There is a certain tenderness in Chen Yueh-hsia's (陳月霞) photographs of Taiwan's wild plants and flowers. A sense of wonder fills her portrayals of fern leaves uncurling near the forest floor, orchids drooping from the weight of their fullness, and berries shyly glinting in the sun. Her photographs present Taiwan's varied and luxuriant vegetation and flora, a result of the massive mountain systems, rich plains, and the surrounding sea. Chen's subjects range from coastal to alpine plants that are native to the island or were brought here in more recent times by birds, the wind, and people.
Taiwan's rich medley of wild plant life is featured in Chen's first volume of photographs, The Beauty of Taiwan Plants, which was published in 1987 in conjunction with her first exhibit in a Taipei gallery. The 144-page book introduces eighty-five kinds of plants and vegetation and includes pictures of trees, flowers, weeds, and ferns framed by craggy rocks and sublime mountain views. Chen continues to be an active nature photographer, concerned that growing damage to the environment is seriously harming plant life. She says, If my pictures evoke some kind of wonder in people, maybe they will see what we are losing. Then they will not allow this beautiful life around us to disappear."
Chen, whose hair reaches the backs of her knees, likes to call herself "daughter of the mountains." The thirty-six-year-old photographer was born in 1955 in the small village of Wu Feng, now known sd Alishan Village, which nestles mear the top of Alishan ("shan" means mountain) in the eastern part of Chiayi county, central Taiwan. The village is also home to the largest settlement of the Tsou aboriginal tribe. With its peak rising to 2,480 meters, the mountain is the highest point of the Alishan Range. To its immediate east lies the Yushan Range, and farther east, the Central Range. A major tourist destination, Alishan is famous for its blanket of lush forests, the rosy tinge of the horizon at sunset, and an old steam engine train that winds its way through seventy-two kilometers of mountain tracks.
Chen grew up in her parent's villa inn near the train station. At seven, she went to live with her grandmother in Chiayi city, where she attended primary school. But she returned to her parents and to the mountain during the summer and winter vacations. As a child, she was fond of plants and flowers. And like children everywhere, she would press leaves and flowers between pages of a book and use them to decorate cards. It was a camera left behind by a foreign tourist that led to Chen's experimentation with photography, and it was no surprise that she picked plants as her subjects.
But it was not until the summer of 1981 when she met Chen Yuh-fong (陳玉峯), who she was later to marry, that her interest in plants took a more serious turn. It was the year after she had graduated from the drama department of the National Taiwan Academy of Arts and had returned to Alishan to help run the family inn. Chen Yuh-fong was then a graduate student in botany at National Taiwan University. He was staying at the inn, and was doing research work on mountain plants. The shared interest in plant life blossomed into romance, and three months later the couple married.
"Knowing him was a turning point for me," Chen says. "My fondness for plants developed into a deeper appreciation of the relationship between man, plants, and the environment." The couple now live in Taichung. Her husband teaches ecology at Tunghai University, and she is devoting her time to their seven-year-old daughter. Chen also gives lectures and slide presentations on Taiwan plants at universities, museums, cultural centers, and as part of county government programs. She also writes newspaper articles. Her husband has continued to be a source of support and enthusiasm, and as Chen says, "His scientific approach has added depth to my more sentimental attachment to plant life."
From 1983 to 1989, Chen accompanied her husband to his assignments as head of the information division of the National Parks Headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior. The division produces guidebooks on scenic areas around the island. The couple first went to Kenting National Park in Pingtung, on the southern tip of Taiwan, and then later to Yushan National Park in Nantou county, central Taiwan. During those years, Chen would help her husband compile data on the plants in the region. He would bring the specimen home, and she would photograph its details. "There wasn't anything artistic about it," she says. "I worked indoors. I would shoot the leaf, and then the branch, and then the stem, and then the roots. I just had to make sure the pictures were clear and accurate."
Needing a little more creative challenge, Chen began to hike up the mountains and also comb the coast in search of plants that would stir her. She would leave her child with a babysitter or relative, and spend from a week to ten days in the mountains. Family and friends worried for her safety. Standing less than five feet tall and weighing not more than ninety pounds, Chen looked too fragile to carry camping equipment, much less fight off wild animals. She laughs. "There are no more wild animals. I only see monkeys and mice. As for the snakes, they won't harm you if you don't disturb them."
