Botanical Monkeys

It all started out a few hours ago when I picked a book off the Plant Systematics Laboratory's library shelf.

Gardening in the Lowlands of Malaya by R. E. Holttum

Through which, another book was introduced.

Wayside trees of Malaya by E. J. H. Corner

What really interest me at first was how the photographs of the trees in the plates stated the location where the tree was sighted and photographed. The heritage trailer in me was thrilled!

And the strange preface:
Malayan Trees Who Cares to Know,
Upon His Shoulder Sits a Berok

What strange language, reminiscent of Lewis Caroll and John Lennon kind of Jabberwocky.

And what is a Berok?

On the dust jacket of the book was a ink sketch of a tree branch with an ape-like creature, tied to a string down to the ground, reaching down and a twig and leaf falling from it. What strange imagery for a book about trees!

Reading the book, we see photographs, not only of trees and also specimens. Which made me wonder, how did he get this specimen? He was mentioned to be a tall man, but he couldn't have been able to reach that high. There probably wasn't technology to reach up there. He couldn't have climbed, being an Englishman of that period and all.

I did a google search on the word "berok" and then it all made sense.

A pig-tailed ape. Macaca nemestrina. Botanical monkeys.

A review by Joseph Ewan on Corner's (1992) book entitled "Botanical monkeys" states: Plant collectors are bipedal but Corner has made it quadrupedal. In all the history of botany there has been nothing like enlisting monkeys to harvest flowers and fruit from tall trees.

=) Thrilling? Corner seems like a really interesting kind of botanist/Professor. haha.