Elusive Baobab Flowers Open at Night and Fade the Next Day

                                

  The flowers on the baobab tree hang down on a stalk thick enough to support the weight of pollinating bats. 

 

These enchanting flowers are designed to attract nocturnal pollinators like fruit bats and hawk moths, not people. But if we are lucky, we get a brief chance to enjoy them before they drop.
 
This summer, my husband and I made frequent early morning treks down the L’Esperance trail on St. John to look for flowers on the island’s only mature baobab tree (Adansonia digitata). (There are some other smaller ones that people have planted, but they are still too young and small to flower.) 

 

                                           

 The large baobab tree on St. John was battered by the 2017 hurricanes, but has recovered and grown new branches. 

It was a 45 minute hike each way through the woods to the ruins of the old Seiben estate, but well worth the effort. Several times friends came along to share the experience. 
 
We were delighted to see a flower in bloom the first time we went, plus numerous unopened buds that looked like tennis balls hanging from the tree. We kept going back to check on their progress.    
 
Photo 3 

                                           

                         My husband thought the unopened flower buds on the baobab tree looked like tennis balls.

One time we went in the late afternoon and waited to see if we could catch any of the buds starting to open. Unfortunately, nothing happened by the time the sky started to get dark, and it was a long hike back. My husband suggested spending the night and using our flashlights to keep watch on the tree, but I wasn’t game enough for that.  
 
I read that only one of a baobab tree’s flowers opens at a time. However, once I saw two that both looked like fresh blooms, and my friend Mandy in St. Croix said she saw more than one at a time on the tree by the entrance to the St. George Village Botanical Garden. 

But we did observe that the flowers don’t all bloom at once. This strategy could be because a hungry bat would have to visit more than one tree to get its fill of nectar, and so would be more likely to spread pollen from one tree to another. Cross-pollination generally promotes genetic diversity, and therefore better survival of the species.
 
The flowers on St. John’s baobab cannot get cross-pollinated from flowers on another nearby tree, and are not known to produce any fruit. Its flowers do have both male and female parts, but do not seem able to self-pollinate successfully, 

We didn’t see any bats or moths visiting the flowers in the early morning, but there were other types of potential pollinators attracted to the flowers’ nectar, including honey bees, carpenter bees, and hummingbirds.

         A large, black carpenter bee and smaller honey bee were both interested in a freshly-opened baobab flower.  

The round, white, pom-pom part of the flower holds the pollen on its brown tips. The tube that sticks out of the center is the style, which leads to the flower’s ovary. 

Soon after the flower blooms, the white spikes dry up and turn brown.

 

                               

A bananaquit probed a dried-up baobab flower for nectar before the pom-pom part fell off.

Then the dried pop-pom part slips off and falls on the ground, leaving the style in place. The fuzzy-looking part in the center is where the fruit develops after a flower is successfully pollinated and an egg in the ovary is fertilized.

 

                              

                Though the blossom doesn’t last, the remains of a baobab flower can stay on the tree for a long time.
 
Although the St. John tree does not bear fruit, the ones on St. Croix do. A few years ago I visited the famous Grove Place baobab tree and brought back some of the furry fruits. That tree is enormous. It has been estimated to be about 250 to 300 years old.
 
                              
                                 The huge baobab tree at Grove Place on St. Croix has four separate trunks. 

Robert Nichols, in his book Remarkable Big Trees of the US Virgin Islands, reported that the Grove Place baobab tree was 53 feet high, with a trunk 53 feet around.
 
Although some baobab trees are native only to Madagascar (an island 250 miles east of Africa), the type found in the Caribbean comes from the African continent. Baobab seeds were reportedly brought to the Caribbean in the 1700s on the slave ships.

 

                                   
                                   Baobab seeds are highly nutritious and surrounded by a tart, pulpy coating.

In the African savanna, the long-lived baobab is known as the ‘Tree of Life’ because the spongy wood inside its trunk is able to store (and provide) water, while the tree’s fruit, seeds and leaves feed people and wildlife during dry seasons. 
 

