared not a whit about missing the foliage as the clustered hanging seed capsules were a striking red and simply riveting. We wondered how much more intense would they look on a sunny day.
Meanwhile, Gary had made a decision and headed off confidently. We caught up, passing scattered gentians in the turf which reminded us of Gentiana atuntsiensis in Yunnan. This was interesting as this mountain top was essentially a tiny refugium of cold montane flora surrounded by warm temperate to subtropical flora. We soon heard the source of Gary’s confidence in the Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! of our porters chopping wood for a fire. This was well to the left of our present course so we veered towards the sound and came upon the campsite.
The porters had a smoldering fire started out of five foot (1.5 m) Lithocarpus logs courtesy of the heavy sickle our porter carried. We’ve seen green Lithocarpus used before in China for fires, while in Arunachal Pradesh rhododendron was favored. We could hear rhythmic chopping several hundred feet away and before long our porter arrived, dragging an immense piece of timber.
We noticed the village guide standing in the nearby tiny stream and washing something in the water. We walked over and he was rinsing off the roadside pork which he had packed up the mountain. There were potatoes and peppers laid out on the ground along with various spices and OMG! The beer! The brief pang of remorse quickly made way for the thought that dinner was going to work out nicely and that we would tip heavily.
We quickly set up the tents, got our gear stowed and sorted, and got out of any really wet clothes. The four of us went to help Gary set up his tent as he had never camped before and was standing helpless. He had bought some high-tech, spring-loaded double helix thing that was supposed to be self-erecting if only we could read the instructions. It was defying our best efforts when Tom lost it and literally threw himself on the tent, wrestling and twisting the hoops into position accompanied by his unique polyglot of incomprehensible Kiwi and Cornish curses.
With camp set up and an hour of daylight left, we decided to go further along the trail and see what tomorrow might bring. In just a few hundred yards, we were able to see what the mist had been hiding: a rare piece of intact old-growth hardwood forest! An immense Fagus claimed our field of vision and luckily this was growing at the bottom of a ravine with our trail skirting midway up its flank so branches laden with seed were in easy reach.
Tom looked at the leaf petioles, capsules, and vegetative buds and pronounced it a match to Fagus longipetiolata as grown in the UK. What a treat to find this. We moved to the next grand old Fagus, and we were all prepared to dismiss it as another F. longipetiolata when Tom said “Hold on a sec, mateys. There’s something going on here.” The leaf petiole on this plant was three times longer, and the capsules and buds were a bit different as well. The consensus was that this must be the true F. longipetiolata and the others perhaps a variety of that or something else even more specific. There was lots of talk of isolation mechanisms in speciation and wondering why we weren’t seeing intermediates between the two forms. Tom has seen the short-petioled Fagus in Vietnam and China as well as in cultivation so to find this massive tree that was different… well, safe to say, he was literally one happy camper. The identity of this tree has recently become either clearer (or murkier) with some taxonomists subsuming the species F. longipetiolata into F. sinensis.
Scarcely 200 feet (61 m) down the trail, we clambered down to a low, level mucky area, made our way across to dry ground, and found ourselves forced to pick our favorite child. The conundrum of an evergreen Magnolia (or Michelia according to the Chinese) to the left or, to the right, a small Rehderodendron macrocarpum with branches bent under the weight of its big nuts. As is so often the case, size won out and Steve chose the Rehderodendron while we went Magnolia.
Steve had collected this once before in 1995 and has beautiful trees growing at the RSBG. Rehderodendron is in the Styracaceae and has white, pendulous flowers with an orange-blossom fragrance and lovely dark green leaves with reddish petioles. The large seeds are covered in a thick leathery mesocarp looking like a large, elongated walnut. Inside this protective husk is a woody ribbed armature enclosing three or four longitudinal embryos. Growing this plant from seed is a challenge as the various layers enclosing the embryo vault, including the sinus plug in the woody enclosure, must decay for germination to occur. Two to four years is typical, and Tom probably has the dubious record of eight years. It is not uncommon for one embryo to grow away strongly and then, two or three years later, to find one or more new seedlings germinating from the original seed at the base of your vigorous sapling. It is a pretty cool survival strategy.
The magnolia was a tall, narrow tree with small, glossy, evergreen leaves and liberally decked out in red fruit finery. It is always a treat to find Magnolia seeds in the wild as birds eat them on the tree. We have seen flocks of blood pheasants not missing a single fallen seed. This was later identified by magnolia authority Dick Figlar as Magnolia leveilleana, a species with small yellowish flowers which he had originally described and one that had never been introduced to cultivation. This one plant made the entire trip.
