Kapisen - Seychelles - ETH Research Platform Plant...

KapisenPlant Conservation Action group NewsletterJune 2009 Special Issue for Schools

Special Issue for Schools

K a p i s e n 2 S c h o o l I s s u e

I n t r o d u c t i o n

Plants are important! Plants are fundamental to human lives. Think of the many uses we have for plants - as food (e.g. rice, fruits, vegetables), spices (e.g. chilli, nutmeg), timber, fuel, fibre (e.g. cotton, rope), medicines, oils, equipment and crafts (e.g. axe handles, fish traps, baskets, hats), as well as beautifying our gardens.

Plants also provide us with what are called ‘ecosystem services’, which help to maintain a healthy and fully functioning environment. For example: beach vegetation holds beach sand firmly and thereby reduces coastal erosion; forests regulate our local climate and protect watersheds (and thus provide us with water to use); marsh plants help to trap sediments and filter water.

Plants are also the basis for all animal life. Seychelles has a multitude of native species, both plant and animal, many of them found nowhere else in the world (endemic species). A rich variety of plants will support a rich variety of animals. Understanding, valuing and conserving our rich flora is therefore important. This is what the members of the Plant Conservation Action group (PCA) are doing!

The Plant Conservation Action group (PCA) - who are we?PCA started as an NGO in 2003. We are a completely voluntary organisation and have no paid workers. Our members come from a variety of walks of life - some of us environmentalists and biologists but others are accountants and gardeners. We are all concerned about the future of our unique Seychelles’ flora.

In the last six years we have achieved much, including the production of a national strategy and research agenda for plant conservation, conducting research on native plants and their conservation, providing advice on habitat rehabilitation, exploring less well known natural areas, and of course producing our newsletter “Kapisen”!

Why produce a special edit ion of “Kapisen” for schools?We try to produce a newsletter every six months and so far we have produced nine issues of “Kapisen”. Unfortunately we do not have money to print “Kapisen”. It gets circulated as a digital version though email and is available on the internet. Although we do send a digital copy to the Environmental Education Unit in the Ministry of Education, you still need a computer to read it! So it is not easily available to many of the staff and students of our schools. This is why we decided to put together a special edition for schools and find the money to print copies to distribute to all schools in Seychelles.

In this “Kapisen” you will find articles about plants unique to Seychelles (p 11) as well as problem plants introduced from elsewhere in the world (p 19). Other articles will help you discover more about the life of plants (p 3, 5) and where to go to enjoy them (p 9) and celebrate them (p 8). You can find out how we use some of our native plants (p 14) and how we plant them in order to restore land that has been changed by human activity (p 6, 10, 16). We introduce you to the way that plants and animals interact (p 18). And in between are cartoons and games, which are a fun way of learning about plants.

We hope you enjoy reading “Kapisen” and trying the games and activities!

Katy Beaver, Eva Schumacher & Christoph Kueffer, Editors

The electronic pdf version of Kapisen can be ordered from [email protected] or downloaded fromhttp://seychelles-conservation.org/kapisen.aspxhttp://www.plantecology.ethz.ch/publications/books/kapisen

Native mountain forest at Congo Rouge (C Kueffer).

Cover photo: Jeanette Larue


K a p i s e n

Beauty

Kapisen trees can reach the magnificent height of 20 metres. Near the mountain tops, Kapisen foliage stands out as a beautiful dark green. The undersides of the large leathery leaves are often a rich brown colour. Their bark is reddish brown. Each oval fruit contains one large amazing seed.

Plants and People

The seed of Kapisen looks like the head of a Capuchin monk with a smooth brown hood around its ‘face’, hence the Creole name. The scientific name Northea hornei comes from Marianne North, the English painter who visited Seychelles in 1883, and John Horne, the first trained botanist to work in Seychelles.

Healthy Ecosystems

Kapisen forest habitat is rich in biodiversity. Fruit bats disperse its seeds. Resting on the trunks and branches of old Kapisen trees is a diverse flora of mosses, ferns, liverworts, orchids and lichens. This mini-habitat supports many tiny animals. Dead trees decay slowly providing food for fungi.

Conservation

Kapisen was exploited for its hard timber until quite recently. But it survived and is still quite abundant in the upland forests, so it inspires hope for conservation.

We call our newsletter ‘Kapisen’ after one of Seychelles’ unique plant species. This tree reflects important aspects of our interests and work as PCA members: Seychelles’ unique flora; the Beauty of plants; the Role plants play in people’s lives; Conservation of Seychelles’ plants and habitats; and Healthy ecosystems.

Unique Seychelles Flora

‘Kapisen’ is the Creole name for the endemic tree Northea hornei. ‘Endemic’ means a species that grows naturally only in Seychelles, nowhere else in the world.

FASCINATING (FUNKY?) FUNGIFungi are not true plants as they do not have chlorophyll, the green colour which enables them to make their own food. Instead they may be white, grey, brown, purple, pink, blue, yellow, orange or red! Many of them are poisonous. Some have weird shapes. What do they remind you of? Give each of these fungi a name.