                                   

                              The fuzzy baobab fruits look a bit like small, furry animals hanging in the tree. 

tried planting a few baobab seeds myself, but did not have any success. However, a friend gave me a small seedling last year, and I have managed to keep it alive so far. I was worried when it didn’t grow at all during the winter, but it turns out that baobabs have a dormant period. I was excited to see new leaves coming in the spring. With any luck, it will grow to be huge, and live on for centuries.

 

Flamboyant Trees are Originally from Madagascar

Flamboyant tree at Caneel Bay, St. John

All around the Virgin Islands, especially on St. Thomas, the hills in summer are lit up by the brilliant glow of flamboyant trees – so bright that some people call them flame trees. The flowers remain on the trees for several months, providing a long-lasting source of blazing color. 

They are not growing wild though. Many are located next to people’s houses, clearly cultivated as beloved friends. 

In fact, my husband and I planted several of them ourselves when we built our house. Since then I have learned that the flamboyant trees (which have the scientific name Delonix regia) are native to Madagascar, an island off the coast of Africa. (Delonix comes from Greek, and refers to the claw-like shape of the large petals.) 

 

Flamboyant flower and leaves

 

These trees have become very popular in many tropical areas around the world, though sadly they are now endangered in Madagascar due to deforestation. How did they get to be so widespread? 

The flamboyant tree was first noticed by Europeans in the 1820s. In 1821, a young botanist named Wenzel (or Wenceslaus) Bojer from Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) was sent on an expedition to Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean about 700 miles east of Madagascar. The next year he explored Madagascar and collected specimens from the forests, including flamboyant seeds. Presumably he brought the seeds back to Mauritius, after which they were transported to India in the 1840s, and subsequently shared in other tropical regions. 

Eleanor Gibney, an expert on Virgin Islands trees and history, believes that flamboyant trees were probably introduced into this area around the mid-1800s, based on historical Caribbean plant lists. They were recorded as common in West Indian gardens by the 1880s. 

However, when I was researching the history of flamboyant trees in the Caribbean, I found a number of sources linking them to Philippe de Longviliers de Poincy, a French governor in the 1600s who was involved with the colonization of St. Kitts, St. Martin, St. Barths and St. Croix. This was quite confusing, and seems to be due to the fact that a smaller, shrub-like tree from the American tropics with similar flowers, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, was called Poinciana, in honor of Poincy. Then when the larger flamboyant tree was discovered later, it was called Royal Poinciana because of its flowers, even though it was unrelated to the Caesalpinia pulcherrima or Poincy, and came from a different continent.

 

Flamboyant flower (Delonix regia)

 

Pride of Barbados flower (Caesalpinia pulcherrima)

The Caesalpinia pulcherrima was rechristened Dwarf Poinciana, but is more widely known in the Caribbean as the Pride of Barbados.

 On St. Thomas, the abundance of flamboyant trees is reportedly due to the enthusiasm of a particular fan, Ariel Melchior, Sr., who was the founder of the Virgin Islands Daily News. The story is that he loved these trees so much that in 1947 he paid local children to collect the seeds. Then he hired his friend Jack Monsanto, who owned a plane and ran an air taxi business, to fly low over St. Thomas and scatter the seeds.

The seed pods are green at first, then become hard and dark brown, up to two feet long. The seeds inside are loose and make a rattling sound when you shake them, so the pods can be used as musical percussion instruments, locally called shack-shacks.

Flamboyant trees do create a lovely, dense canopy in the summer, providing shade for yards and walkways. Things are quite different in the winter months, however. Even though the trees are generally drought-resistant, they are deciduous, regularly shedding their leaves. The bare branches are much less attractive, with only the brown pods still hanging on them.

 In the yard, flamboyant trees are also able to keep other plants from growing close to them, so the areas near them and the ground below them also will be bare. The roots can be a problem, too, as they extend quite far horizontally along the ground, and are able to create cracks in sidewalks or other structures, possibly even cisterns. 

Flamboyant trees generally only live about 30 years, but there is no question that they put on a fabulous summer show while they last.  

 

An Explosion of Capers

Limber Caper flower

 

I missed seeing fireworks on the Fourth of July, but since the recent rain some local trees have been showing off their own bright sparklers. 

