Sunflowers

LIGHTER MOMENTS
Hilarion ‘Abe’ Pawid

Sunflowers. This is a typical specie in the world of flora that does not have a sweet smell. It emits a bitter smell, hence, it’s called “marapa-it” in the Ilocano dialect.

They start blooming in the month of November beautifully dotting the mountains with radiating bright yellow colors. With their wide leaves staying green all year-round, these uncultivated flowers seem to announce the opening of the season and the birth of mankind’s savior by way of spreading their yellow petals into eye-catching flowers.

Because a sunflower plant finds the tropical hills and mountains as its natural habitat, communities normally regard this common undomesticated flowering plant a nuisance. Its rapid growth is slashed and hacked to the roots, yet, unknown to the innocent community those resilient roots hold the soil from draining with the flash waters of the rainy months.

This brings to mind the call of ecologist groups some fifty years back to preserve clusters of sunflowers in the mountain slopes. These environmentalists encouraged the planting of this shrub in any vacant space to help prevent erosion and landslides.

A paper prepared by the defunct Mountain Province Development Authority of the l960s cited the sunflower plant as a natural agent of soil preservation. The MPDA paper has encouraged its massive planting. Sadly, like most government researches they simply gathered dust in the shelves of libraries unread. Although the sunflower is not found in flower vases, Cordillerans however find several helpful uses for the astringent foliage.

In highland school houses where floor wax are not heard of, sunflower leaves when rubbed on wooden floors give a darkish shade of varnish shine and color. For generations, the Bontoc tribes have used the shrub to fertilize their rice terraces and exacting bountiful harvests.

Used as fence, the sunflower plant grows robustly and conveniently delineating boundary lots among neighbors. The fence also prevents animals from freely roaming the neighborhood while cuttings can also be used for firewood.

At the other side of the globe, millions survived devastated Russia as a result of the revolution by eating sunflower seeds providing them with sufficient nut-oil and protein.

Recently, Baguio City Mayor Mauricio Domogan strongly encouraged residents to plant sunflower shrubs in their backyards to help prevent the erosion of top soil. The mayor’s call is expected to amplify the regreening movement in the city and would also help promote clean air from the pollution of overcrowded traffic.

Now along the Ilocos Sur Cervantes-Mankayan road in Benguet, they have problems with slope erosions as the widened highway has caused recurring landslides. They are presently planting marapa-it shrubs and they call it bioengineering. MPWH people say it is the “Nepal Experience” yet it is not new in the Cordillera. Cordillerans simply did not have the academe word to describe it.

The late Department of Environment and Natural Resources Cordillera Director Oscar Hamada planted thousands of sunflower sticks along the mountainsides of along Kennon road to help prevent erosion, and make the mountains beautiful with blooming sunflowers starting from the months of October or November.

And the clincher, unknown to communities in the tropics, air fresheners advertised as “natural air” are actually flavors of sunflowers. While Ilocanos find the smell of sunflowers as “napa-it” or bitter, westerners whose windows are seldom open savor it as natural air to freshen up their homes. - (h.abe pawid)