P l a n t R e l a t i v e s

Plant relatives - a game

You usually know who your brothers and sisters are, and your parents and grandparents. And you may well have talked to cousins or older family members about your extended family. You may even have been to the National Archives and researched your family tree and found out where your ancestors came from.

Plants also have relatives and belong to families. Species that are closely related had the same ancestors. Just as human relatives often have similar features, such as a large nose or long earlobes, or a particular face shape, in plants it is the flowers that usually reveal the relationship. Even though some species may be small herbs and others may be large trees, the flowers tell you something about their common ancestor species. For example the same number and shape of petals.

Look at the flower pictures below. Which ones belong together? Join them with a pencil line. How many different groups are there?

1. Bwa kwiyer 2. Lalo 3. Bwa sandal

4. Railway creeper 5. Bwison 6. Var

7. Iksora sovaz 8. Hibiskis 9. Patatran

1. Bwa kwiyer

Solution see page 12.


E p i p h y t e s

Some tiny plants of Seychelles forests - and an experiment

How much do you know about mosses? or liverworts? (liver-what?!) Why are the tiny plants of the forest so unfamiliar? Perhaps because they do not have pretty flowers and are so small; and when you first look at them growing on rocks or tree trunks in the forest, they probably all look much the same - just nice green cushions. But they are actually a very important part of the forest, for they collect water - not in buckets or basins, but on their leaves, gathering it from the clouds and mist that drifts through the trees. This moisture keeps the humidity high in the forest, which in turn keeps the forest floor moist. These tiny plants also form a micro-habitat in which many small insects, spiders, worms and other creatures live.

Mosses and liverworts grow abundantly in the higher forest of the Seychelles granitic islands. They are often called ‘gomon’ in Kreol (which is also the term given to seaweed). You need to look at these plants with a hand lens in order to see many of the differences between species! About 220 species have been listed for Seychelles and several are endemic; almost all are native. They are mostly epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants) living on the trunks, branches, exposed roots and even leaves of trees and bushes, but they also cover rocks and sometimes grow on soil.

Many epiphytes, such as the mosses and liverworts, but also many ferns and orchids, have rather specific microhabitat requirements. For example they may need a certain type of bark structure or chemistry, and therefore tree species differ in the epiphyte flora

they support. If you look at the trunks of Albizya or Chinese Guava (Gouyavdsin) trees you do not see many mosses or liverworts. In fact, Gouyavdsin sheds pieces of its bark, so any epiphytes that have started to grow there will come off with the bark; whereas Bwa Rouz, Kapisen, and even Cinnamon (Kannel) support much denser epiphyte populations. Large old trees tend to have a much more diverse epiphyte flora than younger trees. However there is not much ecological information about these groups in Seychelles.

Large Sandragon trees often have many species of mosses and liverworts on them. So, when the Sandragon trees on the granitic islands began to die from a fungus disease in about 2002, it looked as if we might lose some very valuable habitat for epiphytes (including some rare orchids). A small research project was therefore set up to look at the epiphytes of two very large and imposing Sandragon trees near the top of Morne Blanc (see pictures below). Eventually both of the trees succumbed to the disease and died, and many of the epiphytes fell off or died too. Fortunately new epiphytes slowly grew, but the species sometimes differ from the original ones because the habitat conditions have changed. For example, the outer bark has often fallen off and there is more light reaching the forest floor. As dead tree branches fall to the ground and rot, the whole habitat is changing. The experiment is still going on, so we hope to learn more about the importance of old trees for the conservation of the native epiphyte flora, and about how epiphyte populations change over time.

The same area of trunk of one sandragon tree, over five years:

October 2003: Mainly 3 liverwort species.

May 2007, soon after the tree died: Only 1 dead liverwort left.

November 2008: Mainly 3 moss species.


M e d i c i n a l G a r d e n

Colibri Wildlife Club medicinal garden

A few years ago, Plaisance Secondary School’s Colibri Wildlife Club decided to create a medicinal plant garden in their school grounds. Club members wrote an article for “Kapisen” in 2007 describing the successful development of this garden. Below is a shortened version of their article:

“We chose an area where the plants can get enough sunlight to grow well. We got started right away by clearing it of grasses and digging quite large and deep holes. This is because the school is situated on reclaimed land, and few plants can grow in the coral fill soil. To rectify that, we filled up the holes with some red soil mixed with school-made compost. Students were given home assignments to find out from their parents and grand parents about traditional use of the plants, and they were each given seedling bags to bring a medicinal plant to the garden. Parents also got involved in the project and directed the club to the National Heritage Museum where we got most of our plants.

