No... Pandanus tectorius, Tanjung Rumbeh, Lombok, Indonesia

            No... You really don't want to know. The famous American botanist Harold St John (1892-1991), Hawai'i, discovered 500 (!!!) new species of Pandanus.
This particular coastal Pandanus though  is tectorius, and it was first described (under a different name) by that Dutch adventurer, governor of Cochin, captain and naturalist Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Draakenstein (1636-1691) and by Georg Eberhard Rumphius (yes, he of Ambon) (1627-1702). Rumphius coined the Neo-Latin name from the Malay 'Pandan laut' (Sea Screwpine). There's a rather insipid 1771 (?) drawing - although important - of this interesting ocean-side tree by the ill-fated Sidney Parkinson (1745-1771), who was Captain Cook's illustrator on the famous first voyage of HMS Endeavour (1768-1771). Parkinson left us a journal of his trip before his untimely death on the high seas and added about 1000 naturalist illustrations. Regardless, his name is attached to this fascinating tree grasping firmly into the shifting beachy sands by its mangrove-like roots.
I'd not yet seen its ripe fruits last year on Sumba, and their orange here on Lombok is quite stunning against the blue sky and with the blue-green sea in back. I'm told the fruits are inedible, except for children who suck out some sweetness from the 'roots' of the kernels. If you take a look at the sharp-spiked edges of the leaves you might well imagine that they can serve as war weaponry, as was apparently once the case.
The day was bright, Gunung Agung was behind me to the west on Bali, and to the north the cliffs which - as it turned out - I was unable to scale. With scraped knees and a slightly twisted ankle I hobbled my way back to Mangsit to write this little account (internet permitting).
Divided by a palm tree, on the left the ripe fruit of our Pandanus, on the right the still green one.
   

Taken in: Indonesia / West Nusa Tenggara (show map)

Taken on: July 28, 2009

Tags:

Lombok, Indonesia

Mangsit Beach, Lombok

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