“Madagascar: A Floral Treasure Chest”
Presented by Gary James,

Retired professor of biology at Orange Coast Community College, Gary James has traveled through the Indian Ocean documenting fascinating flora. His presentation to the Society addressed plants from Madagascar, a continental island of splendid diversity that is under siege from human needs for food, fuel and subsistence.

Separated by miles of ocean from the African coastal nation of Mozambique, Madagascar stretches from subtropical latitudes in the south to the wet tropics in the north. A spine of highlands reaching a pinnacle of over 9000 feet divides the rainforest on the east coast from the western uplands and coast and drier woodlands, grasslands and desert.

Madagascar’s isolation protected archaic lines of animals and plants from the extermination that might have otherwise occurred at the claws and teeth of the likes of African predators, and promoted profuse speciation. Of mammals on Madagascar, the best-known of which are perhaps the lemur line of primates, 95% are endemic. Chameleons, geckos and insects also show tremendous uniqueness.

Of plant life, 84% of species are endemic. Famous horticultural introductions from the mini-continent include the Traveler’s Tree, Ravenala madagascariensis, the Poinciana or Flamboyan, Delonix regia (one of several species in the genus), the Triangle palm, Dypsis decaryi and the monumental fan palm Bismarckia nobilis, many of the enchanting night-fragrant Angraecum orchid species, and the humble periwinkle, Catharanthus roseus.

Gary’s talk gave emphasis to dryland species, with members of the endemic Didieraceae family kicking off the parade of succulent slides. These Ocotillo- or Boojum-like succulent trees give Dr. Seuss a run for his illustrator’s laurels with their bizarre, wand-like growth. After a rain, tiny leaves sprout on the thorny stems like too many chads hanging to a cylindrical ballot.

The “Madagascar Palm” is a succulent genus in the Apocynaceae, Pachypodium, of exceptional beauty. It, too, arms its limb-like stems with long thorns, but during the rainy season (10 inches worth a year) it pushes out long leaves from the top, and flowers like its kin Plumeria’s burst forth.

Geological diversity underpins much of the botanical. Granite outcrops-enselbergs-present raw-rock faces to the sky and give no fuel to the frequent fires that people set to surrounding grasslands. In fissures and soil pockets, gardens of fire-protected plants persist: Aloes, tuberous deciduous Euphorbias, Ceropegia.

Euphorbia quartzicola wears its soil substrate on its nametag; it lives on a mountain range made mostly of quartz! Sandstones and the many other soil types give rise to specialized collections of endemics all over the island. Riparian corridors give rise to unusual vertical Pandanus trees, while 80-foot Euphorbia enterophora grows in nearby dry habitat

Other unforgettable botanical sights Gary shared with the audience included “Baobab Alley,” where a few ancient Adansonia trees represent their diverse genus against an onslaught of habitat destruction and wood-collecting. Impressive, too, were fences made of branches of Allauaudia, another member of the Didieraceae, and sights of moister forest in the north, where Begonia madagascariensis grows atop sharp, uplifted limestone terrain. Finally, Gary showed evidence that alternatives to subsistence living are springing up, like rare-gem mining, and a French-owned bark-paper workshop.

Absent images of the Malagasy people and their daily lives in Gary’s slides, one might believe Madagascar were truly a different world. Yet some of the alien plants he showed are now growing in Orange County.