cultural value and traditional uses of medicinal plants in Seychelles. For example we have been particularly curious to observe the growing pattern of the wild ginger which at some point in time disappears completely leading us to believe that it has died. After some time however, it re-emerges with some beautiful, healthy leaves. Another interesting plant is the “Bwa Malgas” which many people believe never flowers. To our surprise our garden’s Bwa Malgas produced some nice pink flowers last year.Insects like bees and butterflies, birds like the Kolibri and Madagascar fody, are frequent visitors to the garden and we have not been spared visits by invasive pests such as whitefly. The medicinal garden has also provided us with a little income through the sale of hot lemon grass tea during break time, and members of staff have found cures in some of the plants.We have even influenced the local community in taking particular interest in the garden where they have come to help with cleaning and introducing other medicinal plants. Our garden made a difference not only by producing a variety of green and colourful plants to brighten up the school grounds but also encouraged the children and others to explore wider issues relating to the natural world and their community.”PCA recently investigated to find out what has happened to the garden in the last two years. It seems that for a while the medicinal garden was rather neglected because of lack of leadership for the club. Now, in 2009, care and attention is again being given to the plants and their surroundings, as can be seen in the photo below. It is especially important to learn how to grow the native plants that are used for medicine, so that plants are not taken from the forest and other natural areas.Children maintaining the garden in 2006.

The Medicinal Garden project was soon integrated into the Technical Studies curriculum where a whole range of learning and practical skills, such as identification, recording, using equipments and gardening tools, recycling, making better use of bins, marketing products, etc, were developed. Following the development of the garden, other subject areas such as science, art and languages, took an interest in creating other opportunities for learning.The garden saw its official opening in October 2005 during the Creole Festival. The garden gives the children the opportunity to watch the development of the plants and to understand the

...and again in 2008, when the plants had grown a lot! (L Bastienne-Corgat).


W o r d S e a r c h

Seychelles Endemic Plants Word Search

Y N N A T N O M D B R E L V RE L O Y A G A S A W B N E M EF A A L K A L O U A O L E B MI T T Z O L I K E R U R O A DT A O I K S B N A O L K P L OP N P S S R A M K U A O B E KN N N I K A Y R L Z U W E R OO Y N T O E R T A D A L A B KR E A R Z M N L G P B M W R PA N Y O M A A R O R A A B A KM F L N F D A N I R D W L Z AE E A O N N M D E F A M K W TF Y L A B W A M E D I Z R A OA O S W I W O R O S O N E R VK N A O B A B U N E S I P A K

Find the following Kreol names of 29 of Seychelles’ endemic flowering plants in the above table. Words can read across in either direction, up, down or diagonally. Note that many woody plants are called ‘Bwa’ - in some cases the ‘Bwa’ is included, in others (shown with the ‘Bwa’ in brackets) just the second part of the name is found in the table. Have fun!

Bwadfer (Bwa) merl (Bwa) zoliker Lerb razwar

Bwa dir ble Bwa ponm Kafe maron pti fey Lerbdmontanny

Bwa dou Bwa rouz Kapisen Lozey maron

(Bwa) kalou Bwa sagay Kokodmer Mapoudgranbwa

(Bwa) kato (Bwa) sandal Kolofant Palmis

(Bwa) koulev (Bwa) sarlo Lalyann potao Vakwa parasol

(Bwa) mare (pti fey) (Bwa) sitron Latannyen fey Zakobe

Bwa mediz

When you have found all the names, 21 squares remain unused. If you take the letters in these 21 squares and sort them out, you can make the names of two more endemic plants:

a) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ b) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


E a r t h D a y

Celebrating Earth Day!

Don’t let anyone tell you that ONE PERSON cannot make a difference. You CAN make a difference! But it often helps if you join with other people, as TOGETHER you can do MORE!

It is now a tradition to celebrate Earth Day on April 22. Different groups come together and carry out activities that help people to learn to value our planet Earth and everything that lives upon it. Each year the theme and the activities are different.

The theme for 2007 was “Be the generation that woke up, and did something … and changed the world we live in”.

In 2008 the emphasis was on linking our natural environment and our cultural history

“Nature, our Culture, they’re our future!”

People wrote pledges on beautiful coloured ‘leaves’ and hung them on a tree in the Botanical Garden (M Vély)

Some of the many children who participated in the 2007 march through Victoria (photo: EIC section)

Part of PCA’s display in 2008 - ‘Do you know these plants?’ (K Beaver).

What about Earth Day 2009? Write the theme of the celebration (or that of another Environmental Day that you participate in) and add a photo of your 2009 celebrations and activities here:

Participants in the cultural show using some traditional instruments (K Beaver).


N a t u r e T r a i l s

After the creation of the Morne Seychellois National Park in 1979, a network of nature trails was set up to offer a unique experience to both visitors and local people. When walking these trails, people can get to know the plants and animals, while at the same time enjoying the countryside, the exercise and often spectacular views.

Over the years the trail network has been improved and there are currently nine trails in the National Park, one in a forest reserve in the south of Mahé and one on Praslin. A set of leaflets describes the different trails. Each leaflet contains a map of the area traversed by the trail and information about the route and the ecology of the site.

