JAKARTA, Indonesia - As a group of European botanists prepared to travel around Borneo by boat and all-terrain vehicle, they heard about a species of palm tree with an extremely rare peculiarity.
It flourishes underground
.
The palm tree, Pinanga subterranea, is one of
74 plants
that scientists at the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
, in London, named last year as new to science, exciting some in the world of botany.
Botanists who went plant hunting in Southeast Asia six years ago didn't expect to find it.
But the plant is not difficult to find:
Tropical rainforest in Borneo, where the palm tree grows.
Photo Ben Kuhnhäuser, via Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
It grows abundantly on Borneo, the world's third largest island, which includes parts of Indonesia and Malaysia.
Nor is it "new" because the local indigenous groups already knew about it, according to two representatives of those groups stated in interviews.
In that sense, the "discovery" of the
underground Pinanga
is an example of how conventional science catches up with indigenous knowledge.
"We've described it as something new to science," said William Baker, the senior scientist on the trip.
"But the pre-existing knowledge about this palm tree is layered and was already there before we approached it."
Kew scientists traveling by river in Borneo in 2018. Photo Ben Kuhnhäuser, via Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Over the past 30 years, non-Indigenous scientists have drawn more heavily on
Indigenous knowledge
to expand or test their research, with varying degrees of sensitivity.
In some cases, this has been considered cultural appropriation, says George Nicholas, an archaeologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who has written on the topic.
Indigenous people have complained of scientific colonialism, especially when researchers try to develop
medicines
based on unexplored sources of traditional knowledge.
There have been several collaborative studies that credit indigenous communities with generations of wisdom on topics such as shellfish productivity, grizzly bear management, and raptor behavior.
In some cases, communities lead or participate in the research.
These collaborations are partly because non-Indigenous scientists recognize gaps in their knowledge, but Indigenous communities are often reluctant to share information with outsiders, says Lynette Russell, an anthropological historian at Monash University in Australia. .
"To share information, you have to know the researchers well," he adds.
"That is not necessarily achieved with
a lightning visit
."
Roots of the Pinanga subterranea with its fruit.
Photo William J. Baker, via Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Expedition
In the case of the palm tree that flourishes underground, the Kew scientists did not learn about it directly from indigenous groups, but from Paul Chai, a Malaysian scientist from Borneo who had first found it about 20 years earlier.
In October 2018, over laksa and tea in the city of Kuching, Chai told them about the plant as they prepared to visit a wildlife sanctuary on an unrelated botanical expedition.
Chai, now 82, had learned that members of a local indigenous group, the Kenyah, sometimes chewed the fruit of the betel-leaf plant.
The Kenyah are a subgroup of an indigenous tribe of Borneo known as the Dayak.
Their livelihood revolves around collecting forest products, including agarwood, a valuable ingredient in perfumes.
The Dayak people often learn plants from their parents, and the forest is so important to them that an indigenous idiom compares it to mother's milk, explains Seting Beraan, a member of the Dayak and regional president of the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago, a Indonesian non-profit organization representing various groups.
"When we went to the forests as children, our parents told us:
William J. Baker, left, and Peter Petoe, Kew scientists, with the palm tree flourishing underground.
Photo Ben Kuhnhäuser, via Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
'Don't eat that, it can make you sick' or 'This can cure a fever', or that we could eat the fruit right away," he explained.
As for the underground Pinanga, the Kew researchers were not the only ones to find it.
Around the same time, Indonesian botanist
Agusti Randi
was learning their local indigenous names and planting their seeds in his garden elsewhere in Borneo.
When the Kew scientists told him about their research in Borneo, he told them that he had seen it too.
So the Kew team, along with Chai, teamed up with Agustí to write a paper about the plant that was published last year in the scientific journal Palms.
Scott Zona, a North Carolina botanist and co-editor of Palms, said Pinanga subterranea was "the palm discovery of 2023, if not the decade."
He added that new research on it could help explain the evolutionary pressures that drive some plants to live underground.
Agustí, lead author of the study, said he believes the plant could flourish underground - where there are fewer predators - to protect its flowers.
The only other plant species known to flower and fruit underground belong to a mysterious genus of
orchids from Australia.
According to Baker, the plant's underground activity makes its study almost impossible.
How could one analyze its pollination process without interrupting it or deciding which specimen should be studied?
"Its underground nature is probably what has prevented botanists from 'discovering' it properly, in quotes," he added.
"Usually when we go picking, we don't pick things that aren't flowering and fruiting."
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