Tuhke Koaros mie Koasoaiepe de Poadope – Every Tree Has a Story

“Tuhke koaros mie koasoaiepe de poadope”- “Every tree has a story” (Fig 1), Pohnpei Director, National Archives, Culture and Historic Preservation at the Federated States of Micronesia National Government, Rufino Mauricio once told me.

While planting a memiap, Carica papaya L. tree in the Caricaceae on Pohnpei at Ohmine Elementary School with students and teachers (Fig 2), my Pohnpeian colleague Randall Harry casually removed his shoe and a handsome centipede crawled out. “They never harm me”, he said calmly, “Centipede, Meninrahn is my clan.”

The volcanic 344 km² western Pacific island of Pohnpei is situated at 6° 54’ N longitude and 158° 14’ E latitude, north of the Equator in the Eastern Caroline Islands. Steep, rugged and mountainous, Pohnpei is surrounded by mangrove swamps, naniak with an average annual rainfall of 190 inches (4800 mm). As one of the wettest places on earth, its tropical climate, high rainfall and deep volcanic weathered soils support a rich floral diversity. There are more than 935 vascular plant species on Pohnpei, of which, 397 are indigenous and endemic (Herrera et al. 2010:1-2) [11]. For more than a hundred years, Pohnpei has been a center for agricultural experimentation and plant introductions in Micronesia (Ragone et al. 2001:290) [15].