We went about a half mile further on the trail with giant trees towering mysteriously in the gloaming and keeping their identity safe with identifying leaves held far above. Rhododendron calophytum here and there and an odd species new to Steve got him fired up. A few gesneriads piqued our interest and the usual panoply of Asian ferns, including Woodwardia japonica, had us hunkered over while Tom inquired if we were finding some interesting mud-dwellers. Tree guys – what can you do? The village guide appeared out of the growing darkness and mimed eating: dinner was ready.
We arrived to a good, if smoky, fire in the almost dark and found a skillet full of pork curry and a pot of rice. First, we had to toast with a glass of the local home-brewed rice-based white lightning the porters had brought with them in an old cooking oil plastic jug. They had earned it! We have never acquired a taste for this, valiantly choking it down on various trips to India, China, and Vietnam. The original porter had apparently been partaking during the dinner preparation as he had a good glow on. We moved on to our beer quite quickly as we didn’t want their heroic efforts in hauling it up the mountain to be in vain. Tom showed off the Kiwi beer bottle opener by using one bottle to open the other and then popped the others open using a bit of wood.
Dinner was fantastic and we quickly finished our bowls using chopsticks fashioned from the thin, reedy, bamboo growing nearby. The porter asked via the village guide if we would like to try some wild greens and we said sure! He went off into the dark with a small flashlight, returning with a big handful of some coarse herbaceous Lamiaceae which he threw into the skillet and steamed. It was fun to try the local wildcraft. Gary started dropping potatoes into the coals, saying they were for the next course, which was roast pork. We got some long bamboo skewers and stuck chunks of raw pig on the ends. Steve was looking forward to this as he loves meat on a stick and is always gazing longingly at the street vendors with their grilled meat skewers of questionable provenance. We all opted for caution and roasted our pork until well-done, if not charred.
Eventually, Steve’s bamboo burned through, and his meat fell into the fire. After some ineffectual jabbing, he poked it out to the edge and stabbed it with a new skewer. A little worse for wear and covered in ash, but he was not deterred. Finally, he deemed it done and was walking away to let it cool when it slid off his skewer and landed in the muck of the side path going to the creek. More stabbing occurred, but this time accompanied by colorful curses mixed with our howls of laughter before it was again secured.
Cutting to the end of the Meat-on-a-Stick Saga, his bamboo burned through once again, plunging his abused pork into the flames. He stared for a moment and then with a terse oath turned and walked into the dark toward his tent, chased by unsympathetic whoops. We were finishing our very tasty roast pork when he returned, had a cup of scotch, and proceeded to worry a charred potato he scuffed from the coals. He’s a game lad.
The porters slickered up whatever we didn’t eat and were drinking Leigong Boilermakers, alternating beer with moonshine. The little porter was quite hammered and was hanging onto Gary, talking to him nose to nose for a solid 30 minutes. Gary looked over at us and said “I have no idea what he is saying – I don’t understand Miao.” None of us spoke Miao either, but we knew what he was saying because this level of inebriation in men has a commonality that cuts across cultures and races: “You’re a great guy. You hiring me to porter for you is just so great. You’re the best, man. I mean it. I’d do anything for you, bro – just let me know. Anytime you’re back here and need help, anything – you call me. Just call me, man. I’ll drop whatever. This is so great and I really, really like you. Have another drink. We’re like brothers, I love you, man!”
We four soon retired to our tents, leaving Gary and the porters to tell inappropriate stories about the foreigners and hoping that the machete-and-sickle-wearing porter remained a happily maudlin drunk. It was with no small twinge of guilt that we went to our tents and climbed into our bags because the porters had no tent, bags, blankets, or even a plastic sheet, planning to just sleep by the fire in their coats. The temperature was dropping, and the wind was picking up. We awoke often in the night from the wind and cold and wondered how they were faring out in the elements.
In the morning, both were alive. The little drunk porter had squatted on his heels by the smoldering fire and formed himself into a little ball with his coat wrapped around him. Steve said he could hear him snoring in the middle of the night which eased his mind. He was moving but quite sluggishly like a very cold lizard, but he soon got all the parts awake and started breaking camp.
The other porter was in much better shape. He had gotten very cold in the night and begged to come into Gary’s tent. Gary said “Great! Get in here and hold me – I’m freezing.” They spooned the night away in shivery discomfort. It seems Gary had brought his son’s sleeping bag from Taiwan where it is 90°F (32°C) during the day and a little cooler at night. It was no match for the top of this mountain. This was Gary’s first camping trip and maybe his last.
