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| Deliriously species-rich meadows above Bokumbaevo; pale yellow is Pedicularis littenovii - a semi-parasite. |
Friday
our second full day at Chong Kemin, a
valley in the north-east. Totally off the beaten track. We're staying
in a guesthouse which is the first in the area. a bit like a Nepali
trekking guesthouses, all rather improvised, The village is very
poor, people seem to have nothing beyond the basics. Poorer than
Romania or Bulgaria. Hardly any cars, very battered old Ladas. Boys
on horses gallop around.
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| Linum olgae |
Later today we went further up the
valley and walked up a side gorge, primed to look for Linum olgae, a
perennial flax found only here and only seen in flower by a handful
of botanists, “the snow leopard of central Asian botany” as Brian
put it. Catherine and I were in the lead, it took her about 2 mins to
spot something pink, I got out the binoculars, thought it worth the
scramble, so up we went, an incredibly steep hillside. I was sure it
was a linum from some metres, shouted down and soon they were all
coming up, even the older ones – about 4 are around 70. Catherine,
Cassian and I went further up and we found thousands of the flowers,
a very pretty pink in fact whole hillside covered with them.
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| A yurt. We have one in our garden too, but the originals are made of felt over an ingenious collapsable lattice framework. The top crown piece, analagous to a keystone, appears on the national flag. |
We nearly lose Catherine when she screams and
disappears, having partly fallen into an enormous hole, nearly 25 cms
across and a metre deep. Clearly dug by an animal; apparently there
are giant marmots in this area.
Tuesday
Extraordinary number of beehives on
flatbed trucks below dramatic red rocks reminiscent of Sedona (Arizona).
Nomadic Russian beekeepers who live in cabins next to their charges
are a real feature here. We fantasize that they are are old USSR
hippies of some kind. There doesn't look like so many flowers for
them, as there is heavy grazing.
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| yurt-kitchen at our yurt camp in Song Kyl |
Walk started from yurt camp in very
picturesque but heavily grazed area, not the first place which feels
more like Switzerland than central Asia. The group seems to go at an
agonizingly slow pace: it is true that walking with botanists is like
walking with a four year old. Much getting down on the ground on all
fours to photograph tiny little plants. Eventually three of us
decide to break away and just march up the track up the mountain as
far as we can. We find some very interesting plants, and look
longingly through the binoculars at the other side of the river at
the ungrazed vegetation on the other side, I debate whether we should
wade the river, but decide it is too dangerous. I understand how the
old plant hunters took ridiculous risks sometimes. Luckily we find
some little islands with ungrazed plants which we can wade across to:
they are like little reserves of incredible plant species density.
Its difficult to know how much grazing damages wild plant
communities; in the short term it probably doesn't but it makes it
very difficult for botanical exploration and associated eco-tourism.
In the long-term many taller species may be eliminated. It's only
going to get worse here – usual problem of too many people in the
world eating too much meat.
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Trollius dschungaricus and friends
Wednesday
Health of group generally better, much
sharing of bowel-data. A walk
through extraordinarily eroded semi-desert habitat, in rain !! Rest
of day typical english summer day crap weather, cold and wet. ….
Then we go to town centre and half an hour wandering around an
utterly depressing decrepit place. One nice shop, a grocers,
everything stacked up on shelves behind counters, with biscuits for
sale by the pound and other time-warp eccentricities. I feel a bit
like I have walked into one of those museums where everything is made
up like it was the 19th century.
All the buildings in an advanced state
of disintegration as most of the cars. Toothless old man in local
headgear grabs Elly and gestures towards the mountains, presumably
saying something like “come to my yurt” .
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| Little girl, big grass: our redoubtable Kyrgyz fixer Meerim Kozhoshova with Achnatheum splendens, a rather magnif grass we saw in many locations. Great garden and landscape potential. |
This country is full of ruins. Most of
the industry collapsed after the end of the USSR, and the whole
infrastructure is crumbling, though thankfully schools look ok. and
the odd house seems to be having money spent on it. Odd bits of
dereliction everywhere: strange tanks and pipework rusting by the
side of the road, roofless factories, large industrial yards growing
weeds, roofless old collective farm buildings, even a sports ground
full of weeds and a few sheep. And – by the side of the lake, a
vast ?theme park, with concrete yurts and murals along a very
extensive wall, goes on for at least 0.5km, turn the corner and the
entire site is full of weeds. The only new buildings are the wretched
banks. Only the main roads paved, residential areas are gravel and
mud.
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| The Ala Meddin valley, outside the capital Bishkek. |
When we get back a sauna is ready for
us, so at least we can wash in lovely hot water. Fantastic felt rugs
on the floor of our rooms and very nifty home-made beds.
Before supper some of us wander around
the streets, admiring local building techniques, almost entirely
based on adobe bricks, rammed earth or cob, as indeed they appear to
be everywhere. The new eco-builders' paradise?
