September 14, 2018

A FLOWERING MAKAL
At https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/makal.htm we meet Makal, one of the most important of traditional Maya crops. Probably Makal is a cultivar developed by Meso-American indigenous people from the South American Elephant Ear, Xanthosoma sagittifolium, though that's not for sure. Here at the rancho, Elephant Ear and Makal sometimes have been confused with one another and I also have had a hard time being sure which is which. Over the last year the identities have become clearer to me.

But first, the big Elephant Ear, much planted in tropical gardens for their striking large leaves, often produces attractive flowering structures of the Jack-in-the-pulpit kind, as shown on our Elephant Ear page. Until this week I'd believed that the Makal cultivar was always sterile because of the many I've seen none has ever been flowering. You can see that flowering structure, somewhat smaller than on most Elephant Ears, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914mm.jpg

The six-ft-high (3m) Makal bearing the flowering structure is https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914mk.jpg

In the flower picture we see a white, fingerlike spike, or "spadix," partially enveloped by a white, hoodlike "spathe." The visible part of the spadix bears hundreds of tiny male flowers. Notice that the spathe constricts near its midsection, enlarging and becoming green below. That part of the spathe loosely envelops the lower part of the spadix, which bears female flowers. Eventually the male-flower-bearing part will wither away while the lower green part will expand and the spathe will be filled with the remaining bottom of the spadix which, if sexual fertilization has taken place, will bear numerous fruits -- like corn on a cob inside its husk. At our plant's bottom, just below the flowering structure there's an old structure from which the spadix has fallen, and the lower part expanded, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914mn.jpg

The Maya tell me that what distinguishes Makal from Elephant Ear is that the latter is uniformly light green throughout, while Makal's leaf stems, or petioles, are slightly tinged with purple along their edges. You can see these purplish edges at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914mo.jpg

There you also see that the petiole bases also bear a silvery bloom -- they're "glaucous" -- not seen on Elephant Ears.

I hesitated to accept these field marks as certain distinguishing marks for Makal because I thought I'd seen purplishness on certain races of Elephant Ear, but maybe I hadn't. Anyway, on my own I've noticed a difference in leaf shape. The leaves of both Makal and Elephant Ears are deeply lobed at their bases, lending the leaves an arrowhead shape. On Makal the lobes are rounded while on Elephant Ears they're more pointy -- though sometimes leaves with intermediate lobes are see -- as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914ml.jpg

I read that when Europeans arrived in the Americas, Makal already was being eaten by the natives from southern Mexico throughout Central America to Bolivia in South America. Over this large area, domestication from the Elephant Ear may have taken place at various localities, and preparation of the tuberous underground stem always including of roasting and cooking the tubers, to eliminate irritant calcium oxalate crystals and saponins.

Makal, under other names such as Tannia, Yautia and New Cocoyam, is one of two members of the Arum or Jack-in-in-pulpit Family with world importance as an "energy food." The other species, known variously as Taro, Cocoyam, Dasheen and other names -- it's Colocasia esculenta. In some places, especially West Africa, Makal is replacing Taro as the main food, because it produces more. Its tuberous, underground stems contain between 15 and 39% carbohydrates, 2-3% protein, and 70-77% water. This nutritional content is comparable to the potato, and probably the cooked tuber easier to digest. Makal's young leaves also can be eaten, but I've not tried that, having so much Chaya handy.

I'm growing Makal now and hope that in a few months I can show you how it's harvested, prepared and eaten.

*****

THE NARROWLY ENDEMIC CASEARIA SUBSESSILIFLORA
Beside the trail through scrubby forest leading to the rancho, a small tree bore small clusters of greenish-white flowers unusually tiny flowers, as you can see at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914cs.jpg

The flowers were so diminutive that I doubted my camera could provide much service, but with the help of Photoshop I did manage the image at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914ct.jpg

In the center of the picture's bottom blossom we see a spherical stigma head, and below that the ovary. It looks like the ovary is surrounded at its base by a swollen disk, and I think I see more than five stamens.

That wasn't much information to go on, but the exceptionally small flowers and the leaves' weakly scalloped, or "crenate," margins reminded me of a commonly occurring tree here, Casearia corymbosa of the tropical Flacourtia Family, our page for which is at https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/casearia.htm

On that page we see that a very interesting feature of the Casearia genus is that its leaves, when held against the Sun, display between their veins many bright dots and streaks. Several plant families display such dots -- the Citrus Family (Rutaceae) and the Myrtle Family (Myrtaceae) foremost among them. However, those streaks are extraordinary. Botanists say that such translucing entities are "pellucid." This pellucid dotting and streaking is fairly common in the Flacourtia Family, so I held one of our trail leaves against the sun and saw what's shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914cu.jpg

This leaf's pellucid streaks aren't as long as those in Casearia corymbosa leaves, but they're present amid all those dots. The trail tree's leaves are much smaller and narrower than those of Casearia corymbosa so I wondered if this might be a second Casearia corymbosa species.

And, sure enough, a second species is listed for the Yucatan. It's CASEARIA SUBSESSILIFLORA, in the whole world occurring only in the Yucatan Peninsula, and only in a limited part of it. So, this was a good find.