There are a number of members of the caper family growing in the Virgin Islands. However they are not from the branch that produces the kind of capers that are edible – those are grown in the Mediterranean area.

The native Virgin Islands capers have their own charms. For one thing their thick, dark leaves mostly stay green, even during the dry season when many other trees go limp or drop their leaves. But it is their profusion of flashy white flowers that has really caught my attention recently. 

The Limber Capers or Dogwoods (Cynophalla flexuosa) are in fact loose-limbed shrubs, sometimes bending over and acting more like vines when they are mixed in with other trees. They have large spiky flowers, and when the flowers all open up overnight it looks like a new constellation has appeared right in the front yard.

Limber Caper bush 

The flowers don’t last long though. They are already droopy by the end of the day after they bloom. But they aren’t finished showing off then. Once the flowers have passed, their bean-like seed pods are also striking, because they have skins that are bright red inside. 

Limber Caper seed pod

The Leatherleaf Capers (Cynophalla hastata) are shrubby like the Limber Capers but their leaves are thicker and rounder. The flowers are also more compact, and sometimes have a pinkish tinge.  

Leatherleaf Caper flower 

White Capers (Quadrella indica) are larger trees, standing up straight with regularly-spaced branches. Their white flowers are smaller and more delicate than those of the Limber Caper.      

White Caper flower

 My favorite is the Black Caper (Quadrella cynophallophora) also sometimes called Black Willow or Jamaican Caper. It has shiny dark leaves and is bushier than the White Caper, but has similar delicate white flowers – at least when they first bloom. Later, like those fireworks that change color in the air, the flowers switch from white to purple.

Black Caper flower

All of these flowers have been bursting into bloom near my house recently. No loud blasts, though, just quiet celebrations of July in the Virgin Islands.      

 

A Golden Shower for Carpenter Bees

The Cassia fistula tree in my yard has finally lived up to its nickname, Golden Shower.

I planted it from a seed I was given by a friend quite a few years ago, without knowing much about it. It grew pretty quickly, but didn’t produce any flowers. I guess I had planted it too close to a mango tree, so it probably got overshadowed, and had to grow tall to try to get more sunlight. Then Hurricane Irma removed the mango tree.

I first noticed the tree was flowering when I heard bees humming above my head. I was thrilled when I looked up and saw the first delicate yellow blossoms trailing down. The dangling flowers are so dramatic you can easily see why people wanted to transport the seeds from Asia. 

Even though it is not native, the local carpenter bees seemed quite enthusiastic about visiting the flowers. I have often seen these large, shiny black bees on other flowers, but never so many at once. 

As they left the tree, the bees all flew off in the same direction, so I thought they might have a hive over that way. When I read about them, though, I learned that was wrong. These are actually ‘solitary’ bees, meaning they don’t live in organized hives like the ‘social’ bumblebees and honeybees. 

Still, they might have been nesting in the same area. The female carpenter bee bores a hole into dead wood and makes small chambers inside where she places her eggs. She doesn’t eat the wood, just tunnels into it. She puts one egg in each chamber, with a rolled up ball of pollen and nectar. Then she seals over the entrance. If the nests from different bees are close together, the young bees will be close to each other when they emerge, which is convenient for mating.  

Another thing I got wrong was thinking that all of the local carpenter bees are black. In fact it’s only the females. The males are a rusty orange color all over. I have never seen any bees like that, maybe because the poor things die right after mating.

Then I was confused because some of the black bees had yellow on their backs. What was that about? Were some of them bumblebees? That didn’t make sense.

 

Finally I decided that the yellow on their backs was actually pollen from the flowers. 

At first, the flower buds are like round yellow balls. Then the petals flip back and the reproductive parts of the flower are exposed.

  

The female part of the flower is a long, curved green tube. It is located very close to three yellow male stamens with pollen sacs on their tips. 

For the brief moment the bee is at the flower, its back comes in contact with those three pollen sacs.

As the bee buzzes, pollen gets deposited on its back, giving it a yellow stripe. 

A few minutes taking photos in the yard had now led to many hours of research on trees and bees and the intricate ways flowers are structured in order to get themselves pollinated. My reading included references to Charles Darwin, and how in his later years he spent a great deal of time in his garden making observations to expand his understanding of evolution.

