Cow's Foot Tree

Yeak Laom Lake is not the only volcanic lake in Ratanakiri Province. On the road that connects Baw Gaeo (on the national highway to the Vietnamese border, a site for zircon gem mining) and Lomphat to the south there is another, larger volcanic lake, one that is almost never visited by tourists other than the motor-cycle riders that come up out of Mondulkiri on their tortured, dusty travels across northeastern Cambodia. It can be found on the Google Map of Cambodia, near the village of Khmang Chong, south of Ba Kev (Google uses the Vietnamese phonetization of Baw Gaeo, reproduced here without the diacritical marks).

I first saw this tree on the shore of the half-moon shaped lake, and was struck by the simple beauty of its leaves as it stood on a small rise over-looking the lake. I did not know then if it had flowers of any note, but I collected some of the seed pods it carried. I wondered what the bloom might look like. I will admit, it never occurred to me that the leaves were shaped like the footprint of a cow. A failure in imagination, I suppose, or was I simply seeing them for what they were, without shutting them into a linguistic cage? Are we ever able to do that with a naturally occuring object? To see it without the intermediation of language (or is that impossible, we, from the start, see it as a leaf, but a leaf with a certain shape?).

That day the only thing that disturbed me was a group of water buffalo that grazed along the lake; I did not see a single, solitary, human being. And the buffalo, they seemed more worried about me than I was of them. Some of the young were so white, I thought they might be albinos. I later told a Khmer friend that the buffalo had "run" away from me and he nearly fell out of his chair laughing. He said that they are such placid beasts, he could not imagine them running. Maybe they were ambling away from me with some urgency?

I was to find the tree again on the road coming out of Ban Lung, just under the shadow of the temple mountain at the west end of town, the one with the sleeping Buddha that seems to keep watch out over this provincial capital. The tree stands in front of the small house of a farmer who has worked his plot for several years, planted a large number of trees, some for beauty and not just utility. He was the one who told me the name of the tree, as he explained how the government had so far refused to give him a title deed to the land, and his fears that he would have to leave, with nothing to show for years of work.

I collected seeds from his tree to give to the Khmer family that manages our farm and tree planting project, but they got mis-placed over the next year, as things like that do. I bring in too many seeds, from too many places and some fall through the cracks.

But I do worry about this one tree, as I do the older man who lives up the slope behind it, there along the edge of the national highway. Sooner or later the tree will be cut down on some road widening project. Or just because. Just because, someone can cut it down. And he might have to leave his house, for exactly the same reasons.

(And I still did not have seeds!)

But as things often happen in Cambodia, I got lucky. I was at the Wat Simphew Mia (Golden Sailing Ship Temple) in Phnom Penh recently to talk to the uncle of my God Son, and was surprised to find that a beautiful flowering bush there was the same tree. My eye was first drawn by the beautiful, large flower, and then I noticed the leaves. The signature shape gave it away immediately! The Cow's Foot Tree.

Pkaa Jeung Koo -- it sounds so much nicer in Khmer. Now I need to get some seeds!