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| Catherine Janson discovers that Allium caeruleum greatly improves mobile phone reception. A highly distinctive species, widespread but never found in quaniity. Cassian Schmidt looks longingly up the Ala Meddin valley. |
Thursday
Took a long time to get anywhere but
unbelievably worth it when we did. About 2000m+. Few paths as such so
a lot of walking across fields and gerbil-chewed steppe. Someone says
that DNA analysis has shown that Black Death started amongst gerbils
here. Fantastic views. Landscape on a truly massive scale. Eventually
we get to some very good patches of wildflowers. And another. And
another. In fact they keep on getting better, a truly incredible mix
of species, every patch you look at you see something else. Then we
spot some pink in some rose scrub– it is Linum olgae again, 200
kms south-west of its only known location to date! We end down the
bottom of the hill along a stream where the flowers are even better –
in visual terms, an amazing dense mix: Codonopsis clematidiea,
Veronica sp. Pedicularis littinovii, Galium boreale, G. verum, Aster
alpinus, Onobrychnis sp., Artemisia spp. (several), Astragalus sp.,
Scabiosa ochroleuca, Dracocephalum sp.,
Achnatherum splendens, Phlomis
pratensis, Geranium collinum., Leontopodium sp.
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| Linum olgae - again! in the most species rich meadow i have ever seen. Blue is Codonopsis clematidea |
Everyone snaps away furiously. We are
in a kind of dream; everything is so perfect, so fresh, the light is
soft enough for good photographs, indeed a thunderstorm rumbles away
down the bottom of the valley. The range of truly incredible plant
communities we have seen today is quite unbelievable.
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| Ligularia macrophylla was the theme plant of the trip for me. We saw it in so many locations, a real damp soil indicator. It an east-Asian element in a basically Eurasian flora. |
Further meadows down in the valley are visually even better. Hallucinogenic. Oddly much of the visual impact is down to species native to Britain: two Galium, the vetch Vicia cracca, the little umbellifer Pimpinella saxifraga, an Origanum and a Hypericum almost identical to our O. vulgare and H.perforatum. There is almost no grass though, and the unfamiliar species such as codonopsis, pedicularis and ligularia add an exotic touch. Makes me think we could achieve something similar at home.
Bokumbaevo in the sunlight is not so
bad. Groups of young men hang around Ladas and Moskovitchs and other
products of the USSR's half-hearted domestic car programme. Many have
various bits missing (the cars not the young men). Entire families
disgorge from the front seats of others, with goods stuffed in the
back. A Lada 4x4 pulls a trailor with one cow entirely occupying it.
A group of elderly men in traditional
felt hats play cards on a car bonnet. Meanwhile a distinguished
looking old man walks by; he is wearing a jacket with all his war
medals, including a big red star with a hammer and sickle.
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| The Song Kul plateau, a kind of mini-Tibet, at 3000m and surrounded by snow-capped peaks. Very heavily grazed but the route to the loos in the yurt camp was through drifts of Edelweiss. |
Saturday
We came down from the Song Kul plateau
partly by foot, being dropped at the pass and then walking down the
road, botanizing as we went. According to Brian it took us 5 hours to
go 3.5kms! A lot of alpine rarities at the top, things under the
height of my ankle don't interest me so much so I spent a lot of time
watching marmots through the binoculars. They clearly do not like
eating Phlomis pratensis, so the hillsides are full of them. I spot a
white one, the first we have seen amongst millions of the plants. A
shout sends the rest of them scrambling up the slope. Marmots have to
retreat for some peace and quiet.
Below the alpine belt is an area of
meadows totally dominated by two geranium species: G. collinum and G.
pseudosibiricum. I would say they comprise >80% of the biomass,
with some alchemilla and a few other, and only the occasional
grass. The hillsides are literally pink with them, for a belt of
around several hundred metres high on this western side. I can
honestly say I have now seen more geraniums than all the others I
have ever seen in my life put together and that is saying something. There's another belt below
this which is dominated by a pale yellow semi-parasite plant growing
in grass, so whole hillsides are pale yellow: Pedicularis littinovii.
Some discussion about how such an enormous biomass of parasite can
survive without eliminating its host – the grass. Like the familiar
yellow rattle on a mega scale.
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| "Its the next ledge up Bettina! Don't step back though!" The pass up to the Song Kul plateau had a very interesting range of alpine zone plants, much grazed by marmots in places. |
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Cassian, Bettina and Brian scramble up
some very steep slopes to look at interesting alpine rock/scree
merging into meadow flora. I spot something blue through the
binoculars and direct her, “left a bit, then up a bit, right, watch
the cliff edge”. Its just another Dracocephalum, of which we have
seen a lot. Such attractive plants, but ungrowable in Herefordshire.
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| Geranium collinum, G. pseudosibircum with Phlomis pratense and Persicaria nitens - by the million. |