Some trails are easier to walk, such as the one to Anse Major. One of the main attractions is that you can take a swim on a secluded beach and bask in the sun before heading back. Another easy trail is Glacis La Reserve, in the south, which provides a

short leisurely walk through forest and ends on a glacis. The special type of vegetation associated with glacis landscape can be seen on both these trails, including Bwa dile, and Lavannir maron (Seychelles wild vanilla).

For those who would like to see native plant and animal species in the mountains, there are several trails on Mahé. Perhaps Copolia and Morne Blanc are the most interesting to follow for a short trip. Along the Copolia trail you can find several endemic palm species and impressive trees such as Bwa rouz, as well as smaller plants such as the insect-trapping pitcher plant (Potao). Morne Blanc is famous for its mist forest: as you climb higher up the trail the forest becomes moister, with mosses covering rocks and tree trunks. Endemic plants such as Vakwa maron and Kapisen are common there. For the strong walker, the linked Mare aux Cochons and Casse Dent trails are recommended.

The Glacis Noir trail on Praslin has all six of the endemic palms of Seychelles in the forested part of the trail, as well as some rarer shrub species. Mare aux Cochons, on the other hand contains relics of the bygone trade in cinnamon oil. The remains of the distillery used for that purpose can be observed and other spices that were cultivated then, such as cardamom, can still be found there.

If you are looking for magnificent views you should go on the Dans Gallas or Glacis Trois Frères trails. At the summits of these trails you experience a magnificent bird’s eye view of the town of Victoria down below. Copolia offers a similar experience but with scenic Morne Seychellois in the background.

Enjoy your walk!

Nature Trials: a wonderful way to learn about plants

Have YOU ever followed a Nature Trail? In an article in Kapisen 7, Eric Sophola of the National Park Unit in the Department of Environment wrote about the joys of exploring the mountains and forests of Seychelles. Below are some slightly modified extracts from his article. If you have never been on a Nature Trail, why not try? Each trail has a separate brochure. These can be purchased cheaply at the Botanical Garden kiosk.

Swamp at Mare aux Cochons in the centre of the Morne Seychellois National Park (E. Schumacher).

Leaflets of the Morne Seychellois National Park nature trails (K. Beaver).

K a p i s e n 1 0 S c h o o l I s s u e

H a b i t a t R e s t o r a t i o n

Habitat restoration

Beautiful green forests cover most of the hills of Mahé, Silhouette and La Digue. Praslin is less well clothed, in that red earth is very evident in some areas. This is because there have been forest fires, followed by erosion because there were no trees left to hold the soil. Forests protect our vital “watershed”, formed by the hills and slopes where rainfall collects and makes its way into soil and rivers and provides us with our water supply.

There have been several times when our forest cover almost disappeared. The first time was when settlers cut huge numbers of native trees because of their wonderfully strong timber. More recently there was exploitation of the Cinnamon forest that grew up after the first clearance. Many other trees were also cut to provide fuel for the Cinnamon distilleries.

Because so many trees were cut down or burnt, soil erosion became a huge problem, and during the 1950s and 1960s there was a major effort to re-forest the hill slopes. Native trees grow rather slowly, so introduced species with fast growth were used, such as Albizya and Bwa zonn, in order to provide good ground cover (and also useful timber). Cinnamon was still being exploited at that time, but some of it was left as part of the forest for erosion control; but remember that Cinnamon is itself an introduced species! By re-foresting the hills our water supply was protected and this was very important, but the hills were now clothed with alien species.

Unfortunately, some of these introduced tree species proved to be very invasive. They spread into areas where they were in direct competition with native species for light, water, nutrients and space (think of the rapid invasion by creepers in recent years!). This expansion is continuing and native species are struggling to survive. By the 1980s and 1990s people around the world recognised that invasive species were threatening the survival of native plants in almost every country. What to do? It is a complex problem, with no easy solutions. One action is to control the transportation and spread of invasive species; another is to conserve good areas of forest as Protected Areas. A third possibility is to take small land areas and try to restore them to how they were before alien species took over.

This is what is now being tried on a number of Seychelles small islands, such as Aride, Cousine, Fregate and North Island, all of which had plantations of Coconut. Some small areas of Mahé, Praslin and Silhouette are also being restored, e.g. at Mare aux

Cochons in Morne Seychellois National Park. The idea is to create vegetation that is similar to the original native vegetation. One method is to remove the invasive species and replace them with a mixture of native species (see photo A). If there are already quite a few native trees present, it is possible to allow natural recovery by regularly clearing alien plants growing around the natives and maybe adding extra native species (see photo B).

