Cambodia's Rogas Trees are in Bloom!

In Ratanakiri, here in late January and early February in this young decade the Rogas tree is again in bloom. Temperatures are still cool (for Cambodia) but afternoons can be hot. We are well into the dry season and the red laterite dust create make for magnificent sunsets.

The Rogas tree is striking wherever you see it in the world. It is in a family of deciduous trees that rise high above other trees in the forest or jungle surround and whose seed pods produce kapok fibers of varying quality.

The particular trees found in this part of Southeast Asia have large red blossoms that attract a wide variety of birds (and sometimes mammals) to feed on the nectar. Perhaps the flowers are easy to see as the leaves have mostly been shed. I have also encountered a single tree with yellow-white blossoms.

Accoriding to sources on the web the tree is pollinated at night by bats.

In a tree near a Tampuon village (ethnic minority) that I visited on several successive mornings this week near land where we are harvesting cassava, I watched a varied group of birds work the blossoms for nectar - including parakeets. The residents of the village who revere these trees and the spirits that they are believed to house say that the birds are there all day long, fussing and feeding!

The blossoms have a large number of stamens, but the birds I saw did not appear to bother with them at all. Perhaps, it is the bats, as we are told, who do that work. The tree is self-pollinating and isolated trees can produce viable seed. The indigenous minority tribes of Cambodia's northeast who plant these trees do so in groups, so you almost never see one standing alone (however in Banlung town, the provincial capital, there is a very nice tree in front of the high school). Sometimes the only remaining evidence of an abandoned village site are two or three of these trees towering over everything else.

The daytime birds appeared to be only interested in the outside bases (calyx) of the blossom as they hopped from one flower to the next. What was surprising to me was the wide variety of birds that were attracted. I'll post some pictures soon. But we are enjoying the trees blossoms while they last.