Jardinerong Sunog (the Burnt Gardener)

  Acacia confusa is the only remaining Acacia species native to the Philippines. And I said "only remaining" not because the others already went extinct, but because these have since been transferred to other genera*. To see these trees in their natural state, we had to drive along a newly constructed road and into a dirt road leading to a bridge still in the process of construction. There was one large tree along the aforementioned newly constructed road, but the main population is on the adjoining scrubland which rises just a few meters above a vast river now almost totally covered with lahar from Mt. Pinatubo. No more trees exist along the main Zambales road, the last one having been balled out for relocation to a private home when the roadside where it was growing on for years was slated for road widening by the Department of Public Works and Highways. Road widenings have sharply increased in frequency since 2016, resulting in the killing of innumerable trees across the ...

The first time I saw these plants was in 2001, and I remember being struck at how different these were from the stands of Amorphophallus paeoniifolius that were growing at the entrance of the forest, in poor and gravelly soils. These bear strikingly glossy leaflets and smooth petioles that were very much unlike the tuberculated ones in  A. paeoniifolius . Their ecology is also very different, preferring more shade and growing amongst leaf litter and humus, often on slopes. Years later, a friend intimated to me that some taxonomists were interested in describing these plants as ' Amorphophallus urceolatus ' a nomen nudum until the species formal description in 2020. The habitat is lowland riverine forest in the province of Laguna on Luzon at about sea level. The banks are flanked by rocks and large boulders. Remnants of felled down trees, likely dipterocarps, still remain. I have been seeing these since the early 2000s and judging by the state of the stumps, I reckon that these...

Many place names within the Philippines were taken from plants, historical figures, or from water features or references to it. However, the former appears to be much more widespread and perhaps reflect the early people's affinity with such plants, perhaps as sources of folk medicine, food, utilities, or simply as landmarks. Unfortunately, most of these place names no longer bear the plants so honored, and the meaning of such names have been largely lost to obscurity. Our so-called 'progress' has pulled us farther and farther away from nature: the nonstop road widening projects during the last five years have wreaked havoc on not a few roadside trees. A Facebook post shows the last and only known Acacia confusa - a Philippine endemic- along the Olongapo-Bugallon Road in the western Luzon province of Zambales that is slated for cutting. Some names are contentious, such as 'Balicbalic' and 'Vigan'. Still, many of these place names reflect a place's topogr...