Restoration is a long process, taking many years not just a few months, because native trees grow slowly. Important research needs to be carried out beforehand: 1) to discover the history of the area and what plants may have been there before humans arrived; 2) to select the right type of plants for the soil and altitude; 3) to ensure that the vegetation can support a good mixture of animal species; 4) to plan how to carry out the restoration, e.g. by scattering native seeds or by planting native seedlings. However, positive results can be seen within a few years if sufficient time and effort can be put into the restoration work (and it is hard work because invasive species are very persistent and keep trying to come back!). Photos C, D and E show the progress achieved in two different areas: Mare aux Cochons and North Island.

A

B

A mixture of native species planted at Mare aux Cochons (E Schumacher).

A group of native palms at Mare aux Cochons - alien species around them have been cleared (E Schumacher).


R a r e P l a n t s

Rare Seychelles plants(Plants that need our special attention)

Some of Seychelles endemic plants have become extremely rare and are now only found in a few places. This means that many people have never seen them or don’t even know that they exist. But they are an important part of our plant biodiversity as they are found nowhere else in the world! Two of them are described here.

1. Belzamin sovazOne of the rarest plants is a fairly large herb called Belzamin sovaz (Impatiens gordonii) which grows in the mist forest. It has white flowers with a long spur (extension to one of the petals). It was previously found on Mahé in at least four locations, but now only exists in one of those locations in very small numbers, and in just one area of Silhouette. As a result scientists are anxious that it might become extinct.

From 2001 to 2003, Alistair Griffiths, from the Eden Project in UK, studied this species to see whether he could find ways of increasing the chances of

it surviving in the wild (this is known as in situ conservation, or conserving a species in the places where it already grows). Alistair also looked at the best ways of growing it outside of its natural habitat (this is known as ex situ conservation, or conserving the species in a special garden so that later it can be introduced back into the wild).

Already there is an experiment to re-introduce some of these plants into the mist forest on Mahé. James Mougal, of the Botanical Garden, has been following this but does not yet know how successful it will be. However, we hope that it will be one way of rescuing this very pretty and vulnerable plant.

Belzamin sovaz (Impatiens gordonii) (K Beaver).

C

Tall planted Vakwa maron at Mare aux Cochons after about 8 years (E. Schumacher).

E

D

D - North island plateau land at the start of restoration with Bwadroz and Vakwa newly planted (K Beaver).

E - The same patch of North Island 2 years later (K Beaver).


R a r e P l a n t s

Aride Island has been a nature reserve since 1973, and is now managed by the Island Conservation Society. Over the years there have been several censuses of the Aride Bwa Sitron population (you can census a

plant population by visiting every plant and gathering information about its size and other features, similar to the way a human population census is carried out). The censuses show that the population of Bwa Sitron has been slowly decreasing.

In 2007, two Master students (Olivier Putallaz and David Fürsinger) from ETH, a Swiss University, carried out a further study and concluded that there are not enough young trees growing up to become adults. Although plenty of seeds are produced and many seedlings come up beneath the adult trees, there is not enough dispersal of seeds, perhaps because the natural disperser no longer lives on Aride. There may also be competition for light, water and soil nutrients from other plants such as Bwa Mapou and even Manztou, which is a common weed on Aride.

How the Biodiversity Centre is helpingThe Biodiversity Centre at Barbarons is playing a vital role in plant conservation in Seychelles. The staff have found the best ways to propagate and grow many of our rare endemic species in a special nursery. Both Belzamin Sovaz and Bwa Sitron are there, so you can visit and see them for yourself. These plants can be re-introduced into suitable natural habitats to help with their conservation. There are now small population of Bwa Sitron on Fregate, Silhouette and Mahé.

Other plants propagated at the Biodiversity Centre are medicinal plants, which are sold to the public. Some medicinal plants are very much threatened by over-collecting by herbalists, e.g. Bwa dou or Bwa marmay. Unfortunately these species are very difficult to propagate, so herbalists still collect them from the forest and they are becoming increasingly rare. If we are not careful, they will become extinct, just like another species of Bwa marmay that used to exist in Seychelles. You can help, by being aware of this, telling other people, and maybe growing your own medicinal plants. The magnificent and perfumed Bwa sitron flower (O

Putallaz).

2. Bwa sitronAnother rare species is Bwa sitron or Wright’s Gardenia (Rothmannia annae). This small tree has beautiful speckled flowers and a delightful perfume. Although it once grew on several granitic islands, somehow it became extinct on these islands, and it now grows naturally only on Aride. Supposing there was a huge forest fire on Aride? Or a pest or disease reached the island and attacked the Bwa Sitron? Maybe that is how it became extinct on the other islands! How sad and terrible it would be to lose such a magnificent plant!

The fruits of Bwa sitron (K Beaver).

There are 4 families represented here. Family 1 = 1 + 3; Family 2 = 2 + 6 + 8; Family 3 = 4 + 9; Family 4 = 5 + 7.

Solution for the plant family game page 4:


P l a n t P o e m

Plant Poem

Poems? I cannot write poems …….. maybe not, but this kind of ‘poem’ is not so difficult ……. Have a try anyway! You can choose any plant and the name can be in Creole, English or French.

