The Soufriere Tree, fact or fable?

EDITOR: I remember as a young child visiting the Botanic Gardens and seeing the Soufriere Tree and reading the label that the tree was endemic to St. Vincent and rescued from the slopes of La Soufriere before the 1812 eruption. I also remember the post card of the Soufriere Tree that we could buy at Reliance Printery that also propagated this tale about the tree. I believed, I was so proud, St. Vincent had something no one else had. Tourists loved this story and the post card sold like hot cakes.

Now that I am old, I have long realized that the whole story was a fable, a mere ‘Nancy Story’. The revelation started when I was a student at the University of Toronto in 1971. I was taking a course in Forestry and I proudly showed that post card to my professor boasting of our national pride. My pride was quickly deflated when the professor told me that the tree was native to the Amazon Basin where it was widespread, so it was not endemic to St. Vincent at all. In fact, the Soufriere Tree is Spachea Elegans or Spachea Perforata, widely occurring in Brazil, the Guyanas and Venezuela. I surely got the feeling that pride comes before a fall.

Just think of the situation. Trees in the forest grow in clusters and usually spread to neighbouring areas. So, if the tree was found on the slopes of La Soufriere why did it not flourish on the slopes of Richmond Peak, Morne Garu and Grand Bonhomme? Why did the 1812 eruption kill off all the trees and why did the tree never come back in the wild? Soufriere Grass came back.

The link of the Soufriere Tree to the Botanic Gardens is also a curiosity. There is a historical record of Alexander Anderson, an early curator of the Gardens climbing La Soufriere before the 1912 eruption. Could he have brought the tree back to the Gardens then? However, Mr. Anderson was an avid Botanist who travelled widely throughout the Caribbean and to British Guiana, then a colony of Britain, in search of plants to populate the Gardens in its early years. Given that Spachea Perforata was native to British Guiana and not endemic to St. Vincent, it is a more plausible story that the ‘Soufriere Tree’ was brought to St. Vincent from British Guiana by Mr. Anderson.

So, until we could find a Soufriere Tree growing in the wilds of Richmond Peak, Morne Garu or Grand Bonhomme, let us dismiss this myth that the tree is endemic to St. Vincent. We should not be propagating myths that can easily be disproved leaving egg on our faces. I remember that we once celebrated January 22nd as Discovery Day. At the same time I was a student at the University of Toronto and got floored when I tried to promote the myth of the Soufriere Tree, I extensively researched the history of the voyages of Columbus and wrote an article in the Vincentian that questioned the logic of Columbus setting sail from Spain in the summer of 1498 and discovering St. Vincent on January 22, 1498. I was surprised, but pleased, that shortly after my article January 22nd is no longer a holiday or Discovery Day in St. Vincent. I would be pleased if I can help in getting the powers that be to stop this myth of the Soufriere Tree and tell the story as it really is.

Oswald Fereira
potgeepickney@hotmail.co