Plant Collecting In St. Lucia

Introduction. History of Plant Collecting According to Urban in his publication Symbolae Antillanae, the first known collections in St. Lucia were by J.B. Leblond in 1767. F. Masson followed in 1780. Other early collectors were Auguste Plée (1821), Père Duss (1885), G A Ramage (1889), H E. Box (1931-1938), and F.A. Squire (1936-1938). John and Pamela Beard made collections during the 1940’s. Richard Howard and George Proctor made important collections from 1950 onwards, and Brigid Sturrock collected from 1968 to 1973. St. Lucia’s own efforts commenced as a result of the commitment of Gabriel Charles (Chief Forestry Officer), Robert Devaux (Director of the National Trust) and Dr. Gilbertha St. Rose of the herbalist society to the idea of making a St. Lucian plant collection. Verna Slane, a peace Corps volunteer, began in 1985 collecting for the express purpose of identifying the plants used locally medicinally and culturally. She set up a home-made herbarium using very limited local supplies. Meanwhile funding in the UBUTROP program became available from The OAS and herbarium equipment was ordered and set-up at the National Trust. Verna met with a young St. Lucian, Laurent Jean Pierre who had been chosen under the same funding to train in herbarium managemant and taxonomy in Trinidad. Over the next few years Verna and Laurent collected over 700 species, with duplicates being housed and identified by Dr Howard at Arnold Arboretum. (Sue Thompson also made some collections, primarily Araceae for the Carnegie Museum). The plant collection moved to Department of Forestry in 1995 and is now housed in botanical cabinets in an air-conditioned room. From 19951997 some collections were made by Margaret Severin and Dwayne Walker of the Department of Forestry. The Author, Plants and St Lucia I moved to St. Lucia in 1990 after a very early retirement from teaching. I took an interest in the Atlantic coastal plants in my area and by 1993 had started trying to identify what I saw. It was frustratingly slow progress as I could get virtually no help locally. A trip to Paris secured Fournet’s first flora of the French islands and a kind German guest secured Flora of the Lesser Antilles for me. I wrote to Dr Howard 1996 and was surprised to get an answer. He encouraged me to collect and I sent several boxes of specimens during 1997 of species that I presumed to be first records. Mostly I was correct and this encouraged me to continue studying as clearly there was a lot to be discovered in St Lucia. The arrival of email ended my isolation. Dr Fournet was always very prompt, helpful and encouraging and was my main source of help for the next few years until his retirement in 2004. His very thorough new flora continues to help. Bee Gunn, from Missouri Botanical Gardens came to study Syagra amara, and subsequently to collect other palms, and this led me to their specialists who helped with difficult determinations, Tom Croat, Henk van der Werff, Doug Stevens and John Pruski among others. In 1999 I met a young a farmer, Melvin Smith. His interest, excellent botanical eyes and bush sense meant that for the first time I could go off-trail particularly in the Gimie Range and Gros Piton and to follow the narrow, deep lowland ravines of the Choiseul area. Our 200 or so field trips took us to all parts of the island. These walks were always exhausting (at least for me), sometimes exciting (rock falls, snakes, flash floods) but resulted in a treasure trove of over 250 new records. In 2004 I decide to tackle orchids. Through Jacques Fournet, Director of the herbarium in Guadeloupe, I contacted Philippe Feldmann who helped with some tentative identifications of images. He suggested I also contact James Ackerman of UPRRP which led

to Frank Axelrod. As I had already found quite a few new orchid records, they encouraged to collect specimens to be lodged at UPRRP. (Up to this point I had been studying the flora more than collecting.) Some funding through the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan became available to me and I used it to make initial collections of sedges and grasses in 2005, 2 families I had not tackled and for which Frank Axelrod made the initial determinations. This then broadened into a project to essentially to have all extant monocot and dicot wild taxons (about 1300 species) represented by specimens at UPRRP. This has proceeded quite fast as I already knew the species and where and when to collect. Normally I was able to identify specimens and prepare labels. This project will be essentially complete by 2007. A late idea was to collect ferns and about 80 species have been found so far – Zoë Goodwin made an initial collection in July 2005 and I followed up in 2006 - again I needed Frank to make initial determinations. These specimens are now being digitalized and will be available on -line I am deeply indebted to Frank Axelrod who has responded patiently to hundreds of emails over the last 2 years, helping me with technicalities of collecting, labeling, checking my identifications, identifying initial collections of grasses, sedges and ferns, and suggesting suitable experts (Mark Strong, Leslie Landrum, and Pedro Acevedo). Given his workload, his prompt detailed help has been amazing. The Future In the future I would like to make a electronic pictorial flora of cultivated and wild plants of St. Lucia, using the 10,000 or so digital images I have – this would be very welcome in St. Lucia where many people are interested in wild plants but find the variety overwhelming. In addition if funding becomes available, I would like to collect on other British Commonwealth mountainous islands as I believe they are richer floristically than is recorded. Thanks Many of the individuals and institutions abroad I have to thank are mentioned above. Within St Lucia I need to mention the following organizations and people: St.Lucia has an excellent forest reserve, due entirely to the efforts and enthusiasm of the Department of Forestry. Personally I must thank all members of the Department of Forestry, from casual worker to Chief Forestry Officer, for their continuous support and encouragement, and for allowing me to use their facilities and roam the forest. I have never had anything other than positive reactions from everyone in the department. I must also thank Henry Augustin, co-owner with myself of La Panache Guesthouse. With the exception of some welcome funding in 2005 (see above), all the substantial costs (cameras, equipment, books, transportation, guides, FedEx parcels, computers etc. etc.) of over 10 years of work have been sponsored by the guesthouse and hence by Henry. In addition our housekeeper Sheran O’Reilly has cheerfully tolerated the restaurant being repeatedly covered by “bits of old bush” which she has to clean up at the end of the day. Fortunately for me Henry and Sheran both have a great love of plants.