know this from the remarkable messagesleft on these ancient cacti. Local peoplehave plucked out a cactus spine andengraved inscriptions, signed and dated, on to the smooth stems. They’re often in a delicate hand – a fine line that darkens withtime, making it legible a century later.

The more you read, the more enthrallingthese cactus inscriptions become. The ear-liest one we’ve found so far is dated 1902,which corresponds with the arrival of apreacher, when people learnt to write.Studying these cacti with various membersof our Darwin Initiative project team,including students from the University ofIca and Kew horticulture student SandraKing, I realise that the information couldusefully add a little more resolution to thefading historical ecology – the position ofthe dates on the plants suggests some cacticould be at least 800 years old.

The inscriptions seem mostly to recordmoments of water and love – especially the

annual arrival of river water: ‘1934 … wait-ing for the water’, and less surprisingly thelove affairs of the local community. Thepoems addressed to lovers and wives aresometime lewd, but more often romanticand beguiling: AMOR Cuando por lasmañanas te despierta el aire, no te asustes porque es un suspiro mío para ti ROSA (LOVE,when in the mornings the wind awakensyou, don’t be afraid because it’s a sigh ofmine for you, ROSA).

The words also record moments in people’s lives, some simple: ‘I was huntingpigeons… food, 12 April’, and some moremomentous: ‘10 January 1975, last day ofwork, going to Lima to submit to the armywhile passing here this afternoon, writing in the presence of Don Ezequiel already 60years old having had his birthday on 10 Apriland Hipolito… born 13 August 1960, today17 years old, eligible for military service.’

From an ecological point of view, thespontaneous inscriptions that conjure up a

past landscape are the most interesting:‘Today 14 April 1957, I came to cut a bit ofreed from the orchard when it was one inthe afternoon on the day of Palm Sunday,Pablo’. Pablo was probably gathering reedsalong the edge of an irrigation channel torepair his house; today, houses are stillmade of quincha – reeds covered with mudand dry leaves.

But why are there no reeds or orchardsin the area now, and why are there so manyabandoned terraces? All is now windblown,with telltale indicators of desertification andovergrazing. Old people in the valley wist-fully remember collecting cactus fruit, buttoday the same cacti produce no fruit, andmany of the inscriptions have shrunk backinto deeply concave stems. Clearly thesewritings were scribed in times when the stemwas more swollen and able to bear fruit.

On the Pacific coastal desert of Peru,agriculture and vegetation depend on thelifeline of annually flowing rivers bringing

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Iam standing on a cusp of the Andes – a huge rib of dry rock jutting out intothe Ica desert plain towards the PacificOcean 30 miles away, from where a

pure, cool wind blows. Jagged stonesaround me seem freshly shaken loose byone of the earthquakes under these restlessmountains. The place looks inhospitable tomost life on earth, but strangely I don’t feelalone – as far as the eye can see are ‘figures’of one of the most extraordinary plants onearth – Neoraimondia arequipensis. Evenon the driest mountain tops, these hugecacti stand defiant for centuries withoutapparent need for shade or water.

Working on habitat restoration here in thedeforested desert systems of southern Peru,we’re always on the lookout for indicatorsthat can shed light on the fragmented eco-logical history, and Neoraimondia tells usthings as no other does – literally. Even inthe remotest habitats of Neoraimondia,someone has been there before us. We

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Messages from the past

Inscribed on ancient cacti in Peru’sPacific desert are lyrical love poems andfascinating comments from the pastcentury. Kew’s Oliver Whaley is studyingthese revealing insights into a changedlandscape and a vanishing way of life

In 1957, Pablo wroteof cutting reeds, buttoday reeds no longergrow in this region

Team members includeOctavio Pecho, Kewstudent Sandra Kingand Consuelo Borda

The writers of theseremarkable messageshave given us a uniqueinsight into their lives

AL

L P

HO

TO

GR

AP

HS:

OL

IVE

R W

HA

LE

Y

Today, advanced desertification has setin, and the villages and irrigation canals are largely abandoned, but the inscriptionstell of better times. We know that much ofthe highly sophisticated stewardship of theland was lost after the Spanish conquest,and in the last generation mining for cop-per and gold has drawn away the workforcenecessary to maintain the irrigation. Aroundthe cacti there are disused pre-Columbianterraces littered with pottery – for hundredsof years this was a productive area, and thecacti tell us that as recently as 1957 waterflooded the lower valley. One inscription,made 55 years ago, says: ‘The water camehere’, indicating the 1953 water level. Today,the riverbed is 10m below this mark.

Follow the unpaved tracks up precipitousflanks of the Andes to the verdant heads ofthe valleys, and at about 3,500m you reach

the watershed between Pacific desert andAmazon. Here, like sentinels betweenclouds and earth, the cactus Corryocactusbrachypectalus grow centuries old, graspingthe rock while the land around plunges intogorges so deep that a raging torrent onlywhispers. Here, at the source of the desert’swater, they stand with a skin and flesh, distinct from other plants around.

There is striking evidence that in the Icaregion, over thousands of years, pre-Columbian cultures assimilated cacti closelyinto their culture. Cactus forms abound inthe iconography of the Nazca people, per-haps as divine representatives of water. Ourrecent ethno-botanical study revealed thatpeople of the quebradas use cacti to ‘clean’water. They stir cactus sap into muddy waterand the sap attracts the mud particles, leaving the water crystal clear. This act of

using cacti to turn brown water to sweet isprobably an ancient tradition. As so oftenin historical ecology, there is no absolutecertainty, but as sand dunes form whereonce forests stood, and the burning sun andwinds of climate change make our eco-systems shudder, the writing is on the cactiand we are compelled to listen. n

Oliver Whaley manages Kew’s Darwin Initiativeproject Habitat Restoration and SustainableManagement of Southern Peruvian Dry Forest,which is also supported by Bettys & Taylors ofHarrogate Trees for Life project (www.treesforlife.co.uk) and London-based Trees for Cities(www.treesforcities.org) [ck with founation]

How is your Spanish? Help us decipher the cactusinscriptions – go to www.kew.org/tropamerica/peru/cactuscript [CK]

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water from the high Andes between Januaryand April. The rivers are laden with nutri-ents and are recharging aquifers, floodingand nourishing the land, often through acomplex system of irrigation canals devel-oped over at least 3,000 years.

Unsurprisingly, agua (water) is the mostcommon word in the cactus scripts – onefrom March 1921 records ‘Vino un buenaumento de agua colorada’ (There came agood increase of brown water). The datesof the arrival of river water are the singlemost recorded information, and they pro-vide us with insights into hydrologicalsystems and corresponding plant phen-ology. For example, the inscriptions showthat between 1917 and 1957 the watertended to arrive during January or earlyFebruary, whereas today it usually arrivessignificantly later, in April.

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TITLE

Neoraimondia arequipensis was first described by theGerman cactus collector Curt Backeberg in 1937. It is the largestSouth American shrub cactus, with thick stems that grow tomore than 8m tall. The columns are protected with spines upto 20cm long, arranged in vertical rows. The flowers (picturedbelow) have lemon-sorbet-like petals fringed with rose pinkand exude a sweet evening fragrance. They offer nectar to bees, but fail to develop into fruit unless the rivers flood.

Oliver Whaley with aNeoraimondia that hassuspended its growth inits long wait for water

Many scripts refer towater, this one telling of the arrival of ‘a goodincrease of brown water’

Top: shards of Nazcapottery litter theground, often decoratedwith cacti fruits

Above: only when it’sswollen with water does Neoraimondiaarequipensis bear fruit

Right: Corryocactusbrachypectalus guard the source of the floodwater, high in the Andes