2020 – Woody Minnich: Socotra

The November 2020 HSCSS club meeting featured a special presentation by guest speaker Woody Minnich, who connected via Zoom from his home in New Mexico with our online audience of about 50 members and visitors. Minnich’s engaging travelogue highlighted the plants – and animals – he saw during an extended trip to Socotra in November 2007.

Now inaccessible to Westerners, this 80-mile-wide island has diverse geology and climate zones that create both woodland and desert areas. The plants seen there range from ancient 30-foot-tall, tree-form dracaenas and adeniums “the size of a Volkswagen” to tiny succulents that escape foraging goats in cracks and crevices. Plants of the same species look and grow differently when found along the coast or in the steep-walled “wadi” canyons. Minnich also sprinkled in photos of birds and reptiles, and some of the people who call Socotra home.