It was fun to feel a link to Darwin, no matter how slight. But also nice to know you don’t have to be a great scientist to look at bees and flowers in the yard and learn a little bit about them. 

Busy Mating Season for Island Kestrels

How exciting to see so many American Kestrel couples courting and mating this spring.

It wasn’t like I was creeping around in the woods to spy on them. Starting in February, I started seeing them along the road pairing up on power lines and the tops of dead trees.

Kestrels ordinarily like to hunt from high perches. With their sharp eyesight they can easily spot unsuspecting prey from a long distance. But during mating season the kestrel couples were often sitting close and looking at each other. 

Since I don’t often get to see breeding behavior in birds, I was eager to spend time quietly watching what they were up to. Although a few of my friends began to suspect I was becoming an avian voyeur, others understood my scientific interest and invited me to come by and observe pairs of kestrels hanging out near their houses.

American Kestrels are small falcons. The ones in the Virgin Islands are year-round residents, but these are common western hemisphere birds that nest in varied habitats from Alaska down through South America.  

They are usually solitary except during mating season. Becoming a couple is the first step in their breeding process. Males try to impress would-be mates by doing fast-paced climbs and dives, and offering gifts of food. In the Virgin Islands, the gifts are usually lizards, and occasionally a mouse.

The easiest way to tell the difference between the sexes is that males have brown backs and blue wings and a solid dark band across the bottom of their tails. The females have brown backs and wings, and cross-hatching on their tails. They both have dark marks on their white chests, but there are more marks on the females, and more of the marks are shaped like streaks rather than spots. Even knowing this, though, it is still sometimes hard to tell the difference when you see the birds from a distance or in the air.  

  

I watched one pair off and on from February through April as they mated enthusiastically near a tree with a hole in it in a friend’s yard. They had picked out this tree as an appropriate place for their nest, and stayed close to it. Kestrels are cavity nesters, so you won’t find them making structures out of sticks. It also means you can’t see anything that’s going on inside the nest.

Both the male and female occasionally went in and out of the hole, and then one day in late February it looked to me like the female might be laying an egg. She perched on the edge of the hole, made motions like she might be pressing something out, then turned around to look inside to check on the result. What else would she be doing?

I starting counting how many days it would take for an egg to hatch (about a month) and once hatched, how long before the fledglings would come out (another month).

Despite the coronavirus quarantine, I checked back regularly and also got reports from my friend. The kestrels mated several times a day, and both ate lots of lizards, many of which suffered gruesome deaths. 

We waited eagerly for signs of babies, but by the time they should have hatched, it was very quiet by the tree hole. If there were any babies in there, the parents would need to be going in and out feeding them. Instead they had stopped even going near the tree, though they did continue to mate pretty often for a while.

Maybe there were never any eggs, or maybe something got to them. I even wondered if the hole was too deep, really more of a crack, and the eggs fell way down inside. Eventually, I sadly gave up hope. By May, those kestrels had drifted off. 

Meanwhile, another friend close by said he was seeing a lot of kestrel activity at a tree in his yard. A second chance! Before long, I had set up a viewing site in a cramped spot underneath his house. 

Soon I was delighted to see a mother kestrel show up with a lizard, which she took inside a large hole in the tree. After she disappeared, I thought I heard faint peeping sounds, but couldn’t be sure the noise wasn’t coming from some little birds I saw at the top of the tree.

If there were already babies inside the tree getting fed, I figured they would be ready to come out within a few weeks. I didn’t want to miss that. Fortunately my neighbor was happy to have me as a frequent visitor, even (or maybe especially) if I stayed under the house. Often he greeted me encouragingly by saying that one of the parents had just been there to bring a lizard, after which I waited in vain for some new activity. 

When I did actually see one of the parents come by, I was now sure I heard a chorus of peeps from inside.  

Finally, one afternoon in the middle of May I was rewarded by the sudden appearance of a little head peeking out of the hole. I was so excited I jumped up and knocked my head on a floor beam.

Soon both parents were coming by to feed the nestlings, and they didn’t bother to go inside and divvy up the lizard. They just dropped it into the hole and quickly flew off, while the peeping cries got louder and harsher.