The earlier Casearia corymbosa apparently is graced by no English name, and this much lesser known species doesn't have one, either. Even the local experts can't find a Spanish or Maya name for it, and I can find no further information about it at all on the Internet. In fact, I can find no close-up pictures of the flower, so maybe ours will help future experts. Casearia corymbosa is listed as "needing attention" with regards to its vulnerability to extinction, as would be any species with such a small distribution in an area constantly being slashed-and-burned.

*****

ESCOBILLA FLOWERING
At https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/zapoteca.htm we look at a small Bean-Family member, one of those species that is basically a tree but which likes to lean on other vegetation, becoming almost viny. It's known as Escobilla, or "Little Broom," and on our page we have pictures of its interesting legume-type fruit, but no flower. This week, Escobilla is flowering, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914zp.jpg

The flowers surprise me, because the Bean Family is divided into three subfamilies, and Escobilla's twice-compound leaves with moderate-size, round-tipped leaflets had led me to guess that the species is a member of the Caesalpinia Subfamily. However, the flowers grouped in bunches to form a ±spherical head is typical of the Mimosa Subfamily. In plant classification, flower features nearly always are more important than vegetative ones, and that holds true here, because Escobilla belongs to the Mimosa/ Acacia Subfamily. A closer look at the flowering head is shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914zq.jpg

There you can see that flowering has just begun, because of the numerous clusters of unopened flower buds at the tips of flowering-head stems, or peduncles. The fully developed flowering head's fuzziness consists of very many long, slender stamens. A single flower removed from the head shows that each blossom produces many more than ten stamens, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180914zr.jpg

*****

PURIFYING WATER WITH BLEACH
During my early days of traveling in developing countries often I purified my canteens of drinking water with a few drops of bleach taken from my mother's laundry room in Kentucky. I'd read how many drops to use, and it seemed to work in my case. I didn't like the chlorine taste, but it was better than having diarrhea.

I think I remember back then reading on the bleach's ingredients list that it contained nothing but water and sodium hypochlorite, the chemical formula of which is NaOCl. When I read the ingredients on bottles of bleach now sold in the US, other chemical compounds are included, so I wouldn't use US bleach now, without checking out those other compounds.

However, the cheap bleach sold throughout Mexico in green, plastic bottles and known as Cloraluz lists only two ingredients: water and sodium hypochlorite, just like the old days in the US. The bottle even tells us that to disinfect drinking water, add four drops of bleach to each liter (quart) of water. To purify vegetables, soak for five minutes in water to which 22 drops have been added per liter of water.

Sodium hypochlorite isn't a perfect water purifier. For one thing, it can irritate the lining of certain sensitive stomachs and lead to mild diarrhea. Still, the US's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- the CDC -- says this:

"Although a number of other disinfectants (calcium hypochlorite, ozone, UV, solar disinfection) and treatment processes (filters, slow sand filtration) have been investigated, sodium hypochlorite appears to offer the best mix of low cost, ease of use, safety, and effectiveness in areas where there is enough water to drink and water is not excessively turbid."

The CDC page with much more information on Sodium Hypochlorite used as a water purifier is at www.cdc.gov/safewater/chlorination-faq.html

Sodium Hypochlorite takes care of bacterial agents, but not chemical compounds introduced into water by air pollution or chemical contamination of underground aquifers.

Still, in a time when many seemingly knowledgeable people are predicting a collapse of the world monetary system at any time, with attendant disruption of production and delivery systems of potable water and food, it's a good idea to keep in mind the purifying value of sodium hypochlorite.

*****

CAMPING BESIDE THE SEA
On Wednesday friends came through, inviting me to go with them to the Yucatan's northern coast. While they spent two days taking the flamingo-viewing tour, eating seafood and strolling along the breezy Malacón at Río Lagartos, I camped on a beach far from town, in splendid isolation.

With alpine camping, you feel like you're atop everything, and cast an understanding eye over what's spread below. At the coast, you feel on the edge of things, away from the interior's hurried clutter and tension, yet also beyond reach of the sea's submerged, unseen powers and dangers. The beach is simplified, elemental: Pure sunlight, pure wind, pure sand, booming of breakers, and the call of the gull, all no more or less than what they seem.

In late afternoon, the wind is stiff and the crashing of waves unrelenting. I feel cozy inside the tent, cloud-looking, sky-looking, wave-looking through the see-through netting. At this hour there's sharpness to everything, but the tent is a soft, yielding cocoon, and this is what the waves say:

"Don't let the regularity of our rhythmic comings lull you, for we belong to powerful storms and currents beyond the horizon. And the vast, impetuous sea itself is but a pool beneath the air-ocean, the lord of all storms and mountain-high waves. Together we sea and air may send against you winds, waves and currents that will undo all around you, reconfigure the whole coastline, as we have done throughout all time, and will do soon again. All about you at this moment is temporary, about to be removed. Pay attention. It and you soon will be gone."

At dusk, my old ears can't hear the high-frequency sounds I know to be there, of wind whooshing through nearby scrub, of sea-returning wave-water hissing over sand, but I hear the lower frequencies very well, the pounding of waves, the flapping of tent fabric, and now thunder from storm clouds on a purple-bruised horizon -- just brutal undertones drained of airy melodies.

Yet, this also is good: Deep, honest, rhythmic, throbbing reality laid bare, and I am satisfied with my temporal presence within it.

*****

Best wishes to all Newsletter readers,

Jim

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