But she asks an aboriginal guide to accompany her if the trek is to some place remote and unfamiliar, such as to the desolate areas of the Central Range in Kaohsiung county in the south, or to Hsiukuluanhsi Mountain which lies on the boundaries of Hualien and Nantou counties in central Taiwan. After ten years of journeying through mountain forests, Chen is now familiar with numerous mountain paths, and can tell by looking at the plants the temperature, amount of rainfall, and direction of the wind in that area. On her trips, Chen carries two to three 35 mm cameras with 18, 24, 55, and 105 mm lenses and sometimes a tripod. "I don't take pictures of a plant because it's rare or unusual," she says. " I think all plants are beautiful. But sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I see a plant and its startling beauty reaches out to me."
It is these right moments that Chen cherishes, and according to her, she grieves when she comes across an image and misses it because she did not have her camera. She only uses natural light, "to catch the essence of the plant." Often, she waits several hours to achieve the right effect. In capturing the strong image of the small buds of the tiger stick (Polygonum cuspidatum) emerging from cracks in a massive rock, Chen watched the direction of the sunlight for hours. When, finally, it shone from behind, creating an interplay of light and shadow, Chen had her moment.
The tiger stick can also be found in mainland China, Japan, and India. In Taiwan, it grows at altitudes of 2,400 to 3,800 meters. The roots of the plant have great medicinal value. Soaked in wine, it can soothe pain and neutralize poison. The sap from the stem can relieve thirst, and the juice from the leaves can be used to heal wounds. Money can be made from picking and selling medicinal plants such as the tiger stick, and according to Chen, it is people from the lowlands rather than the aborigines who come to the mountains to pick these plants.
When Chen writes or talks about the wild plants of Taiwan, she likes to relate legends or literary allusions to the plants as well as their curative powers. She has pieced the stories from conversations with villagers and her own research. In Kenting, she was fascinated with Barringtonia asiatica, a large tree standing to a height of almost two stories and dense with huge, elongated leaves. Found along tropical coastlines, the tree flourishes in southern Taiwan and on Orchid Island, off the southeastern tip of Taiwan. The tree is known by many names. On Orchid Island it is known as the "ghost tree," because it is believed that a long time ago, people buried their dead by the tree.
The white star-shaped flowers with yellow-tipped, rosy-red pistils bloom only on midsummer evenings. Soon after the sun sets, the buds open with astonishing speed and expose a cluster of hundreds of hair-thin pistils. But by dawn the flowers wither. Chen notes that although it has not yet been scientifically proven, it is widely believed that bats pollinate the flowers. It is aho said that as the bats - or the "ghosts' messengers" as the people on the island call them - fly to and fro among the dead and the flowers, they echo the howling of the sea.
In the Hengchun peninsula in Pingtung county, southern Taiwan, the tree loses its macabre character and is known as the "chessboard foot tree" because its green fruits resemble the hoof-shaped legs of the board used for playing wei chi. In neighboring Kenting, it is called "Hengchun jou-tsung" because to the people there, the fruit's shape is reminiscent of tsung tzu, a sticky rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaf. According to Chen, the deterioration of the environment because of land development and overgrazed pastures have led to the gradual extinction of the ghost tree. The Ministry of the Interior has taken heed and has set up a preserve for the trees in Kenting.
Chen is disappointed that people in Taiwan can readily recognize and name plants and flowers that have been brought to the island, but are unfamiliar with the native ones. She feels that her pictures will redirect people's attention to the beauty that is innately Taiwan's. Berberis morrisonensis, for example, is a native plant named after Mt. Morrison (or Yushan) where it was first discovered. The Yushan Range has the highest peaks in Taiwan, and the plant is found at altitudes of 3,400 to almost 4,000 meters. It prefers to grow on the mountain top where the topsoil is shallow. Its flowers bloom from mid-June to mid-July. The leaves are pounded and the juice is used to combat poisonous snake bites.
