The teak trees that are part of the living fence to the right are shedding their big leaves, as teak trees do in dry season. Dry season is not like autumn in North America in the sense that most trees shed their leaves then. Some tropical trees shed leaves in the dry season, some at various times in the rainy season, such that there's never a time of the year when Panamanian forests are bare of leaves.

Teak is a species native to Southeast Asia rather than the Americas. It has been widely planted in Panama for various reasons. One of its advantages is that it grows quickly, and is thus it provides an economical way to shade out the undesirable elephant grass that was brought in from Southeast Asia in the 1950s to shore up the banks of the canal but which has since become an obnoxious invasive weed. In Embera and Wounaan country, people like the high heat that teak chips throw off when used as cooking fuel, and basket weavers use dyes made from teak. The trees are also planted by folks who get reforestation tax breaks and figure that the high-quality wood will fetch good prices at some point.

The problem with the latter usage is that, due to soil and other environmental conditions, Panamanian teak is not as flexible as the Southeast Asian product, and thus isn't so useful for making furniture. It does, however, make great floor boards.

Teak from living fences is a Panamanian lumber mill nightmare. Over the years the trees grow over the wire and nails, and if someone tries to cut trees taken from a living fence into boards, these pieces of metal pose a potentially deadly industrial hazard.

Photo by Eric Jackson