Other Plant Uses

The plants of Soqotra offer much else besides firewood, building materials, foods and fodder: they offer too medicaments such as antiseptics, analgesics, febrifuges, purges, expectorants, emetics, tonics, vermifuges, salves, dressings, poultices and plasters. From plants are made dyes, cosmetics, glues, toxins, birdlime, cordage, utensils, tanning materials, soaps and shampoos, aromatics, herbal teas, toothsticks, traps for fish, wild cats or birds, and bedding, for instance.

Plants are informative: they tell the alert and experienced islander many things - about the proximity of the water table, the underlying geology, the soil type and whether or not it is suitable for cultivation and for the cultivation of what.

Plants are essential to the production of lime: the dead wood of Ziziphus,Euphorbia arbuscula, the date palm, the straggly Cissus plant - all these go into the deep pits layered with chunks of coralline rock to be burned to make the lime which is used to beautify the home as well as to provide a waterproof covering for it (though lime is less in demand now with the advent of tarpaulins, sheet plastic and cement).

Plants help to trap birds: latex extracted from Ficus salicifolia or Euphorbia socotrana is smeared onto rocks beside the small rock pools where birds come to drink.

Plants in Agriculture: sweet-smelling plants such as Lavandula or Micromeria offer fragrant leaves with which rub down a young calf to encourage the dam to let down her milk to stuff a tuichan; the stems of Cistnanche or of the climbing Asclepiad can be used to make the flexible 'bow' with which the newly shorn sheepswool is 'beaten'.

Plants as tools: the whippy slim branches of Flueggea are woven into fish traps; Tamarindus or Grewia wood is fashioned into intricate but strong locks; a paste of Daemia or Pergularia removes the hair from skins and hides.

Plants as medicines and cosmetics: leaves from plants such as Leucas make an aromatic tisane; the entire Kalanchoe plant is ground to a paste to make a red paint or a red-brown dye;

Some plants even have a commercial value:Soqotra, we are told, made its merchants rich in the days when its aloes juice, fragrant gums and Dragons Blood resin were in demand the world over. These days are sadly long gone, but the same products continue to have a (limited) commercial value. The market is chiefly internal, or between the islanders and their overseas relatives, nostaligic emigres living along the shores of the Arabian Peninsula. Certain lichens too are gathered for sale overseas, but it is not certain how they are used once they reach the mainland. There is a limited market too for the dead wood of Cephalocroton which is used as a fumigant (and occasionally also for the roots and dead wood of Cleredendron and Ormocarpum used for the same purpose). However, it must be said that the trade in plant products is now greatly overshadowed by that in fish, livestock and livestock products.

Honey

There is though, one by-product of the Soqotran vegetation which is very highly priced and as much in demand overseas as it is on the island, and that is Soqotran honey. Different honeys are distinguished on the island: pale ones, dark ones, spicy, 'hot', summer, post-rains ones, and so on. A few honeys, such as those based on Zizvphus flowers, for example, must, one supposes, be rather similar to the Yemeni ones gathered from the same species, but the difference is that the Soqotran honeys are all gathered from wild bees. Some honeys must be as unique to Soqotra as its vegetation: those gathered from trees such as Boswellia ameero, for example, or from Commiphora ornifolia or Boswellia Soqotrana; the honeys of the hot season gathered from Ailophyilus, Euphorbia arbuscula, Vernonia, Cyclista and Cleredendron, all of which come into flower at this time; the honey produced by the brief flowering of Flueqciea after the rare spring rains; and the potent honey of Buxus, reknowned locally for its great curative powers and prescribed for those with long standing chest complaints (which in Soqotra with its high incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis and bronchial disorders is a major problem). As elsewhere in the Middle East, honey is valued chiefly for its medicinal and restorative properties and is taken both internally and applied externally: it appears in many of the remedies for a broad spectrum of complaints.