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The Oldest Toromiro in the World William Liller Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation Volume 9 Article 1 Issue 3 Rapa Nui Journal 9#3, September 1995 1995 The Oldest Toromiro in the World William Liller Follow this and additional works at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj Part of the History of the Pacific slI ands Commons, and the Pacific slI ands Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Liller, William (1995) "The Oldest Toromiro in the World," Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation: Vol. 9 : Iss. 3 , Article 1. Available at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj/vol9/iss3/1 This Research Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Hawai`i Press at Kahualike. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation by an authorized editor of Kahualike. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Liller: The Oldest Toromiro in the World The Oldest Toromiro in the World William Liller Ea tel' ! land Foundation and The instituto isaac Newton Ministerio de Edueaei6n de Chile Ironically. the best known tree of Easter Island, the report "not a single tree is to be found capable offurnishing a Sophora toromiro (Philippi) SKOTTSBERG, or commonly, plank so much as six inches in width... Its trees are very the torO/1l1ro and sometimes miro, no longer grows there. at similar to mimosas and tamarinds." The largest were a little lea t not in the wild. The numerous (endemic) toromiros that more than an e tada (3.28 meters) tall. were once there were either cut down by the Islanders to use 1774: The naturalist, George Forster, who accompanied for making implements. for carving, and in construction and Captain James Cook on his second voyage to the Pacific, sees cooking, or else destroyed by the tens of thousands of sheep small trees growing on hills in small shrubberies which he that roamed relatively freely over the Island. calls mimosas. Forster estimates a maximum height of9 or 10 The toromiro is a bean tree, a legume or fabaceous plant, feet and says it had a trunk at the base "as thick as a man's one of about 45 species of the genus Sophora found mainly in thigh". the northern hemisphere. Tsoon & Ma (1981) have noted, 1866: Hippolyte Roussel mentions thickets of toromiro on however. that the toromiro and ten other members of the the outer slope of Rano Kau. genus. including S. mierophyllam. S. tetraptera, and S. 1871: The Chilean r. L. Gana describes "innumerable dry fernandezians. grow on islands in tlle South Pacific and in trunks (of toromiro) from 6 to 10 feet high" and attributes the southwestern South America, mainly Chile. Christensen & disappearance of the tree to the ravages ofcattle and sheep. SchHitzer (1993) report other species on Gough Island in the 1888: W. J. Thomson reports seeing considerable numbers outh Atlantic and on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. of toromiro but "all or nearl. all are dead and decaying b A small number of Sophora toromiros survive in various reason of being stripped of their bark by the flocks of sheep botanical parks and private gardens, and determined efforts which roam at will allover the island." are underway to increase their numbers and re-introduce them 1911: Chilean botanist F. Fuentes notes that the toromiro to Rapa Nui. See news article in RNJ 9(2):57. Recently, the is "very scarce, only in the Rano Kau crater". He considers it discovery tllat there actually grew unnoticed a toromiro in the to be the same species as the Chilean Sophora tetraptera. botanical garden in Bonn, German , led to several articles With him is Dr. Walter Knoche who disagrees, considering that included in tlleir titles eX'Pressions such as "the lost tree the toromiro to be a separate species and endemic to the of Easter Island" (Lobin & BartJllott 1988), and "an extinct island. plant is rediscovered" (Alden & Zizka 1989). Meam hile, a 1917: Carl Skottsberg find only one living example. It is mature toroll/iro tree was thriving in the Jardin Boti1l7ico in 1.9 meters tall and growing in the Rano Kau crater. He states Vi fia del Mar. that its closest relative is S. masafuerana from the Juan In recent years my wife and I have made a stud of the Fernandez (Robinson Crusoe) Islands. He adds that loromiro pecimens in Borm. New Zealand and Vitia del Mar and is "easily distinguished from the other members of the section spoken at length with botanists there and elsewhere. In this Edwardsia. and there is no Edwardsia in Melanesia or in the article J will give a bit of the sad, past history of the tree, and part of Polynesia from where the Easter Islanders are then repoIt on some conclusions that I. an amateur botanist, supposed to have come." Heyerdahl, of course, suggests that have made. [ believe that in the end. readers will agree with it was introduced to the island from Juan Fernandez or South me that the oldest loroll/iro in the world lives (happil and America. healthily) in the Jardin Botanieo in Vifia del Mar. Chile. It 1922: New Zealander botanist John Macmillan Brown celebrates its 60th birthday this year. states that "the miro. a tree exactly the same as the yellow­ flowered kowha of New Zealand' , can be found 'away down The Histor)' the crater of Rano Kau". (The kowha, or kowhai. is the maori The major chronological events pertaining to the. ophora name of the Sophora mierophylla in ew Zealand). loroll/iro. as they have been recorded. are summarized below. According to Dr. H. Gilpin, then Director of Parks & My information comes from man sources but the salient facts Reserves in Christchurch. Brown brings back three seeds. (and some fiction) can be found in Metraux (1935), Heyerdahl 1928: A Mr. Barnett arri es in Christchurch to become the and Ferdon (1961). Rodriguez. Matthei & Quezada (1983), next Director of Parks & Reserves and is given one (I) of the Alden and Zizka (1989). Godley (1989) Fischer (1993) Bahn seeds collected by Brown. According to what Barnett later & Flenley (1993) and Christensen & Schlatzer (1993). told Gilpin, the tree now growing in Christchurch grew from 1722: Jakob Roggeveen. the first westerner to isit Rapa that single six year old seed. ui, wrote that the islanders "are destitute of heavy or thick 1929: There is evidence that seeds were collected by S. timber". but his companion C.F. Behrens does refer to some Routledge. These were found relatively recently in the woodland seen in the distance. herbarium collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, London. 1770: Members of the expedition led by Felipe Gonzalez 1934: The last surviving loromiro in the wild was seen by Rapa Nui Journal 65 Vol 9 (3) September 1995 Published by Kahualike, 1995 1 Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation, Vol. 9 [1995], Iss. 3, Art. 1 a number ofvisitors to Easter Island. among them l. Drapkin, In Godley's E. Volovsky, and (possibly) Alfred Metraux; Volovsky opi nion "the e described it as being 3 meters tall with a trunk 25 cm in difference. diameter. should lead us to 1935: Botanist Carlos Munoz P.. head of the Dcpartment classify the tree as of Investigations of CONAF, the Chilean National Park of uncertain Service, undertook the task of collecting examples of all the origin". and he rare and endangered trees in Chile. He dispatched a colleague concluded that it to Rapa Nui to collect specimens of exotic or endangered "would be wrong plants. From these seeds he grew a number of plants. and he to use eed from distributed them to. among others, the Botanic Garden in this tree in Vifia del Mar (Mufiez 1959). This tree, located in a shaded attempt to restock and protected ravine, is in robust health and stands nearly two Ea ter Island with meters tal1. the toromiro". Clearly. Godley Developments since 1955 Figure J. Leaves from the Sophora tree was wlhapp. with Few further references were made to the toromiro until in Christchurch, New Zealand (left), and the Christensen & 1955-56 when Heyerdahl's Norwegian Expedition carried out in I ifia del Mar. As is immediate~v Schlatzer their well-known investigations. At the request of the obviOUS, the much more numerou replantation. palynologist Olof Selling in Stockholm, Heyerdahl's team leaflets from the Christchurch tree are In an apparent took some core samples from the two major craters and much more rounded than those of the attempt to settle collected some seeds from the last "dwarfed and mutilated" Vifia del Afar specimen. the matter. the toromiro; Selling in turn passed them on to the Botanic case was put Garden in Goteborg. From the core samples. Selling deduced before the Botanical Officer in Christchurch. Mrs. 1. V. that the toromiro was at earlier times much more common. McNaughton. In 1991 she wrote to Schlatzer and stated that As for the seeds. some germinated several years later (in the do consider this tree to be a toromiro. an ob\'iou 1959), and two examples continue to do well. The last contradition to Dr. Godley. the retired Director of the Botany survivor in the wild finally expired without ceremony a few Divison of the Department of Scientific and Indu trial years after HeyerdahI harvested the seeds. Research in Christchurch. From these two Goteborg plants and at various time. seeds In their 1993 paper Christensen & Schatzer criticize both were sown and cuttings rooted. and specimens were. Godle and Alden. They write: "Dr Alden (1990)...alleged evidently, sent directly or indirectly to several botanic that all the formerly planted (by ScWatzer) Torollliros had gardens including those in Regensburg.
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