The following ‘poem’ is sung to the tune “Doe, a deer, a female deer; Ray, a drop of golden sun……”, the song from “A Sound of Music”; but you can choose any song you like, or not sing it to a song at all.

P, a palm, the straightest tree

A, an Araucaria

L, Lafous, with figs galore

M, a Mango growing wild

I for Intsia (Gayak)

S, a Santol on the hill

T, a Takamaka, strong… and that leaves us with an

Erythroxylum


T r a d i t i o n a l U s e s

Traditional uses of native plants

Uses for palms and vakwaWhen settlers arrived in Seychelles in the late 18th Century, they found many uses for the native plants, including the endemic palms and pandans. Shelter was a primary consideration and Latannyen fey leaves were used for thatching house roofs, although on Praslin the much larger leaves of Coco-de-mer were chosen.

Palm leaves could also be used for house walls and inner partitions, but more substantial walls were created from lathes (‘lat’). The trunk of a Latannyen lat was split into four and the softer inner part removed, leaving one inch thick lathes which could be arranged in attractive patterns. The long aerial roots of Vakwa maron were also utilised in this way but because of their smaller size were split into just two pieces (know as ‘lati’).

The trunks of other palms were not normally used for house construction but Coco-de-mer was said to be “sufficiently firm, except in the centre, to be used for many domestic purposes”. Hence it was made into simple furniture, boxes and walking sticks (remember most people travelled overland on foot!).

nuts, being hard and durable, could be fashioned into many utensils such as scoops, cups, spoons and dishes, collectively known as ‘Vesel de Pralen’ (Praslin crockery).

Small useful containers made from the leaf base of Palmis by a local craftsman. In the past, much larger containers made from this material were used to hold water and as ‘basen’ (K Beaver).

The huge nuts of Coco-de-mer palms were utilised for water storage, as were the large leaf bases of Palmis, which when fresh are pliable and can be pinned up to form containers (‘basen’). However, a more common use for these leaf bases was as “raincoats” for fishermen. Fishermen also made use of Coco-de-mer half nuts as useful bailers when rough seas slopped water into their pirogues. Back on land, whole Coco-de-mer nuts were often used as containers for fermenting home-brew (‘lapire’) because of the lack of calabash. In fact Coco-de-mer

As if that wasn’t enough uses for Coco-de-mer, the outside husk could be made into rope. Even more prized were the ‘zig’ (main leaf veins) from young leaves, which formed pliable string for sewing thatch to roof timbers. Young unfurled flexible Coco-de-mer leaves were woven into mats, bags, hats, baskets, fans, etc. There is one other part of the Coco-de-mer palm which you might think had little use - if you look on the underside of newly opened leaves, there is a kind of “fluff”, a bit like brown cotton wool. This was used both for dressing wounds and for stuffing pillows and mattresses - but how long would it take to find enough of this stuff to fill even a child’s mattress?!

Half a Coco-de-mer nut used for storing water (K Beaver).

Praslin lady creating a hat with a long plait made of soft immature leaf of Coco-de-mer (L Chong-Seng).

Modern thatching the traditional way - using Latannyen fey leaves and Coco-de-mer ‘zig’ string. The photo shows the inside of the roof (K Beaver).


T r a d i t i o n a l U s e s

Some palms produce edible parts, such as the growing heart or “cabbage”. That of Palmis was found to taste excellent, especially prepared as salad with a dressing. However, unlike the coconut palm, the fruits of the endemic palms and screw pines are not edible (except by certain birds and fruit bats), with one exception - the jelly found within young Coco-de-mer nuts. This was considered a dessert delicacy and often served with a fine liqueur. When a Coco-de-mer fruit is ripe (which in itself takes about 7 years), the inside is full of hard “vegetable ivory”. Unfortunately the ivory is too brittle to be carved into ornamental sculptures but was used to make the “dots” in dominoes, a favourite pastime for Seychellois.

Mahé, people used Koko maron for this purpose and were convinced that the much darker colour of the Koko maron string produced superior tobacco (the Var string is pale in colour). In consequence, Koko maron was introduced into Praslin so that it could be used there too!

Zolivav is an interesting and useful creeper, which is more common on Praslin than on Mahé. It has elongated leaves which are tipped with curling tendrils, and a tough woody stem when mature. Because of its creeping habit and tough stem, some call it rattan (which is actually a spiny creeping palm). Zolivav stems are best split into two and used like cane or split bamboo. In this form they can be woven into baskets and fish traps. In the age of Coconut plantations, very large open baskets made from Zolivav were used for collecting coconuts. Old fishermen who remember fishing way back in the early 1900s say that Zolivav fish traps were better than bamboo traps as they attracted the fish, so you got larger catches.