After about two weeks, I saw one of the young kestrels climb out of the hole, grip the edge tightly, and then tentatively flap his wings before tumbling back down inside.

As they got bigger and braver, I could see that there were three of them in there. By the end of the May, the young kestrels were ready to move out. First a male one climbed out of the hole, crept up the tree trunk, and sat on a stumpy branch. He stayed there for quite a while flapping and squawking, then seemed to start looking for bugs on the branch. Soon he moved further up in the tree, and the other two emerged. By the time I left they were high up and hidden in the tree.

A few days later they had all abandoned the nest hole, but I still could hear them crying out nearby. Parents usually help feed their fledglings for about three weeks.

The parents also still need to protect their babies. Out of the nest, but not yet experienced at flying, the fledglings could be easy prey for the neighborhood red-tailed hawk. Several times I heard a hubbub overhead and saw one of the kestrels loudly flying at the hawk, trying to force the larger bird to move on.

It seems like the family is still around because I hear more kestrel calls than usual, even when the hawk isn’t here, and sometimes see them flying overhead. I imagine the young ones are learning to catch their own lizards. I was grateful to be able to spend so much time with them, and hope they will come back to this area again next year.   

Encouraging Signs of Life Returning

Wattapama flower

 In the Virgin Islands, the pandemic time-out period coincided with a hot, dry spring – hardly any rain for months. The thermometer inside my jeep got up to 115 degrees as it sat closed up under the relentless sun.

Many of the native trees are accustomed to seasonal drought, and have shed their leaves. Others are just drooping. Like us, they reduced their activity levels, waiting for more propitious times.  

In good years, heavy spring rains lift our spirits by bringing out a burst of colorful flowers on the trees, up in the hills and along the roadsides.  

Wattapama flowers (Poitea florida) are local favorites. Wattapamas are thin, wispy trees that are practically invisible for most of the year, especially after they drop their small leaves. But after a soaking rainstorm breaks a dry spell they seem to magically emerge, their wand-like branches covered all over with delicate lavender flowers.

Unfortunately, this spring the rain has been sparse, and so have the Wattapama blossoms. We have had a few nighttime showers, though, which brought some of these trees to life – a very welcome sight. The lovely blossoms don’t last long though. After a few days, the petals drop to the ground, creating small drifts like purple snow.

Wattapama branches

Another wispy tree, the Caribbean Dogwood (Piscidia carthagenensis) has clusters of tiny pink flowers. They can be seen high up on the tree’s thin branches after the leaves fall off in the dry season.

Despite its frailness, this tree has a dangerous reputation, which is reflected in its common name ‘fish poison’. The Caribs reportedly threw the bark of the roots and powdered leaves into the water to help them catch fish. It apparently stunned the fish so they floated to the surface, though it didn’t actually kill them. More recently, extracts from this and related trees in have been used in herbal remedies as antidepressants and pain relievers.

Caribbean Dogwood

  

Lignum Vitae (Guaiacum officinale) is a slow-growing evergreen tree that doesn’t seem to mind the dryness or the heat. And it too has medicinal properties. It was called ‘Tree of Life’ in the early 1500s by Europeans desperate for potential remedies after the emergence of syphilis as a major epidemic. Columbus is thought to have learned about the medicinal qualities of this resinous wood in the Caribbean and brought some back with him. It was a more valuable prize than gold for those seeking relief from the suffering and decline brought on by the disease. However, some Europeans also blamed Columbus and his men for introducing the syphilis in the first place.  

Lignum Vitae

  

  

Flamboyant Trees (Delonix regia) really live up to their flashy name at this time of year. They are also called Flame Trees or Royal Poinciana, and are originally from Madagascar. They have been planted throughout the Caribbean, mainly because of their brilliant orange flowers, though they do also have anti-bacterial uses. The Flamboyants have been bare of leaves for a while, but when their crowns are in full flower, they can light up whole neighborhoods.

These brightly flowering trees have helped to raise my mood during the long, dry days of waiting for things to open up again, even without sampling their bark or leaves.

They are also models of patience and resilience in the ways they adjust to varying circumstances – reminding us that we must adapt too, in order to survive and thrive through diseases and dry periods, withdrawal and revival.

