A tree fell and took with it its tenants and symbionts.

A tree fell and took with it its tenants

and symbionts.

Everything was quiet, then came a gust of wind from nowhere.  It sent a ten-year old samat tree crashing across the street.   

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

   

Workers in the neighborhood in Lagro QC clear the blockage to restore traffic flow and electricity. Samat or binunga (Macaranga tenarius) though sturdy is no contest to the power of wind. But where did the cyclone-strong wind come from in a fine weather?

I felt obliged to do my own research having been the one who planted the tree in 2003 from a seedling I got from our home in San Vicente, Ilocos Sur. I needed the mature and yellow leaves in brewing wine and making vinegar.  Marlo, my son needed the fruits in his thesis in the graduate school.  The leaves are rich in tannin and other medicinal compounds. Its bark produces latex and resin.

Because of its thick crown the year round, the tree is a good shade and buffer against noise and dust.  It was in this tree that birds that were not seen for many years suddenly appeared, among them the  kikiaw (kiaw Ilk) or yellow and black oriole thought to have become extinct locally. Migratory birds would find the samat tree a lodging place in their long migration at the onset of winter in the North which marks our Amihan season when cold winds from Siberia sweeps across Asia down to the Pacific. 

Then there were house sparrows that found shelter in the tree's thick crown. And not to be outsmarted was the pandangera or fantail bird. It would complain when disturbed sitting in her nest. And when a cat would get near the tree, the pandagera together with her mate would swoop down and drive the intruder away.   

One time I released a gecko lizard on the tree. It did not stay long, when our parrot started imitating its mating call. Perhaps on discovering the hoax it left for the real call from its own kind in some trees in the La Mesa watershed which is very near us. 

The green tree ants regularly built a nest or two in the tree.  It was good because they controlled other insects, and they are good janitors.  They glean on any food leftovers, and kept the surroundings clean, especially around the doghouse. Houseflies generally don’t thrive on clean environment.  

When the tree fell it took with it the lianas, orchids, ferns clinging of its limbs. So with the lichens and mosses that are natural indicators of good air by their abundance.

You see, the tree is not just a tree.  It is a host.  A host of many organisms depending on it in various categories.  Call it parasitism for feeding caterpillars, symbiosis for epiphytic bromeliads and orchids, commensalism for mosses and  lichens.  Free board and lodging for the seasonal perperoka. Fungi growing on the tree’s dead branch are saprophytes, bees and beetles and butterflies as pollinators.

When new leaves form, photosynthesis gets a boost.  So the tree produces more food, and more oxygen that replenishes the carbon dioxide that we in the animal kingdom expel. And what happens to the “food” accumulated in the tree?  It is further made into complex organic substances – cellulose and lignin in wood which we harvest for construction, crafts and fuels. Tannin for cure of diabetes. Xanthophyll and carotene for vitamins and natural dye, and many more. 

All these attest to the tree’s role more than just a passive standing host.  It is a system in itself, an ecological system or ecosystem in short.

The meaning of this is that when the tree dies the whole system also dies. And the sad thing is that the loss is irreversible.

I mourn for the felled samat tree on behalf of the creatures that benefited from it that have too died, and luckily for others, they have migrated and may have found another benevolent host.          

But the puzzle remains.  Everything was quiet, then came a gust of wind from nowhere.  It sent this ten-year old samat tree crashing across our street.  

Theories are not rare to explain the incident. The most plausible is poor foothold. The tree was virtually sitting on adobe bedrock characteristic of the geology of QC, so that its root system had no other way of spread but sideways instead of downward with a tap root as principal anchor. 

Author displays cured samat leaves used in brewing basi wine and making vinegar.

There is a nearby drainage through which  various wastes flowed - oil, detergents, alkali and acid rain, ultimately finding their way into the root zone and destroying much of the roots. The tree however held on without apparent sign of weakness.  

On the meteorological aspect, thunderstorms have become more frequent, as a consequence of global warming, a phenomenon that is not yet well understood. But global warming is spawning more - and stronger - typhoons, hurricanes, and tornadoes all over the world. Extreme weather is now felt more often. Too much rainfall in one place causes flood, while too little rainfall causes drought in another place. Freak weather disturbances are not unusual, among them was a sudden thunderstorm on that fine day that toppled my favorite samat tree. ~