The joy of tree walking

On a sunny Saturday morning in July, I joined fifty other tree lovers on a tree walk around UP Diliman. While I can describe my love for trees as instinctive, there is a lot I can still learn about them. I thought that the tree walk would help me learn the names of more Philippine trees. The idea of also knowing their scientific names made my inner geek excited.

 The walk was organized by the Philippine Native Plants Conservation Society, Inc., an NGO founded by slain botanist Dr. Leonard Co. Among the society’s aims is to advocate for restoration of degraded habitats, particularly centering on remaining rainforest fragments. The tree walk was for the purpose of familiarizing the participants with native trees so that they will have a better idea of what our dwindling rainforests look like.

 We met at the Oblation and sat on the steps of Quezon Hall while we were given a short talk about UP Diliman and its trees by Architect Patrick Gozon, our guide for the activity. While the campus is now a lush haven of huge trees, it was not like that when it was newly built. It was grassland and it would have been punishing to jog around the academic oval at noon the way a lot of people now do. We also learned that the towering acacia trees (Samanea saman) that give the academic oval its dramatic canopy are not native trees. They were planted by the American founders of UP.

 We started along University Avenue and found flowering Mussaenda. These plants are native to the Philippines. The popular varieties named after Philippine First Ladies such as the Doña Luz and the Doña Aurora are hybrids. The path where we walked was filled with flowers. So many large butterflies flitted around us that it was almost like the scene from the “Snow White” Disney cartoon.

 Our first native tree was the pili tree (Canarium ovatum). I am more familiar with the pili nut delicacies that we get as pasalubong from Bicol. The tree was small and symmetrical and it was laden with green fruits.

 Our next tree was a towering ilang-ilang tree (Cananga odorata). The fragrance of its flowers greeted us as we approached it. A landscape architect said that some clients do not want the tree as it supposedly attracts engkantos. Another one suggested putting bells nearby to keep engkantos away. The exchange reminded me that a lot of our oral traditions involve trees. We also use the names of trees as place names, such as Talisay (Terminalia catappa) and Antipolo (Artocarpus blancoi). Thus, if we lose our trees, we lose our cultural heritage.

  In the lagoon area, we found a Tangisan Bayawak tree (Ficus variegata) etched with names of people professing their love for each other.  Prof. Jerry de Villa of the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines said that some bird species eat only the berries from this tree. If these trees become extinct, the birds will go too.

Spending the morning with trees made me cheerful the rest of that weekend. It also reminded me that it is estimated that the Philippines has only about 24% of its forest cover left. It is a generous estimate that includes tree plantations in the definition of forest. It is less than half of the 54% forest cover that scientists recommend as the minimum to maintain ecological services in the country.  This means that if things don’t change fast enough, we will lose our water supply. One doesn’t have to be a scientist to figure out what the lack of water will mean.