Taiwan is on the Tropic of Cancer and has a tropical climate in the south, however the rainforest is always a concept for biology, geography or news for us.— Keting Chen.
Before leaving for the rainforest in Sumatra, I accidentally found out the hard disk during the master course ten years ago, and all of a sudden, the memories that I had studied the rainforest came to my mind. I thought it would be a glimpse of the rainforest. After leaving school, I work and travel around. I went to many tropical countries and islands back and forth, and unconsciously the journey brings my heart to the south and the equator.
The rainforest trip in Sumatra Indonesia is like the realization of all the waiting. After traveling such long distances across the land, sea, and air, the light has gradually disappeared in our eyes. The night follows us to the research station in the forest nearby the river shore. The voice becomes my first, a real rainforest experience:
Rainforest Characteristic I “Animals develop varied and complex sounds to identify each other in dense forests where the sight is blocked.”
Insects, frogs, and geckos croaked. Everyone in the staggering research station moved their feet and struck the high wooden floor. How could the overlapping sounds make me remind my dormitory living on Palau Island? The next day, the dawn sparkled into the branches of the wooden house. We put on the equipment and see the reality of the rainforest.
Rainforest Characteristic II “Plants not only grow rapidly, but also develop different ecological habitats for resources (such as soil, light, humidity), and also reflect significant stratification at height.”
Vines are climbing on tall trees. Orchids, lichens, and mosses, those epiphytes are living on the bark. Ferns and pandanus are growing close to the wet surface. Fungus and various mushrooms are relying on dead wood. Parasitic orchids, boletus, and more animals are living on the ground. They can shuttle, forage, digest, reproduce, and breed.
Stepping out of the rainforest, I was crossing the river to approach the waterfall. The dark volcanic lava rock, coexisting hard and smooth with the water, there are many Araceae lives inside the stones and gaps, as are begonias and dancing ladies gingers.
Although this forest is different from the biology textbook in my memory, it has grown millions of times in my mind. It turns out that I live in such a forest at all; Taiwan’s Mountain Fushan, Pinglin, Xianjiyan, Hengchun, Orchid Island, Nicaragua’s riverbanks, Palau’s wild farm, lakeside swamps, and forests. I’ve been to the rainforest long ago!
© Seeding Future, Photo by Keting Chen
Rainforest Characteristic III “Plants have evolved a variety of special structures and growth patterns to adapt to the rainforest environment, such as buttress, aerial root, strangler, and trunciflory. “
There is no specific pattern for the rainforest. It is like the composition of the creatures, which is varied and diverse. The rainforest is composed of environment, geography, and biology, which shape the rainforest it becomes. The rainforest is not so vague and can’t be with the proper vocabulary.
Even though there is no tropical rainforest environment in Taiwan, the rainforest is still around our lives. It is easy to observe and obtain lots of ornamental plants, food, spices, seasonings, medicines, wood such as anthurium, bird of paradise flower, ginger, orchid, breadfruit, jackfruit, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, pepper, vanilla, oil palm, coconut, yellow rattan, rubber, cinchona, coffee, cocoa, teak, rosewood, ebony, and so on around you and me. Moreover, people in the rainforest survive to produce clothes, shoes, and electronic products with minerals and oil under the dirt. And the air we breathe has rainforest.
Seeding Future 