We quickly packed, thrilled that the weather had cleared and we could see our surroundings. It would have been fun to explore a bit but, as always, we had a long way to go to reach the next village with little time to spare. We found some cold potatoes in the dead remains of the fire and ate what parts were palatable, augmenting with a trail bar, as we headed left on the trail towards the woods while our porters went right and back to their village. They would meet one of our drivers there who would pick up our gear.
In the early morning sunlight, the forest of last evening looked even more spectacular. Sue said it was like a classic Appalachian forest, with the similarity of genera and appearance. The Fagus were simply magnificent, but it was the Carpinus fangiana, pushing 100 feet (30 m) in height, that left us grasping for adequate hyperbolic superlatives. The foliage and infructescenses were so high as to be indistinguishable without binoculars. The leaves scattering the trail, however, were unmistakable with their signature abaxial ribbing from the veins, leaving us no doubt that we were looking at champion trees of the species, as the Flora of China describes C. fangiana as “trees to 20 m tall.”
This was a moving moment, apparently especially so for Steve, who said he needed a few minutes and would catch up with us. We continued down the trail which followed a small, foot-wide irrigation canal bringing water down from the summit to the rice paddies 15 or more miles (24 km) away. Sue soon spied a Polygonatum arching out from a low bank and, lifting the yellowing stem with its ranked leaves, revealed the dangling black fruit in clusters of threes. Our friend and taxonomic advisor to our Conservancy, Dr. Aaron Floden, is the world expert on the genus Polygonatum, so we always try to obtain materials with provenance to expand the knowledge of the genus.
We were just finishing scouting the Polygonatum area when Steve caught up to us looking pleased with himself. We thought the reason was obvious, but then saw he was clutching something in his hand. “You haven’t found any Paris yet, have you?” he said innocently, knowing damn well we had been searching fruitlessly for one of our favorite genera the whole trip. “I went uphill to do my thing and there it was.” He held out a fruiting head and leaf. Wow! We asked if he had a guess on species. “Dunno. Paris crappiana probably.” We remembered he did the same thing in Nagaland on Mt. Japfu in 2003, but that time it was Dactylicapnos (syn. Dicentra) torulosa, as we were keen then to see some of the yellow vining species.
From there, we saw Disporum cantoniense, a large Ophiopogon with blue-black fruit growing in the litter beneath a Castanea, a self-fertile Skimmia reevesiana with clusters of red fruit and, at seven feet (2 m) in height, quite tall for this species. Such a treat to be walking in this sheltered valley with a small stream splashing whitely near the trail and exciting plants all about.
One of the best broadleaf evergreens we saw on the trip was found here growing from the top of a low tumble of rocks covered thickly in forest duff. The thick, glossy, rich green leaves on this 20 foot (6 m) shrub were attraction enough and the blue fruits like small alien olives told us this was a particularly fine Symplocos species. The fruiting prequel would get rave reviews with its clusters of small white fragrant flowers. The one downside of Symplocos is the seeds are famously recalcitrant to germinate.
The Symplocos was just uphill from Steve swooning over huge old plants of Rhododendron glanduliferum with long, 12 inch (30 cm) leaves and whose petioles, buds, new growth, seed capsule, and even the flower petals, were clad in diagnostic stipitate (stalked) glands. The white flowers are fragrant and we all would have given some minor appendage to see these in bloom. This has proved to be an exceptional species for a sheltered woodland setting. Steve was especially stoked by these as they were the biggest he had ever seen and he was instrumental some years earlier in helping to introduce the species to cultivation. Fast forward three years and it got even better, with this population being described as a new species, Rhododendron leigongshanense. By mid-afternoon, we had left the forested valley on the mountain’s flank and were sad to be quit of it. The mature forest had been great to see, indeed it was one of the most memorable experiences we have had in the field. We have the stewardship of the local Miao people to thank for keeping this remnant forest intact. For better or worse, we were able to give these great trees our full attention due to the relative paucity of a herbaceous component. Sue mused on the rich diversity of plants we might have seen in spring when the now-dormant spring ephemerals would be in their full glory.
As we finally approached the Miao village at day’s end, we heard an approaching racket of firecrackers and music. A funeral procession of hundreds of mourners was headed up the path. Strings of firecrackers were exploding, accompanied by brass trumpets, drum, and cymbals. We stood aside and watched the spectacle pass, wondering how traditional Western funerals became such dour things. When we die, break out the band and put on your party clothes for a good old-fashioned Miao sendoff – you are all invited!