By Hugh Karunanayake
It was in the mid 1950s that I first discovered the enchantment of cacti and succulents. I cannot exactly recall the inspiration for my interest in this most unusual group within the plant kingdom, but I do remember seeing the Giant Saguaro(Carnegia gigantea) in the western movies that we used to see in Colombo in those days. A good number of those movies were filmed in the deserts of Arizona or California with huge specimens of giant candelabra like cacti some reaching up to 30 meters in height, in the background.
Very impressive to a young mind not familiar with such awesome plant shapes and sizes. In Ceylon of the 1950s there were a few species of cacti growing wild but quite healthily in the arid zone of the country, places like Hambantota, Batticaloa, and in Puttalam and Mannar where the columnar cacti were used as fence plants.(Trichocereus marginata for example) There were also the opuntias – the flat round padded plants, some with sharp spines and one particular variety without spines. The diversity and their attractiveness was however rather limited. It is believed that there were no indigenous cacti in Ceylon and the few species that were there were introduced over the years notably during the Portuguese and Dutch colonial times.
An enterprising nurseryman Ian Oorloff who ran a very successful nursery called Trevine Gardens in Layards Road stepped into the scene in the early 1950s . Noting the quietly increasing interest in cacti he started importing fairly large stocks of seedling cacti from hothouses in Germany. Each year he would import his stock and a small advertisement would appear on page 3 of the Daily News informing everyone of the new arrivals. The first few shipments did not move out as quickly as he expected, but the word got around rapidly and all his imports in subsequent years were snapped up during the first few days after the appearance of the advertisement.
Ian used to visit Britain and the continent each year during those days of steamship travel and his enterprise stimulated the interest in growing cacti as a hobby. Sadly he passed away I think sometime around 1958 or so during a visit to the UK, the victim of a medical misadventure as I recall, where something went wrong with the anaesthesia used by his dentist for a tooth extraction I believe.
By 1954 there were a small band of cacti growers in Sri Lanka resident not only in Colombo but in places then called “outstations” such as Hatton (the collection of Fred Labrooy who lived in Poolbank Bungalow ), Kadugannawa ( Lynn Dassenaike’s collection) and even Godakawela where arguably the best collection of cacti in the country was located. That collection belonged to Sam Elapata who was better known as an expert on wild elephants and their habits among other things.
During this time there was a small but growing group of enthusiasts in the Colombo area as well . Outstanding among them was Vicki Atukorale who lived down Peterson Lane, Wellawate and was well known as a tropical fish breeder and wild life enthusiast and was a close friend of Sam Elapata. An eloquent eight page tribute to the memory of that extraordinary naturalist was published in Loris (the Jounal of the Wild Life and Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka) of June 2000 nearly 30 years after his death.
Most of the serious cacti fanciers in Colombo knew each other and there was some swapping and exchange of information and introduction of new enthusiasts to the group. It all came to a peak with a small notice which appeared in the Sunday Observer of the time (the year was 1954) requesting persons wishing to form a society for cactus growers to meet at the YMCA in the Fort on a nominated day. The notice was inserted by Mansoor Ghouse who was then working as a sales executive at Cargills Ltd.
He was later to become an expert in management education. There were about 20 people who met at the YMCA on the appointed date and there was unanimous agreement that a body by the name Ceylon Cactus and Succulent Society be formed. The foundation members were deemed to be those who met at that first meeting and I, a student in my late teens was easily the youngest foundation member.
The other foundation members whose names I can recall were Lynn Dassenaike from Doolhena Estate Kadugannawa, Vicky Atukorale, Irwin Dassenaike, Mansoor Ghouse , Damascene Perera. EDW(Archer) Jayewardene (father of Jayantha Jayawardene), Dr VC de Silva, Mervyn Ondaatje ( the father of Michael Ondaatje, the Booker prize winner).The work of the Society must have had some impact on Michael because he devoted almost a chapter to it in his prize winning book “Running in the family”.
I cannot remember the presence of Sam Elapata at the foundation meeting but he did subsequently invite members of the Society to view his cactus garden in Godakawela. Mansoor Ghouse the Secretary/Treasurer was at the time living in Nawala and I recall visiting his home to see what was then a possible nucleus of a collection of cacti that he was nurturing.
The Cactus Society went off to a flying start and a few visits were organised by the Society to view the cactus and succulent collection in the Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya which had a very good assortment of plants grown in a glasshouse. I did not go on any of those tours but when a few friends decided to visit Sam Elapata’s collection I grasped the opportunity. By that time he had visited my parental home on a few occasions and was quite impressed with the conditions under which I grew my plants which were in a partially protected conservatory.
Our visit to Alpitiya, Godakawela where Sam lived was quite an event for me. Sam Elapata lived in a sprawling ancient bungalow standing in the middle of a garden full of exotic plants. He was a keen orchid fancier and was very knowledgeable on elephants and their behaviour and was associated with the last elephant kraal held in Sri Lanka in Panamure in 1950. .His cacti were growing in a large bed possibly about 10 metres in length and about two metres wide. The bed was raised about a metre above ground level so that the plants could be seen closer to eye level when standing beside .
It was quite impressive and the four of us who went that day were simply spellbound at the sight of the collection. Later that evening after dinner at the Walawwa he displayed his remarkable collection of precious stones including a massive cat’s eye the size of a pigeon’s egg, while relating with relish the story behind each one of them. Quite enthralling indeed as we listened to him as he related those fascinating stories interspersed with puffs at his pipe. It was also there that I saw the lovely 300 year old blue and white VOC plate which may have been the spark that kindled my own subsequent interest in 18 th Century porcelain. Interestingly enough the same plate is now at the home of an assiduous antique collector in Colombo where I last saw it a few years ago. Sam Elapata passed away over 40 years ago but I often wonder what became of the unique Sam Elapata collection of cacti.
As for the Society, it lasted for about two or three years and then wound up possibly due to lack of interest and enthusiasm. The country was heading into foreign exchange problems, imports were banned, and the interest in imported plants dwindled rapidly. On my visits to Sri Lanka (Karunanayake now lives in Australia) during the last four decades I have not observed any resurgence of interest in this most fascinating group within the plant kingdom. On the contrary in Australia there are several societies, regular plant exhibitions, and several quarterly publications devoted entirely to growing cacti and succulents.
They organise visits to the deserts of Baja California, Arizona, and Mexico for enthusiasts to view massive specimens growing in their natural habitat. The climate in Australia especially in areas which do not experience harsh winters is most conducive to growing cacti in outdoor locations. Consequently one finds large specimens growing luxuriantly in almost similar condition to those growing in their native habitat in the USA and Mexico. But the seasonal monsoonal wet weather in Sri Lanka is very inimical to successful growth of cacti in the open where a sheltered but sunny position is essential. From all accounts it appears that interest in growing cacti in Sri Lanka is well and truly dead and buried unless someone comes up with evidence to suggest a la Mark Twain that “rumours of its death have been greatly exaggerated”!