Collecting at the roadside

Today proved that plant collecting is not all forests and mountains - as we left the limestone region aubergine relatives began to reappear (solanums do not like limestone soil in general). So we spent most of the day sitting in the middle of roads, near buffalo enclosures, collecting and measuring aubergine relatives. Jin Xiu is taking population samples in each village, so we collect and measure each plant we find.

Bombax ceiba, the red silk cotton tree

Once onto the flat lands of south Guangxi we drove through kilometre after kilometre of sugar cane - all being harvested and the fields burned - the air was heavy with smoke. As in the mountains all the work was being done by hand, and all in searing 34 degree heat. The hero tree (Bombax ceiba, also known as the red silk cotton tree) is common in these regions - the flowers are the size of a fist and pollinated by birds.

Solanum praetermissum

We crossed the Shiwen Dashan (million large mountains) Nature Reserve on our way to Dongxing on the coast where we found Solanum praetermissum - a relatively rare species endemic to SE Asia that grows on cliffs; I had collected its clsoe relative in Yunnan in 2007 - it was great to see this species really is quite different!

Rhododendron in the Shiwen mountains