Sarah Kellett
Ferns and Fever Trees
Oliver Williams reflected, not for the first time, that life in the jungle wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“What are we doing here, Arthur?”
Arthur Jones gave a bright smile. He was young enough to find this all a grand adventure. “You know what they say. Money grows on trees.”
For trailblazers in taxonomy such as Oliver, there was a fortune to be made in Venezuela from transporting unusual plant species to England. It was 1859 and Kew Gardens couldn’t get enough of them. Someone had to suffer to ensure the future beauty of the gardens. Unfortunately it was him.
A fern distracted him from further complaints. It unfurled in a repeating pattern. Branching from the trunk were stalks that branched into fronds that branched into leaflets. Cyathea delgadii. An excellent ornamental tree.
“Arthur? Spore collection please.”
The young man obediently identified and detached the mature fronds and placed them in a paper fold. Oliver walked on ahead, taking in the signs that displayed a plants’ hidden secrets. He could read the code as easily as his letters, seeing in the jungle a market of gums, drugs, foods, and fibres.
As much as he loved plants, it hardly made up for the discomfort. He’d been sold a story that South America was delightfully warm. Warm being a most thrilling word to Brits.
Charles Darwin had joyfully described the Brazilian rainforest as “a great wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse.”
Luxuriant? He mopped his clammy brow. His hand came away smeared with squashed mosquitoes and crimson blood. He wiped it on his pants. Just another day. His bare skin was always in welts (not to mention his unmentionables).
Had anyone warned him of the insects? Or the humidity? Breathing was more like drinking tepid water through a straw. Even the nights were hot, wrapped tight as a flower bud in his stockings and blanket with a handkerchief over his face for the mosquitos… and the bloodsucking bats.
A small tree caught his eye.
“Arthur. Come at once.” Arthur trotted up, tucking a paper fold into his bag. “Your witnessing Cinchona.”
“The fever tree?”
“Correct. Observe closely. The leaves are rounded ovals, evergreen. The fruit is a smooth capsule full of seeds. See the bark – cracked, reddy-brown? It’s quite distinctive. The taste is extremely bitter. Peel it off, slice it, pound it into powder, and it becomes the empire’s greatest defence against malaria. Damn hard to grow. Sensitive to conditions, you see. Assist me while I gather the seeds.”
They continued the expedition for ten days, collecting specimens of may flowers, Venezuelan rose, and the hanging lobster claw. Only when their bags and belts and pockets were stuffed, did Oliver agree it was time to turn back towards the village.
The next day it happened. A fever came on suddenly – a shivering, sweating, aching fever that rendered Oliver helpless.
Arthur carried him to the village and installed him in a wooden hut. Oliver’s temperature climbed like lianas. Fingers curled into fern fronds. Mind flashed on those damn mosquitoes.
The fever broke into freezing chills. When those chills turned once more to fever, Oliver knew what it was. Malaria.
“Arthur, my boy.”
“Yes sir. What do you need? Water?”
“Drat the water. You remember the Cinchona? Round oval leaves, fruit full of seeds, cracked bark. You need to find it, Arthur. Can you? You must do that for me, my boy. I need the bark, Arthur. The bark.
His eyes closed and when they opened again, Arthur was gone.
Fever dreams set in. Oliver shrank to the size of a grain of pollen and was sucked up through a mosquito’s strawlike mouth into the gut (it sure was hot and sticky). Blood cells burst to release hideous parasites. The parasites formed capsules full of eggs. Or were they seeds? Or spores?
Capsules split to reveal a plethora of young. On its next bite, the mosquito’s double straw slid through the skin, spitting and sucking simultaneously. Delivering the parasites to the blood. The liver. The blood. Running round after round of asexual reproduction, like spores or strawberry runners, each strawberry red and juicy, dripping.
Each round took three days to feast and rupture the blood cells. Like clockwork, his body followed the same cycle. Fever following chills following fever. An unending pattern unfurling over and over.
Finally, after a fortnight that seemed an infinity, Arthur appeared.
“Here.” Arthur spoon-fed him the powdered bark, as if he was the elder and Oliver the youth. Oliver took his medicine meekly, seeking sweet relief from the bitter bark.
His recovery was slow. Oliver was bed bound for a month after his collapse. When finally he stepped outside the hut for some fresh air, the first thing he remembered was that the air was just as damn humid outside as it was in. The smells of the forest assaulted him. Had he become hypersensitive to scent after so long indoors?
In the riotous chaos of smells, one citrusy, spicy scent wafted through. He identified it immediately. The Christmas orchid. Cattleya percivaliana. Where was Arthur? There was work to be done.
