TAXONOMY

                                                            TAXONOMY

I never took Latin in high (I doubt it is still offered now), and I have no natural ability towards learning languages, but I always had a strong interest in learning about all the life forms around me.  Although I’ve rarely learned the Latin names of the life around me I have always learned common names and as much as I could of their habits.  As I’ve not been here long I hope you will forgive me how little I know about the plants and animals here.  For example, the first month we in this house I wrote about Monstera and mistakenly called it a vine.  I’m surprised no one corrected me on that.  There is a vine with similar leaves that grow up trees to 40 or more feet and cover them so heavily that many are killed.  But Monstera is a “single story” plant, at least here.  And now that I know them both it does not resemble the vine whose name I’m still not sure of. 

This brings me to my point.  When I asked the young neighbor who was helping me cut and move an African Tulip tree that was nearly totally covered in noxious vines, “What are these horrible strangling vines called?”  He replied, “Horrible strangling vines.”  He was born here but does not know the name of one of the most commonly seen plants in his neighborhood.  I GOT A SIMILAR ANSWER FROM A COUPLE MY AGE WHO LIVE JUST DOWN THE STREET.  This is all too typical everywhere

Recently my friend Richard Bohn sent me excerpts from the book “Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science” by Carol Kaesuk Yoon.  She wrote about the Tzeltal Maya of Mexico “…among whom a 2-year old can name more than 30 different plants and whose 4-year old can recognize nearly 100.

“No wonder so few of us can really see what is out there… We are so disconnected from the living world that we can live in the midst of a mass extinction, of the rapid invasion everywhere of new and noxious species, entirely unaware that anything is happening.”

She goes on to recommend learning about the life all around …”then find a name for it.  Learn science’s name, one of countless folk names, or make up your own.  To do so is to change everything, including yourself…”

I agree and this new environment is giving me lots of examples.  Luckily a local gallery/bookstore is going out of business and selling their 14,000 books at more affordable prices than usual so we bought a bunch from the Hawaii section.  I’ve been curious about the name and origin of the skinks in our yard (most people don’t even know what ‘skink’ means) and learned from a book that they are Metallic Skinks introduced from Australia around 1900.  Now knowing their name I grew even more interested and caught a small one for close observation.  I discovered holding it up in the sunlight that not only is there a copper sheen over the general bronze color with a slight stripe on each side, as the book says,  but there also is a violet iridescence on the head and neck.  They like to live in the litter under our bananas at the edge of the grassy driveway so I always see them basking in the morning sun when I take out the compost.  Metallic Skinks are 3 ½ to 5 1/2 inches long and so fast at disappearing under the leaves that I never could have caught a full sized one but did manage to grab a juvenile who had strayed too far into the grass.

Our latest new culinary experience was eating a trigger fish that I bought whole at the fish market for 99 cents a pound.  I’ve seen them when snorkeling and noticed how unafraid they are.  Now I know why.  Not only do they have teeth like a piranha  they have skin that is like steel armor it is so tuff.  I was able to barley get a knife in at the ventral edge and then cut from the inside to skin it.  Even then it presented some unusual problems because a good part of the meat was separated from the filet by a big bone descending behind the gill and another good bit was between the bones of the cheek.  If you look at a picture of one you will see the eye is about a third of the length back at the top of the body.  A very odd fish to me but quite tasty!

Yesterday I had a little business in Hilo in the morning.  Afterwards, since it was such a nice day, I went for a swim in the Southwestern corner of Hilo Bay.  The tide was out and since there are a lot of fresh water springs and a small stream that enter the bay in that area the swimming was the opposite of what an Inlander would expect.  The top couple feet were cool water and the bottom was warm water.  I’ve encountered this before here but haven’t internalized it yet so I keep being surprised.  Because the warm Ocean water is salty it is denser that the colder fresh water.  This makes it possible for the fresh water to just flow out over the salt water with very little mixing if there is no turbulence.  If you have a face mask on and swim through the interface you will see distortions that look like heat mirages.

Next I went to ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center because there was to be a free lecture about the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA), which is next to the Kona Airport and in spite of my huge interest in the subject I’ve not had the chance to visit yet.  It turned out I was still an hour early so I considered paying for admission to see the exhibits.  I decided that I couldn’t be there enough hours to get my money’s worth on the daily rate so I ended up buying a membership which will also allow me to bring you there when you visit.  There are a lot of both astronomical and cultural exhibits and it would take a whole day to see them all.  They include a planetarium, three small theatres with short films and a dinning room and gift shop.  So I saw a planetarium show, then the NALHA lecture, then was about an hour into the exhibits when who should walk by but Senator  Daniel Inouye!

I had noticed a bunch of bigwigs gathered at the lecture hall for some event but although I knew the Senator was in town, I didn’t know that ‘Imiloa was one of his stops.  Apparently he either had given or was about to give a talk and decided to have a quick tour.  He had an entourage of a half dozen but as they fell behind I stepped up and greeted him and offered that I thought we ought to keep a public option in the Health Care bill and that in fact I thought we could save a lot more money and lives with a single payer system.  He offered his hand and said he thought we at least need to have some competition to private health care and that he has been trying to convince his collages of that.  So not much more than that was said but it is strange that even when I’m trying to keep out of politics for a year, encounters like that keep happening!

Today I’m getting another estimate on lowering that hazardous tree next to our house.  Then we are ordering solar hot water.  Here in addition to the Federal tax credit of 30% we can get a 35% state income tax credit and a $1,000 rebate from the utility company to install solar.  So why isn’t everyone doing it?  I sure can’t imagine.  Electric costs about 31 cents per kilowatt here.  That makes hot water about $100/month.

USE THAT SUNSHINE!!!

Rico