| An Online Extra to Fine Gardening Magazine Plant Hunting in China: An Interview with Darrell Probst
Epimediums deserve to be better known. These hardy, easy-to-grow perennials flourish in shade or part sun in zones 3-9. They generally have heart-shaped leaves and small nodding flowers in a wide range of colors. Some epimediums are evergreen. We had the pleasure of working with Darrell just before his latest trip to China in the spring, so we asked him a few questions about what it's like to be a plant hunter. Although plant exploring sounds exotic, the reality is far from a Hollywood-type Indiana Jones adventure. Darrell gives us the details in the following interview, accompanied by photos from his trips. (For more information and photos of epimediums, visit Darrell's web site at http://home.earthlink.net/~darrellpro/.) When was your first trip to China? How do you get permission to collect plants in China? How did you put together a trip of your own? What role does the North American China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC) play in your collecting? Do you collect seeds or plants?
How do you travel around when you visit China?
There have been two or three. A very narrow, long-leaved epimedium species (leaves 1/2 inch wide and 4 to 5 inches long) with especially spiny leaf margins and very floriferous. Another very vigorous, sturdy species with large, glossy leaves 8 inches long by 2 to 3 inches wide. It spreads 3 to 5 inches a year forming a dense mat in the wild. These both have yellow flowers. A third (photo below) with white or rose inner sepals and plum-purple spurs has a 15- to 18-inch long flower panicle and gorgeous long, dark green leaflets. There are deep indentations following the main veins, and these indented areas turn blood-purple after cold temperatures arrive. How many more epimediums do you think are out there? Twenty? Thirty? A hundred? It's hard to say. So many areas have yet to be explored; so many mountain ranges are out of reach, because there are no roads. Are there other Americans exploring China for new plants? Do they usually focus on only one genus? The answer to both questions is no. It's rare for a plant hunter to be devoted to just one genus. Most explorers are looking for many genera, and most are looking for woody plants. Plant explorers usually fall into one of two categories -- botanic garden representatives that go for research and/or to enrich their collections; and nurserymen/women who go for plants to propagate and sell. Both kinds of people usually love plants and love hunting for them. I'm unique in that I'm not connected with a botanic garden, but I go more for the former than the latter. Yes, I have a nursery that specializes in Epimediums, but I already have plenty of "new" things to sell. Eventually, though, some of what I collect will be available for sale. People in horticulture can either generalize, make a living and give back little in the form of knowledge or making advancements; or they can specialize, really study a plant or a limited group of unknown or little known plants, share the knowledge gained, and give back a lot while hopefully making a living. Long ago I made a conscious decision to do the latter. I've worked with the genus Tricyrtis and now Epimedium. The pursuit of the latter is what led me to China, where there are many more Epimedium species than any other place on earth, with incredible diversity. Tell us a memorable tale from one of your trips. This has nothing to do with plants, but there's one overnight drive that will never be forgotten. It was November 15. We were told it would be a long drive, but not exactly how long. We had three successful stops traveling between one area and the next. We'd found the first really exciting new species of the trip (the one with the indented purple veins) on the second stop. As we climbed, it got wetter and cooler. About dark (5:30 p.m.) we began to see patches of snow, then it began snowing. We were driving through real wilderness, wooded areas and very little cultivation. We stopped whenever we saw a person to make sure we were still on the right road. At around 11 p.m. (and no dinner), we stopped at a coal miners' camp and asked about the route, only to learn that we were given bad advice an hour before and were on the wrong road. We turned around on a one-lane, muddy, snowy mountain road in the dark. Looking over the downhill road edge, there was no view of land. We'd already gotten stuck twice. Anyway, we returned and got on the correct road, but it became so bad that, from about 1 a.m. on, we were going only 1 to 3 miles per hour. We got stuck a few more times in the deep muddy ruts, and had to get out and push.