Many different types of alpine azaleas are native to Taiwan and are commonly seen only on the island's highest mountains. The Yushan azalea with its snow white flowers grows at an altitude of 3,400 to 4,000 meters, the red fur azalea with crimson-dotted pink flowers grows at 2,000 to 3,400 meters, and the Shen azalea with pink blooms grows at 1,800 to 3,000 meters. In the flatlands, the azalea foretells the coming of spring, but in middle to high altitudes, the azaleas bloom much later, from May to July. According to Chen, these alpine azaleas are descendants of Himalayan species. In the winter, the calyx is covered with snow, and buds appear in late spring. When the azaleas are in full bloom, they cover whole mountains in a sea of bright color. The flowers also secrete honey and are edible. "It is almost like being in paradise, but few people get to see it," says Chen. Unfortunately, the flowering season coincides with the monsoon rains, and hikers are hesitant to climb too high up in the mountains.
Chen admits that she is not as interested in flowers as she is in trees, ferns, and other natural greenery. She has, however, become fascinated with the flowers of the Bletilla formosona because of its vitality. The orchid abounds in subtropical and temperate climates. The flowering season begins in March and often lasts until October, depending on the region. The color of its flowers also range from a pink hue to deep crimson. Because of their exquisite beauty, orchids are often thought to be delicate, but Chen has discovered how hardy the Bletilla formosona is. She shows a photograph of the orchid blooming on a clean-shaven cliff. "It was a rare sign of liveliness and color in that barren place," she says.
The Taiwan lily is another flower with which Chen feels a strong affinity. During the rise of the Taipei student movement in 1988, the Taiwan lily came into prominence when a metal sculpture of the flower was erected on the courtyard of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. The students had chosen the flower as the symbol of their resistance because it is native to Taiwan. The plant grows on the seashores and at altitudes of up to 3,500 meters. Its dark brown elongated fruits appear at the end of the summer, and when the autumn winds blow, its thin outer layer breaks, sending the seeds whirling in the air. The trumpet-shaped flowers bloom from May to August. The stem can be used to cure pneumonia and the seeds can soothe coughing.
Chen also spends considerable time photographing weeds and ferns, whose beauty is often missed by most people. "They are beautiful in their own right," she says. She points out the Ageratum houstonianum with its fragrant purple flowers. Transplanted from South America by the Japanese in the early 1900s, the weed sprouts all over the island. And because of many allusions to it in literature, Cuscuta australis is another weed in which Chen has shown great interest. The weed is used to relieve swelling, ulcers, and jaundice. But in the poetry and novels of classical times, the leafless and rootless creeper is often compared to a woman.
Its threadlike branches cling to shrubs and pine trees, and from a distance it appears as golden strands of hair draped over a plant like a net. Thus, the weed has been used as a metaphor for a woman who is totally dependent on a strong, vibrant man. The relationship between the weed and the shrub or tree has been used by poets to refer to the traditional male-female relationship of entanglement and dependence. "That's what men would like to think," says Chen. "The truth is, the stem of the Cuscuta is covered with round absorbers, and these suck the nutrients out of the host plant until it withers and dies. Men should be aware of the implied danger when they compare the plant to a woman!"
Ferns remain the photographer's favorite subject. She says, "They might not have colorful flowers, but their greenness, their variety, and their sensitivity to changes in light fill me with anticipation and excitement." Ferns are called "goat's teeth" in Taiwan because the row of pointed leaves seem to resemble the teeth of goat. With over six hundred varieties of fern scattered around the island, Taiwan is known among botanists as the "kingdom of goat's teeth." Chen's many close-up pictures of ferns show leaves curled up, waiting to open, leaves proudly displaying their spores, and leaves in array, gracefully spread out like dancers in formation. "In them, we see traces of the creation of the world," she says. "After millions of years of the earth's evolution, they continue to thrive."
Chen's main objective in photo graphing the wild plants of Taiwan is that they should continue to thrive. And to this end, her personal concern for plants leads her to gloss over rather than stress the curative qualities of plants. Their medicinal value has led to people picking them for commercial purposes and have brought these plants to near extinction. "My husband and I are opposed to random picking," she says. "And if a plant should be picked for scientific purposes, it must be done selectively." The strength of this protectiveness for plants shines through in her photographs. When asked how it is that her photographs can elicit respect and awe for plant life, she says, "All it requires is a caring heart. Without it, even the best equipment will miss the plant's beauty and essence."