A Wandering Botanist: Travel--Cloud Forest in Ecuador

I visited the cloud forest of Ecuador in May. As mountains everywhere rise, they block the movement of clouds. Day after day, clouds full of water, rising off the ocean, hit the same areas on the mountains. On the Pacific slope of Ecuador, that is at about about 3000 feet in elevation. Every day, the clouds roll in, shading everything, covering the forest in fog. Actual rainfall is moderate (80", more than most of the eastern U.S. but low for tropical rainforests) but the humidity is 80-90% most of the time. Under these conditions, a very tall mountain forest grows, lush with epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants), mosses, vines, orchids...all kinds of botanical wonders. Which then support diverse animals.

clouds on Ecuador forest

I stayed at Mashpi Lodge in Mashpi Reserve (website) on a trip with the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and Knowmad Adventures. Tropical forests are wonderful places, but not generally comfortable places. The humidity is very high, it rains a lot, there are many insects. (Most insects won't bother you but I woud still rather sit or eat without being visited by insects). Thus, a nice lodge to eat and sleep in made the cloud forest a great place to be. We had windows with wonderful vistas, in both the dining room and bedrooms. (I have slept in tents when hiking in a tropical forest: been there, done that, don't need to do it again.)

forest behind dining room, Mashpi Lodge

view from bedroom, Mashpi Lodge

We hiked out from the lodge and it was rarely necessary to go very far to see wonderful plants and animals.

A plant in the melastome family

The melastomes (Melastomataceae) are big plant family with more than 5,000 species. They are easily recognized by the three veins that run down each leaf (see Melastomataceae. ) They are tropical and so I am always pleased to see them when I return to the tropics. (A couple of species are garden plants in the United States, such as silverleafed princess flower, Pleroma grandiflora or Tibouchina grandiflora, but they will not survive a hard frost. more info )

This is probably a weedy species in the plant family Gesneriaceae, same family as African violets (Saintpaulia). Another tropical family not found where there is frost. Plants have paired, often fuzzy, leaves and some very vivid red flowers (lipstick plant, Aeschynanthus, for example, is a gesneriad that is grown as a houseplant).

I can't name this one. Cute, though.

The internet identifies this big plant as Alocasia, giant upright elephant ear. The alocasias are from the Asian tropics not the Americas, but this appears to be a weed growing along the path, so perhaps the id is correct. It is certainly a large-leafed tropical monocot, the kind we grow in pots in office buildings, like monstera and its relatives. The leaves are at least 3' long.

The cloud forests of Ecuador are rich in hummingbirds. We visited a spot where feeders drew in hummingbirds. I quickly saw about 7 species, but most were way too fast for my reflexes with my camera. Here is one photo that almost worked.

hummingbird at feeder

Feeding hummingbirds is contentious in the tropics, because the easy food makes them neglect the work of finding and pollinating flowers. Mashpi Lodge addressed that by only filled the feeders when bringing a van-load or two of tourists to this spot, so the hummingbirds could not live off the feeders.

This was a massive snail

This butterfly was on the side of the building. I have nothing in the photo for scale but it was longer than my hand, so more than 6" from the top of its face to tip of its tail. And, gorgeous! Ah, the internet suggests it is Erateina cometaris (Geometridae), a day-flying moth.

probably Erateina cometaris (Geometridae)

agouti (Dasyprocta)

We saw monkeys, kinkajous, tayras, agoutis and more. Reserves are lovely because, without hunting, animals become tamer and also, reserves often provide bait--hummingbird feeders, bananas--to attract animals. Video: tayra (Eira barbara, a weasel) makes off with the banana. The animals I saw are ordinary South American mammals, but exotic to a North American.

There was a gondola ride across the top of the cloud forest. The guide pointed out particular trees and answered my numerous questions.

Down below, under the clouds, it was gray

But the gondola swung out over the forest taking us mostly out of the clouds

Some places were wonderfully mysterious

I know enough to be enchanted by the Ecuadorean cloud forest, but not nearly enough to recognize much of what I saw.

Here is a dramatic orchid that had been transplanted to a tree beside the lodge:

big beautiful orchid

This bright orange "flower" is the flower head of a beehive ginger, Zingiber spectabile, (ginger family, Zingiberaceae). The actual flowers will stick out from the shelves on the flower head; none are visible in my photo. It is native to southeast Asia and an escaped exotic in Ecuador. Its long thin leaves are way down below the flower head.