In conversation with Bush Girl Medicine: The healing power of the Cayman Islands’ plants

I really learned about the islands’ plants from my mum. She was a big inspiration for me. I have always been interested in local plants, particularly native and endemic species. I started to get especially interested in the cultural uses of plants that would have sustained my own ancestors and previous generations of Caymanians. I also wanted to introduce people to flora they wouldn’t normally see in their everyday life, as some of our species are incredibly rare and unassuming.

Part of the isolation and the remoteness of Cayman in the early days meant if something went wrong, you had to be able to fix it yourself, and that included your health. Bush medicine is about being able to utilise specific plants, herbs, fruits and flowers to heal ailments, and in those early days in Cayman, this was an important part of maintaining health.

Caymaninan culture developed in close relationship with the natural environment because early Caymanians didn’t have access to many imported goods. There had to be a relationship with the land and sea in order to survive. When looking at plants and bush medicine, it’s interesting to consider the common names, rather than the scientific ones. These common names can change from district to district in Cayman and often contain important cultural information about what those plants were used for. We have a plant called headache bush that was used to treat headaches, and another called fever grass that was used for fevers; worry vine was used to calm anxiety and heart bush was used to fix heart issues. What would have happened around a traditional Cayman cottage is there would have been fruit trees in the yard, some beautiful flowers for aesthetic purposes and also a medicinal part of the garden, so the remedies were close by if you needed them.

The Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park has a heritage garden with a traditional Cayman cottage showing the typical layout of a Caymanian home, including a medicinal garden section. Over at the Farmers’ Market on Grand Cayman, you will find vendors selling medicinal herbs as well as fresh local produce. Also, the Teatime in Cayman company, brews teas with blends inspired by local botanicals. Pedro St James is a historic site where you can learn about how early Caymanians lived.

A lot of people see those glossy images of Seven Mile Beach, but once you go off the beaten track it’s a completely different place. In the interior of Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, you’re faced with a terrain of tangled, thick undergrowth and canopies where you will hear parrots flying overhead and see land crabs in the undergrowth.

The botanic park is one of the more accessible options for getting a glimpse of that wild Cayman. Its Woodland Trail leads you through a variety of terrains but is very flat and easy to walk. Another accessible option here is the Orchid Boardwalk. In May and June, the orchids are out in full force and you can see the Cayman national flower, the endemic wild banana orchid.

The National Trust has the Mastic Trail in Grand Cayman, an historic walking path originally used to connect the northern side of the island with the southern side of the island before the roads were built. It’s an incredible option for its variety of landscapes, from mangrove wetlands to rocky, dry forests and everything in between.

Little Cayman also has a nature trail maintained by the National Trust, with a boardwalk displaying the coastal shrubland environment where rock iguanas nest. Cayman Brac is just a nature lover’s paradise with wellmaintained trails, a parrot reserve and lots of caves and sinkholes.

The Cayman Collection Centre is a newly opened facility displaying our tangible cultural history. There’s lots of cultural artefacts there that haven’t been displayed before. I would also really encourage people to check out the National Gallery. It’s a visual art museum, but it’s so much more than that; it has poetry slam nights, immersive exhibits and lots of work done within the local community. It also hosts travelling exhibits on the sister islands and is a great place to experience the artistic expression of the Cayman’s cultural identity.

Anyone travelling to Cayman automatically supports our natural environment by paying a fee which goes straight into our Environment Protection Fund, a key resource for preserving land in Cayman.

Be sure to visit places that are off the beaten path. The Cayman Islands National Attractions Authority has good information on these lesser-known spots. Make sure you visit the sister islands (Little Cayman and Cayman Brac); there is so much hidden history there waiting to be explored, as well as incredible diving, hiking and a very different pace of life.

And of course, bring your own water bottle – the water in Cayman is fine to drink – and bring a reusable shopping bag.

To walk nature trails such as the Mastic Trail, as well as the trails on the other islands, is a wonderful way to spend your time, because they really give an insight into a natural world we still know so little about. Collectively, the 14 UK Overseas Territories contain 90% of the UK’s biodiversity, and a recent study has predicted that there may be as many as 70,000 new species to be discovered. People think because these islands are so small, we must have seen everything, but just two years ago I was involved in the discovery of new plants in the Cayman Islands.

My advice is to walk those trails with a guide from the National Trust, or to have an expert guided tour at the botanic park and to seek out a different perspective on what you’re seeing. It may look like a bunch of green bush, but when you start to really look at what these individual plants are, then you get an understanding of the cultural connections between Caymanians and nature, and can delve into a completely different side of our beautiful islands.