Getting To Know Your Virgin Islands Lizards

Crested Anole lizard

                                                       

During the Virgin Islands ‘safer at home’ phase, I have found myself engaging more frequently with my non-human housemates - especially the lizards.

Most days I’ll be working at a table on our screened ground-level porch. The screen door is loose along the bottom, which has allowed a small lizard to come inside and share my work space. It is a Crested Anole (Anolis cristatellus), which has a permanent ridge along its back and tail. (Smaller crested anoles with light stripes on their back are either young, or female.)  

Anoles are quiet and mostly eat bugs, which I appreciate. (The name rhymes with ravioli.)

They are curious, and not scary or threatening. However, this one sometimes shows aggressive behavior if another anole enters its territory – even if it is on the outside of the screen – by doing push-ups and extending the dewlap under its chin.  

Anoles are quite plentiful, and a favorite food for the American Kestrels, and Great Egrets living in the neighborhood. Recently I saw a kestrel blast over and snatch an anole up from the ground just outside the porch in a split-second attack. It definitely would have been safer inside the house.

Kestrels in the Virgin Islands mostly eat anole lizards

Outside the front door is a small entry deck, where my husband puts a bowl of kibbles for the neighborhood cats. If they don’t finish it, a Ground Lizard (Ameiva exsul) might stop by to grab a bite. This lizard is sometimes called a ‘skink’ in the Virgin Islands, although that name generally refers to a different, rarer species. The ground lizard is larger and beefier than the anoles, with a snake-like body. It moves very quickly, swinging from side to side, more like a ‘slink’.

Ground Lizard eating cat food 

                                        

 

There is an old teak chair by the door, which for some reason recently attracted a bright, young Green Iguana. They don’t usually come into the house, though there was that time when my son’s girlfriend came to visit and reached into her suitcase to find an iguana sitting in there. Someone must have left the door open. 

Young Green Iguana

These iguanas get darker, spiky-backed, and considerably less attractive when they get larger – especially when one decides to take a dip in the pool. 

Adult Green Iguana relaxing in our pool

I had another eek! moment recently when I got out the large pasta pot and something dark was crawling around in it. After I jumped, I realized it was not a gross roach, but a Dwarf Gecko (Sphaerodactylus macrolepus), which some people call a ‘wood slave’. They are nocturnal, and I only seen them occasionally, like when I move a picture frame on the wall and one is sleeping behind there and quickly runs off.

I have never been able to get a good look at one, so I grabbed my camera and took a few shots of this one before it crawled up the side of the pot and hopped out.

The photos turned out to have a surprisingly existential quality, I thought, capturing the general feeling of safer-at-home isolation, confinement and vertigo.

Dwarf Gecko in the pasta pot

Red, White and Blue Birds in the Fish Bay Wetlands

Even though the ponds in the Fish Bay wetlands are mostly dried up now due to lack of rain, there are a couple of places where there is still some water, and those are attracting a variety of birds. 

The celebrity Scarlet Ibis is a new winter resident, maybe a stray from the group at Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, or maybe a wanderer from farther away. It arrived in the Fish Bay area in December and was still around in early April. There has also been another one near Annaberg.

The one in the Fish Bay wetlands wanders around sticking its long bill into the mud and pulling out fiddler crabs, insects and other treats. Sometimes it then walks out into the water and rinses off its bill - interesting behavior to observe. At other times it walks through the water, seeming to snap up bugs and maybe small fish.

The largest white birds are Great Egrets, and they are year-round residents. They can be seen walking the roads hunting for lizards, and they are also going after the fish now trapped in the remaining pond water. Meanwhile they are showing off their long, wispy breeding plumage, along with green coloring around their eyes, in preparation for finding a mate.

You can also sometimes see another permanent resident, the smaller Snowy Egret, which has a dark bill and striking yellow feet.

The Little Blue Herons are less visible but they are also resident birds, hunting for fish in the ponds and bays. Interestingly, the juvenile ones are white until they are about one year old. After that they begin to add blue feathers, a few at a time. They are smaller than the Great Egrets, their legs are light green rather than black, and their bills are a two-toned gray and black rather than a yellow.