Green Wisdom:

Along Taipei’s Xizang Road, several little-noticed tiger’s claw trees (Erythrina variegata) seem to be welcoming us to the office of ethnobotanist Tung Gene-sheng, a researcher at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute (TFRI).

An invasion of erythrina gall wasps led to the rapid disappearance of tiger’s claw trees across Taiwan. Tung Gene-sheng (second left) devoted himself to the conservation of tiger’s claw trees and sent healthy saplings back to the Kavalan village of Paterungan in Fengbin, Hualien County. (courtesy of Tung Gene-sheng)

Ethnobotany

Tung tells us that ethnobotany is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses ethnology, anthropology, and botany. A veteran visitor to Taiwan’s indigenous villages, Tung began to explore indigenous botany in 2000, starting with the Atayal in Yilan County’s Nan’ao Township. Since then he has written numerous books, including Green Klesan: An Ethnobotanical Memory of A’tayals in Nanau (2005), Wander Lamuan: The Ethnobotany of Bunun in Formosan Central Ridge (2008), Pangcah Miaraw: The Ethnobotany of Amis in Eastern Formosa (2009), Weaving Vengaey: The Ethnobotany of Rukai in Kinitavan (2011), and Pongso Inawan: The Ethnobotany of Tao on Orchid Island (2013).

All things on earth are sentient, and plants are no exception. This animistic concept is crucial for many ethnobotanists whose work probes into indigenous inter­actions with flora. Tung explains that for indigenous people, plants, as much as human beings, are blessed with intelligence. For them, humanity exists on an equal footing with the botanical world and can communicate with plants, just as indigenous hunters are also careful to show respect to their game.

Ethnobotanist and educator Cheng Han-wen records a Bunun legend in The Wisdom of the Native Taiwanese Plant and Spirituality (2023). Once upon a time, the Bunun people had easy access to various tree species for wood, such as the Taiwan red pine (Pinus taiwanensis), Chinese cork oak (Quercus variabilis), and Taiwan zelkova (Zelkova serrata). These all grew in the vicinity of Bunun villages—until one day a woman swore at them for some petty reason. Offended by her uncalled-for tirade of abuse, the trees all left, each species relocating to a different place. The red pines climbed up to the cliff edges, while the cork oaks produced thick and hard bark.

Tung Gene-sheng’s academic training induces him to view such legends from a rational perspective. He says that many indigenous communities share versions of this story of trees leaving their wonted habitats. Because the Bunun dwell in the mountains, “a fable like this serves to explain the growth habits and vertical distributions of the different tree species” around them.

Tung Gene-sheng’s books on ethnobotany in Taiwan have helped document invaluable cultural traditions.

Telling time with plants

Having been interacting with and adapting themselves to the natural environment since time immemorial, Taiwan’s indigenous peoples have put down deep roots here. In doing so, they have developed distinctive cultures of their own. “Human beings are engaged in a dance with nature, with each group evolving their own moral code and botanical wisdom within the environment they live in,” writes Cheng.

In the days before clocks or calendars, the indigenous peoples derived their knowledge of cyclical time from the changes they observed in nature. The seasonal transformations undergone by trees provided a way for them to make sense of time.

For example, we come across so-called “typhoon plants” in different indigenous cultures across Taiwan. Tung says that on Lanyu (Orchid Island), the Tao people make predictions about typhoons by observing the Fiji longan (Pometia pinnata), as well as using this tropical hardwood to build their traditional fishing boats, ipanitika. When Fiji longans produce an abundance of blooms, experienced elders will say that we’re in for more typhoons that year.

Bunun hunters gather clues to the best time for hunting from the fresh shoots of pines growing at high elevations, such as red pines and Armand pines (Pinus armandii). They believe that deer begin to grow new antlers at the same time as the pines start to show new growth. “This can be regarded as a phenological sign,” Tung says.

