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Maple Meetings in the Wild. text and photos by Roy Lancaster OBE VMH. The Maple Society Newsletter● Autumn/Fall 2021 ● Vol. 31/3 21
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Maple Meetings in the Wild
text and photos by Roy Lancaster OBE VMH
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It wasn’t until the autumn of 1971 however that I was presented with an opportunity to expand my experience on a plant-hunting expedition to the Himalaya of eastern Nepal.
As one of a fi ve member team, offi cially known as the University of Bangor (North Wales) Expedition I achieved a long held ambition of travelling through one of the Temperate world’s major plant regions. Our expedition’s leader the late Len Beer, was a friend from my early Hillier days, a Devon man with his own dreams of emulating the achievements of the likes of George Forrest, Wilson and Kingdon Ward. Len had all the attributes necessary to make a success of this mission and so it proved.
20 The Maple Society Newsletter ● Autumn/Fall 2021 ● Vol. 31/3
Magnolia campbellii (left) Acer campbellii (right) on the slope of Milke Danda.
Acer campbellii regrowth from stump on Milke Danda
Our area of exploration was in the mountains in the North East of Nepal fl anked by the borders of Sikkim and Tibet. Here, from late September to early December in the steep forested slopes of a range of mountains we found a host of trees both familiar and less known including six maples species. Two of these, Acer sterculiaceum and A. campbellii we fi rst encountered at 2680m in the broad-leaved deciduous and evergreen forests on the steep slopes of the Milke Danda ridge above the village of Chainpur in the Arun river valley. Here, in the company of Rhododendron arboreum, Magnolia campbellii (in fruit) and a magnifi cent Himalayan whitebeam Sorbus hedlundii with its striking white-backed and rusty-brown veined leaves these two maples were not uncommon, with individuals up to 18m or more, the former with its boldly 5-lobed leaves and the latter with smaller more rounded 5-7 lobed leaves. In more accessible sites such as trails and village marginal land both these species and much else, had been coppiced for fi rewood etc. The leaves of their strong regrowth were noticeably larger and in the case of A. campbellii deeply 5-lobed with tapered points. By far the most impressive population of Acer campbellii we found towards the end of our travels, in the deep sheltered bowels of the Barun Khola valley where individuals, some over 20m high, spread their dark crowns encrusted with epiphytes of ferns, orchids and lichens and a fi ligree of pale yellow leaves against a blue sky. We meanwhile could only stand and gaze in awe.
It was on the Milke Danda that we fi rst came across Acer pectinatum growing with the previous two species. Unlike specimens I had seen in cultivation, there were trees here up to 15m or more their fi nely-toothed leaves with three acuminate lobes fulvous hairy on the veins beneath and borne on conspicuous red petioles, even more brightly on the young shoots. The wings of the fruits in pendulous clusters were also red. We found it on several occasions later, once, in the pleasantly wooded valley of the Upper Mewa Khola below the village of Topke Gola where it was associated with the magnifi cent large leaved Rhododendron grande, Osmanthus suavis and Carpinus viminea
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The Maple Society Newsletter● Autumn/Fall 2021 ● Vol. 31/3 21
Above left: Prunus rufa at Topke Gola; above: base camp above Topke Gola village; left: Roy drying seeds at base camp Topke Gola; bottom left: Acer sikkimense in Arun valley.
beneath a high canopy of Tsuga dumosa. On another occasion we spied a lone tree on an exposed hillside, its young shoots as brilliant as a red twigged dogwood, its leaves turned a clear yellow.
It was above the village of Topke Gola that we established our fi rst base camp at 3, 810m. The steep wooded slopes in the more sheltered valleys around the village were dominated by the East Himalayan silver fi r Abies densa beneath which fl ourished a dense mixture of rhododendrons and Juniperus recurva together with deciduous trees such as Betula utilis, Prunus rufa, Sorbus foliolosa and another maple Acer caudatum, trees of 7-9m with a rich brown, deeply etched and furrowed bark, papery and peeling on young trees and fi ve-lobed, irregularly toothed, bright green leaves on rhubarb-red petioles.
The remaining maples A. sikkimense and A. oblongum we saw on our journey down the warmer valley of the river Arun above the village of Hatia. The former species occurring as scattered trees of 9-12m in a ravine below the track. Its evergreen, ovate-oblong, slender pointed leaves 7-10cm long were glossy-green above and a contrasting blue-white beneath while its emerging leaves were a reddish-green or
Fine specimens of Acer sikkimense in Arun valley.
coppery in colour. As for Acer sikkimense, this striking species which I had previously only seen growing in a cool greenhouse at Jermyns House, Sir Harold Hillier’s home, was for me one of the most exciting moments of the expedition. It occurred as fi ve individuals with erect sturdy green stems up to 5. 5m tall growing epiphytically from fi ssures in a huge rock in full sun at an altitude of 2, 133m. Their bold almost leathery textured leaves up to 15cm long, larger on sucker shoots were ovate with a heart-shaped base and an abrupt point or “drip-tip”, their margins shallowly and distantly toothed, shining deep green above and paler beneath with minute tufts of chocolate- coloured hairs in the axils of the main veins at base. The older leaves on two trees were already turning orange and red prior to falling.
Several days later we saw this maple again perched together with other epiphytes in the crowns of the silvery-backed form of Rhododendron arboreum in a dark dank woodland. One specimen was at least 10m in height rising above its hosts’ crowns with leaves on the turn. It was a truly extraordinary sight and sadly our last maple before our return to the warmer conditions and the banana and tangerine-fringed villages of the Arun valley. The next day, the 5th December, we had a party to celebrate my birthday and the impending conclusion of a successful and memorable endeavour.
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Among the over 400 seed collections we made under the prefi x Beer, Lancaster and Morris (BLM) only fi ve involved maples as follows:
Acer caudatum BLM 109 Acer pectinatum BLM 18, 35, 201 Acer sterculiaceum BLM 307
To the best of my knowledge, the only collection remaining in cultivation today is BLM 307 Acer sterculiaceum which I know to be at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and Westonbirt Arboretum. This is
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