Top photo: Tying tobacco with string made from plaited inner bark of Var (notice: to the right of the picture are a broom made from Coconut “zig” and a bag woven from Vakwa leaves).Bottom photo: Close up showing the plaited Var string being tied around the tobacco leaves.(Both photos courtesy of Research Section, National He-ritage)

Some of these native plants are still being used, e.g. young Coco-de-mer leaves for making hats, Latannyen fey leaves for thatching. But the harvesting of the leaves must be controlled so that the plants remain alive and continue to grow healthily. Several endemic plants used for medicine are already highly threatened by over-collecting. So any exploitation of native plants must be carried out in a sustainable way otherwise the species may become extinct.

NOTE: Much of this information was provided by Mr Willy Andre, a previous Director of Forestry. If you do not know what the plants look like, check in the “Native Plants of Seychelles - A Basic Checklist and Field Guide” which is in all Seychelles schools (in the library or in the book store). There are drawings of all the native plants in this book.

Zolivav plant (K Beaver).

What to use for rope and string In the olden days, a very useful tree for making rope was Var, the bark of which can be stripped off the tree, and the flexible inner part used as string or cord. To make strong rope, e.g. for anchor ropes, it is necessary to braid the strips together, splicing new strips in one by one until the required length is reached. On Praslin, people also used Var string to bind rolled plugs of tobacco leaves (‘karot taba’). On


T r e e P l a n t i n g

Tree planting by Anse Boileau school environment club

In 2007 Vanessa Roseline of the Nature Lovers Club of Anse Boileau School wrote an article about club activities for “Kapisen” Issue 7. This club has a strong link with the Biodiversity Centre at Barbarons, at which the club has been allocated a special corner, where they are allowed to grow endemic and indigenous plants. Once a month the club visits the Centre to see how their plants are growing and also to grow new ones. At the time, the club was also implementing a coastal management project along the stretch of coastline just opposite the school. Numerous trees and creepers (Patatran) were planted on the beach to try to reduce the rate of beach erosion. In 2007 the project was already bringing positive results as erosion on the beach was being reduced considerably.

In the boxes are a few of the things that the Club members learnt by belonging to the club. If you are a member of a Wildlife Club, perhaps you have learnt important facts about plants and the environment, and new skills too. We hope so!

Photo of students at Biodiversity Centre in 2007

What have you learned about plants?“I’ve been able to learn the names of different species of plants which I didn’t know before”; “different endemic species, for example the kinds of palm trees”; “especially the palm trees”; “about the plants which can only be found on Aldabra”. “I learnt that if there are no plants there is no life because there will be no oxygen”.

What skills have you learnt or developed?“I have learnt how to plant a tree and how to take care of it”; “what to include in the soil so that the plant grows well”; “how to plant trees on the beach to help against beach erosion”; “how to identify a plant by just looking at its leaves and fruits”; “improve my public speaking, through meeting new people all the time”.

Has being a member of the club changed your attitudes towards the environment?“It helped me to become more conscious of how important the environment is to every human”; “how the environment is very important to us, so that I can teach my colleagues also what they are doing when polluting the environment”; “as other people see us protecting the environment, I hope they will also take the same path”; “before I didn’t know why we need to protect our environment, now I very much look forward to participate in activities related to the environment”; “helped me to think positively about the environment”.

Most of the students who were club members in 2007 have moved on, and so has the club leader, so there has been a gap in activities, but students and staff are working to get the club going again so that these projects can continue and new ones be started.


P l a n t S u d o k u

Plant Sudoku

Even if you are familiar with Sudoku puzzles, you may find this an interesting challenge because of the use of picture symbols instead of numbers. And you don’t have to be an artist to copy the simple symbols into the grid!

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3 x 3 box contains each of the nine plant structures shown below:


P l a n t s a n d A n i m a l s

Plant and animal relationships

There are many ways in which plants and animals interact. Not only do many animals eat plants, but plants often need animals for pollination and seed dispersal. Animals need the shelter provided by plants, while plants need animals to break down their dead leaves and branches (such as millipedes, snails and termites) and so begin the release of nutrients into the soil.

Take seed dispersal for example; it is vital for the survival of plants. If seedlings grow too close to their mother plant, they compete for light, water and nutrients with each other and with the mother plant. They also get infested easily by pests or diseases which have affected the mother plant. Animals, such as fruit bats, birds and lizards, are some of the best seed dispersers, carrying fruits away from a tree and dropping the seeds in a new place. Plants have evolved ways of attracting these animals to their fruits, for example the fruit ripens to an attractive bright red, or has a nice smell, and often it has a nutritious outer part for the animal but keeps the seeds protected by a hard cover inside - think of a mango or a Bodanmyen fruit.