I guess the most fascinating plant collection story was from a site near the capitol city of Chengdu. I gave Mr. Mou and Mr. Su two days off to rest and be with family while Joanna (my translator) and I took a taxi, a bus, and then another taxi to what was supposed to be a temple. I had seen a herbarium specimen that looked a bit different. "In the woods surrounding the temple" was the site information given for it. The second taxi driver knew exactly where to go. He dropped us off, and would be back in two hours, giving us time to climb and explore. As soon as he left, we learned from locals that this was the wrong temple; the only thing here was a cemetery. So we found a phone and called the taxi driver; he arrived back in 45 minutes. After long discussions and having to pay a premium because of the bad road to this next temple, we were off again. As we approached the temple area, we learned from the driver this was now a military base; the temple was long gone. Almost at the peak of a small mountain where the temple had been, we saw the Epimediums everywhere. The driver let us out and said he would turn around at the top and meet us down the road. His parting words to Joanna were, "Don't let anyone see you, foreigners aren't allowed here." So she told me to hurry and said to hide if I heard anyone coming. I could hear walkie-talkies everywhere. I walked straight back down to the taxi. No driver. I waited out of the way, off the road, only to notice a military guard waiting by the taxi a few minutes later, so I walked back. He tried to talk to me, but neither of us could understand the other's language. Fifteen minutes passed and the driver returned and went to let me in the car, but he'd locked the keys in car. Five minutes later he got the door open, and let me sit inside while he talked with the guard (the taxi driver didn't speak English either). Another 45 minutes went by; still no Joanna. I was seriously worried she was getting interrogated somewhere about why she led this foreigner here. Another 15 minutes went by, and she popped down off the hillside with a bag of Epimedium leaves, smiling. She walked to the car and got in, the driver got in and we left. I asked where she had been. She said she had told the driver to wait for two hours, so she was early. She never told me that tidbit of information -- only to "hurry"! Describe a typical day of plant hunting. Up between 3 and 5 a.m., process collections/herbarium specimens/notes until 7. Out for breakfast, return to retrieve belongings and on the road by 8 (it's hard to get any food or breakfast earlier than 7 a.m.). Drive from populated town/small city into mountains, stopping every other intersection for directions from someone walking by for the route to take us in the direction we want to go, because there are no road signs outside of large cities. Drive 1 to 2 hours, usually climbing in elevation on winding, curving roads, always looking for plants. If we stop because somebody saw plants, then we get out of the van with our collecting vests on (lightweight photographer's vests with many pockets). We begin studying the plants, walk through the area to get an understanding of population size and variation. If it's a large population, we gather a few examples that demonstrate the scope of the variation. We're usually not at a site more than an hour or two, then it's on to the next location. If we stop because the site looks promising, then we scan the area briefly. If we see nothing there, then we move on within 5 to 15 minutes. We stop for lunch at a local roadside restaurant between noon and 3 p.m., then continue to explore. We usually visit 3 to 5 sites per day.
Road construction or repairs and washed-out bridges are a constant deterrent to getting to the place you want to go. Sometimes you wait an hour or more for the road to open, realizing that you just have to come back through the same delay to get back to the hotel. Even new highways under construction are open to traffic if you can actually reach a destination on it. These "waits" are handled with ease by the Chinese, who pull up, shut the engine off and take a nap. To someone like me, who sees the minutes ticking away on a rare and expensive opportunity to see plants I have waited years for, these delays can be very frustrating, but to no avail -- so I catch a few winks, as well. One month is a long time to be away. Does it get tiring? These trips are absolutely exhausting, due to lack of sleep, hard climbing at times, seriously wounded and swollen hands due to the excessive amount of thorny plants, in addition to the typical wear and tear of traveling. It usually takes a considerable amount of time to recover back home. But when you love certain plants, plant hunting, meeting the people and being in the countryside every day is like a dream come true and you don't want it to end. But if you're an American, it has to end because in China you're a foreigner and without special extensions being granted, 30 days is all you're allowed to stay. As a nursery owner, a month is a very long time to be away -- especially since the best times to be in China are also the busiest times of the year in our field of work. Leaving only condenses the "busy time" into being even busier. But it is worth it. Probably not financially as it causes a serious strain on the business, especially when you are the primary staff person with a limited amount of part time help, But in terms of knowledge, there is no substitute for what you can learn by seeing plants in their native habitat, where they have spent thousands and maybe millions of years evolving to best adapt to the site they find themselves in. Unlike animals, plants can't just simply walk away from changes to their environment. They have to adjust, adapt, and evolve. One more question - what did you eat? Lots of delicious food. My hosts quickly figured out what I like and what I didn't, and made sure there were always a few dishes I liked. Breakfast was often noodles -- rice, wheat or sweet potato noodles (the latter were translucent when cooked) -- or dumplings (what we call Peking dumplings or ravioli), often very hot and spicy (we were in Sichuan, after all). There were also pastries, peanuts or cashews, hundred- (or is it thousand-?) year eggs, and more. Breakfast was eaten at the hotel if it had a restaurant, or at streetside. Lunch and dinner were usually six to eight dishes -- veggies and meats (pork, chicken, or beef). Mr. Mou and Mrs. liked "parts," so they would often order stomach lining, lungs, brain, etc., for themselves, and things like pork and broccoli or something like hash-brown pancakes for me, as well as noodle dishes and fish. The fish we ate was very diverse and always fresh.
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