Velvety red flush of Canarium strictum

For the past 12 months I have been looking at 90 Canarium strictum trees in 5 different regions, every 15 days. Of course I couldn’t have done this alone, so I have a number of people who assist me. One would imagine that it is very boring to look at the same tree for such a long period of time, but it isn’t. One could be quite amazed at how much is happening on a tree even though it’s not moved an inch from where I saw it last.

One of my favourite month of tree gazing has been January, simply because the trees are sending out new leaves and the colours are stunning! Most Canarium trees throw out young leaves which are blood red and quite velvety.  In one of my sites I have 5 trees that are behaving very differently and their young leaves are light green in color. I am still wondering why that is happening.

It takes me 5 hours by road to get to one of my sites and the last time I went there a week ago I reached late in the afternoon. That was absolutely a not so bright thing to do. The trees are located inside a coffee plantation very close to the forests. And even though the coffee berries are ripe, red, and ready to drop the coffee pickers leave the area by 2 pm.  Why do they do this? There are wild elephants in the forests that move in the afternoon to the water sources located in the plantation. The best way to avoid conflict is to stay out of the elephant’s way and that’s what the people were doing. It was eerie doing field work that day, but we made it and safely too. The elephants were around but I didn’t see them, I wonder if they saw me. The photograph is from an earlier visit in July.

Elephants on a hill close by