Many of Seychelles’ native plants depend on fruit bats and birds for their dispersal, e.g. Kapisen, Vakwa maron, Palmis, Latannyen fey, Bwa rouz, Lafous gran fey, Bwa dir. Unfortunately, sometimes birds and bats spread seeds of invasive plants; for example Merl (Bulbul) long ago spread introduced Cinnamon all over the hills of the granitic islands. A recent experiment in Seychelles carried out by local and overseas researchers, showed that Merl actually prefer Cinnamon fruits, probably because they are

more nutritious than many native fruits. Perhaps Merl are like many Seychellois who prefer imported apples and oranges to locally grown Karanbol and Frisiter!

Similarly, many plants depend on insects for pollination of their flowers. If flowers did not have nectar and pollen, many insects would go hungry. The importance of this relationship between plants and insects is often overlooked. It is vital not only for our food production (e.g. if there are no bees to pollinate pumpkin flowers, then no pumpkins can form!) but also for ecosystems to function in a healthy way. The loss of several specific endemic insects could result in the loss of an endemic plant which depends on these insects for pollination. Is this a possible reason for the lack of seedlings of some of our rarest plants?

Recently a team of researchers and local Environment Department staff have been studying pollinator insects on glacis plants, including a number of threatened endemic species. They identify the insects visiting flowers to see whether they are introduced insects (such as honey bees) or native species. They also count how many of each type of insect visit the flowers. In addition, they count how many fruits and seeds are formed on some of the plants, which shows how successful pollination has been. If the researchers know which insects have been visiting the flowers and how often they have visited the flowers, then they will know whether these insects have been good pollinators for the plant. If the insects have been taking pollen and nectar but not acting as good pollinators, then the plant will have difficulty surviving because it will not be able to produce healthy seeds.

This study will also help us to understand whether there is competition between the introduced and native insects for nectar and pollen. It will also indicate whether introduced insects have taken over the role of native pollinators for some of the endemic plants.

Although there seem to be many insects that eat plants (we notice especially the ‘pest’ species like melon fly and spiralling whitefly!), the majority of insects are beneficial and play very important roles in our Seychelles ecosystems.

A fly species visits palm flowers to find food. When it flies to another flower pollination takes place so that the palm can form seeds and fruits (C Kaiser)


P l a n t I n v a d e r s

Unwanted plant invaders!

Everyone has seen the way that creepers seem to be ‘taking over’ the land next to roadsides - forming a carpet and smothering trees and other vegetation. Lalyann torti (lalyann darzan) (Merremia peltata) is the main culprit but there are others such as Railway creeper and Antigonn. All of these creepers were probably introduced as ornamental plants because they have nice flowers.

the invasive plant “Fowatouk”. The second part was to set up an exhibition showing various invasive plants, drawings, information about them, articles, leaflets and games.We managed to get two environmental officers from the forestry unit who assisted our group up Mt Sebert. Even with the rain falling heavily we found our way up the hill while cracking jokes just to forget all our worries and difficulties with the assignments we needed to hand in the next day.Through our action we learnt many new things and discovered a lot of rare/ native plants apart from the invasive ones. We gained a lot of information. For example, some of us did not know that “Gouyavdsin” was an invasive plant but we enjoy eating it since it is very delicious! We also learnt that there are two types of “Watouk” species, the real and the false one. The false one is the invasive species, and one fascinating or extraordinary fact is that its leaves can grow small plants, as well as its seeds. It is therefore essential to destroy the plants on site or be very careful when transporting it since it spreads very easily.For the exhibition, all of the members of our “Creepy invaders” group participated actively. We brought live invasive plants to decorate our exhibit. We were very happy that we had many visitors who showed much admiration for our display. We even had the opportunity to be interviewed by the media.Through this project we learnt that cooperation, collaboration and determination are needed and that each one should take her responsibility so that in the end we can all be satisfied. Team spirit and unity is the key to our success despite some setbacks and the rain. We were all determined to reach our goal!

A carpet of creepers smothers the vegetation underneath it (K Beaver).

Children weeding out Fowatouk from the forest

Invasive trees such as Albizya and Kannel (Cinnamon) were first planted as valuable species: Albizya as a timber tree that would also help to prevent erosion and Kannel for its valuable spice. Other plant invaders such as Fowatouk (Clidemia hirta), came here by accident. It somehow found its way to Silhouette and has now reached Mahé.

In 2007, a group of NIE students carried out their environmental project on ‘Creepy Invaders’ and wrote about this in Kapisen 7. They are Marion Etienne, Bethina Balette, Maryse Didon, Tamara Barra and Jenny Haidee. Here are some extracts from their article:

The invasion of plants, especially creepers, has become a major setback for our natural environment recently. We wanted to know the underlying causes for the sudden explosion of invasive plants and for how long this has been a problem. We therefore embarked on a journey of getting to know the invaders and centering our project on it.We decided to set up two main actions. The first one was to plan and carry out the eradication of some invasive plants in a specific area. We selected Mont Sebert as a hot spot to eradicate


C a r t o o n s

Peter’s plants

Peter Lalande has created imaginative plant drawings for Kapisen, based on the Creole names. Here are some of them:

Bwa sousouri

Bwa sagay

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