In autumn and winter, when there is little farmwork to do, hunters venture into the wild, where they feed on the berries of plants from the order Rosales, including the Taiwan strawberry (Fragaria hayatai), Formosan raspberry (Rubus formosensis), and Oldham elaeagnus (Elaeagnus oldhamii). Traveling light in the mountains, they’re adept at fashioning traps from linden arrowwood (Viburnum dilatatum), Usawa cane (Pseudosasa usawai), or eurya. They pay particular attention to fruit trees like the Formosan apple (Malus doumeri) and the Taiwan loquat (Eriobotrya deflexa), where, with the help of their hounds, they can capture boars feasting on fallen fruit. By observing the heights of trees, they can work out the preferred routes of flying squirrels, and where they should wait to shoot them down.

Among Taiwan’s ethnologically important plants, tiger’s claw trees are a vital species for both the indigenous groups dwelling near the sea—the Puyuma, Kavalan, Amis, Paiwan, and Tao—and the plains indigenous peoples in Southern Taiwan.

Tung says that for the indigenous Taiwanese, the blooming of the flaming red flowers of tiger’s claw trees traditionally heralded the return of spring: the Kavalan held their sea rituals in this season, and the Tao, anticipating the imminent arrival of flying fish, started to prepare for their Flying Fish Festival. However, around the end of the 20th century, tiger’s claw trees in Taiwan became infested with erythrina gall wasps (Quadrastichus erythrinae), which laid their eggs in young leaf and stem tissue, where the larvae subsequently developed. The tremendous damage inflicted by these wasps led to the rapid disappearance of tiger’s claw trees across Taiwan.

With the penetration of modern ways of life, moreover, the indigenous peoples no longer need to look to plants to know when to go hunting or fishing. The disappearance of both plants and their lore has been progressing alarmingly quickly. In response, in 2019 the TFRI launched National Botanical Gardens: The Project for Future Green in order to conserve local plants. Tung took care to send healthy tiger’s claw saplings back to Lanyu Senior High School. “Only by collaborating with local communities,” he tells us, can we preserve the seeds of plants that used to be integral to the daily lives of our indigenous peoples.

Hunters observe Taiwan red pines (Pinus taiwanensis) for changes that indicate the arrival of the hunting season.

Armand pines reveal to Bunun hunters the best time for hunting. (courtesy of Tung Gene-sheng)

The Tao people of Lanyu regard powder-puff trees (Barringtonia racemosa) as a taboo species, believing that demons dwell in them. (courtesy of Tung Gene-sheng)

With its pungent smell, the ailanthus prickly ash (Zanthoxylum ailanthoides) is a favorite food among the indigenous Taiwanese.

Spiritual interactions

Though Tung’s research mostly focuses on the practical uses of plants in indigenous cultures, he acknowledges that the interactions between humanity and trees have spiritual and philosophical dimensions as well. Far from being exclusive to indigenous people, this is a universal phenomenon.

Even in modern times, the belief that old trees have souls, together with the tradition of revering trees as deities, remains deeply rooted in Taiwanese society. During the Japanese colonial era, Ryozo Kanehira, inaugural head of the Forestry Division of the Central Research Institute (the precursor of the TFRI), conducted an extensive survey of tree-related beliefs in Taiwan, publishing his findings in an article entitled “Taiwanese Superstitions about Trees.”

More recently, Canadian ecologist Suzanne Simard has published Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (2021), in which she draws on her personal experience to describe how trees—as if with souls of their own—interact with humans in intimate and mysterious ways. American novelist Richard Powers’s The Overstory (2018) also delineates how human lives are intricately intertwined with trees. And the blockbuster movie Avatar incorporates tree-­related indigenous lore from places like the Americas and Africa.

By connecting with trees, not only can we re-­embrace profoundly beautiful ways of life in nature and thus revive long-forgotten cultural memories, but we also come to realize the need to cultivate respect for nature, for the primordial, and for the unknown.

Bright red Formosan raspberries (Rubus formosensis) provide a food source for indigenous hunters in the wild. (courtesy of Tung Gene-sheng)

The indigenous peoples gather the spices they need from the wild. This photo shows the berries of Taiwan cinnamon (Cinnamomum insulari-montanum), an endemic species with a strong spicy flavor, prized by the Bunun and Amis.

Taiwanese rain trees (Koelreuteria henryi) are often seen on streetsides across the island.The Tsou people have traditionally relied upon them as indicators of seasonal changes.