Soursops, Sugar Apples and Rat Apples

         

      Friends of the VI National Park staff gave away plants and tree seedlings to community members. .  

On April 20, the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park on St. John attracted an enthusiastic crowd for their Earth Day related plant and tree giveaway. The first giveaway was held in 2020, and the event was initiated to help local families replace some of their trees that were blown away by the 2017 storms. 

 

The fruit-bearing trees are by far the most popular. Many people love to grow their own food, even though island conditions can be quite challenging. For the last few years I have saved my Sugar Apple and Soursop seeds to sprout, and have raised seedlings to share with my neighbors, at this event and at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship’s annual plant celebration ceremony. 

   Soursop trees were popular at the Friends of the VI National Park event. 

 

I have recently been considering some ideas, including from Indigenous writer and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, about feeling kinship with trees rather than viewing them as commodities – and how that perspective would benefit us, as well as the survival of all forms of life on the planet. 

 

Kimmerer points out that in some Indigenous languages the word for plants means ‘the ones who take care of us’. They are, after all, the ultimate source of almost all our food, and the only ones capable of photosynthesis.    

 

It is an intriguing perspective, but I am not sure we are ready to treat trees as other beings with their own sorts of intelligence, rather than as objects for our use or disposal. It is difficult to give up the feeling that we are entitled to dominion over nature, and to recognize plants and trees as fellow creatures with their own wisdom, experience, and entitlements. 

 

Still, kinship is not always based on genetic ties, though we do share many genes with plants. We may have parental feelings as we raise trees from seeds, proud when they grow up to be beautiful and successful. Or we may be neighbors, sharing our common joy in good weather and spring rains, or distress at being battered by autumn hurricanes. 

 

Or we might have a complex transactional relationship, like I have with the Sugar Apple tree in my yard: “I take care of you, and you give me some of your fruit, and after I have eaten it, I plant your seeds, and pass seedlings along to my friends and neighbors, spreading your genes and offspring all over the island.”

 

 

 

      A Sugar Apple in our yard provides sweet treats, and I share the seeds.

We mostly value trees for the products and services they provide. Because Sugar Apples and Soursop trees have tasty fruit, I want to grow more of them. Yet from one perspective it might seem like they are manipulating me based on my fondness for sweets. I have been serving them as a seed disperser and propagator, like the birds do. We definitely have a reciprocal relationship of sorts.

 

Meanwhile the Rat Apple trees by my house don’t offer fruit that appeals to me and don’t seem to want anything from me except to be left alone. They were on the property before I came and mostly have no trouble taking care of themselves and their seedlings. 

         A Rat Apple with flowers, buds and woody fruit.

 What value do these trees have? Maybe negative value if fruits rats come too close to the house. But now that I have learned to recognize the Rat Apple trees, I have actually come to respect them, to some extent, as welcome companions on the land. Learning the names of the trees, even if the local name is not very flattering, definitely creates a form of recognition.  

 

The Friends of the VI National Park group has established a plant nursery across the road from Cinnamon Bay where they have been raising native trees, as well as some of the popular fruit trees that were just given away. 

           Sugar Apple seedlings at the FONP nursery 

 

Some of the native trees are being planted along the National Park shorelines to replace vegetation lost in the storms and help prevent further erosion. Other seedlings are being raised to preserve species that have been on the island for many generations and now need some help with propagation and survival – before their names and contributions are forgotten. 

 

Perhaps in the future those trees will be able to provide needed assistance to us and our descendants. If we have good relationships with them.   

 

 

 

Elegy for the St. John Baobab Tree

Oh our dear Baobab, how can you truly be gone? You stood tall on the ridge for so many years, and then survived the two terrible hurricanes in 2017, only to be hollowed out and brought down by a throng of larvae from invasive borer beetles. 

You were badly battered by the storms, and lost parts of your upper branches. But when the skies cleared, we rejoiced to see that you were still standing.

Soon tiny new branches sprouted from your fleshy trunk, and we thought how great that you were able to compensate for your losses and start anew. By the pandemic summer of 2020, you were bursting with blossoms and lifted the spirits of those who made the hopeful pilgrimage down the L’Esperance trail to witness your exuberant flowering. 

Although your fabulous flowers would only last for one day, we thought you had fully recovered your life force and would live on into the next century. 

 

The bees returned to their spot in the crease of your trunk, and rebuilt their hive, feeding on your pollen and nectar even though the flowers were more designed for attracting the night-flying bats as pollinators. 

Sadly, that burst of energy was your last. By the following summer your limbs were crippled by the thousands of larvae laid by the big beetles that bored into your broken places. Your porous, pulpy trunk, which from the outside seemed as strong as an elephant, offered little resistance to its tiny attackers. And was quickly consumed.

Did you already know the summer before that your time was up, after the first generation of beetles arrived? Is that why you threw off so many flowers, hoping to preserve at least some legacy for future generations? You must have also known though that, without a partner to fertilize them, your flowers had never produced viable seeds throughout all those long, lonely years.Still the flowers were lovely, and filled the glorious pandemic summer days with delight for bees and birds and human witnesses, and charmed the bats at night.

There have been baobab seeds brought here from other islands in recent years, and young baobab seedlings might someday attract as many admirers as you once did. I even have a fragile baby baobab, still in a pot, that I tried to raise myself, thinking about providing you one day with a mate to fertilize your flowers.

 I never thought that I would outlive you. 

When I wrapped my arms around you years ago, I was drawn to your strength. And then when I pressed my cheek to your trunk, I felt that I too could be strong, as it turned out I would need to be, for those who would come to lean on me. I didn’t know all the challenges ahead, and still don’t. 

There will be more losses to come, but I need to say now that you brought me days of unexpected joy that I will always cherish.