September 28, 2018
THE MAJESTIC KULINCHÉ
The rancho's owner operates Genesis Eco-Resort in the little village of Ek Balam, and I bike there a couple times each week to recharge my computer batteries. The resort's grounds, though small, host an amazing assemblage of ornamental and native plants. I'm developing a Plant Find Guide for visitors so they can wander around, identify the plants, and read a little about them. The largest of all the plants within the compound's walls is a fine shade tree that looms over all others plants and buildings. Thing is, at first I didn't know what it was. You can see a view up through its gracefully spreading limbs at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928at.jpg
Our area is so arid that few trees grow this tall. This one must have been there when the resort was established, and maybe it's benefited from living within the resort's stone walls. The tree's leaves were all too high for a close look, but with a telephoto lens and PhotoShop I managed to see that the leaves were pinnately compound, looking somewhat like Pecan or hickory leaves, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928au.jpg
The only part of the tree affording a close look was the massive trunk, its bark shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928as.jpg
The bark is somewhat smooth, gray-brown, with isolated groups of small, squarish flakes loose on one end, arranged in irregular patterns.
These details weren't enough for me to make an identification, so in desperation I asked Don Enicio, one of the Maya workers, if he knew what it was. As if speaking of an old friend, he said, "It's Kulinché."
That happens a lot, and it's frustrating because usually the Maya names can't be traced to any particular species known by science. The Maya often give the same names to many look-alike plants, plus one species with different appearances may bear several names, and even the Maya view of plants is different from the scientific one, so name-giving goes by different rules according to them. For example, if one of two similar looking species habitually grows smaller than the other and bears more slender branches, it may be regarded as the female and the other the male, with both having the same name. That the "male" also produces fruit doesn't matter.
But, this time, having no better option, on the Internet I looked up Kulinché, and found an anthropological study of traditional Maya plant uses in which Kulinché was mentioned as an important timber tree. It was identified as ASTRONIUM GRAVEOLENS, a member of the Cashew/Poison Ivy Family, the Anacardiaceae. On the Internet, pictures of leaves and bark of Astronium graveolens couldn't better match ours, right down the the little squarish flakes loose on one end, arranged in irregular patterns.
Probably I haven't noticed Kulinché until now because, unlike Don Enicio to whom the growth form and bark were the main features, I need flowers and fruits so that technical descriptions can be used. And this tree's flowers and fruits appear so high up that I've simply never noticed them.
Kulinché is an important tree, famed for its well formed, strong wood, which is exported to many countries as a "tropical hardwood." It is durable, weathers well, is highly resistant to moisture absorption, and takes an excellent polish. I read that it's so overharvested in the wild that it's losing ground fast. With good growing conditions it can grow 30m tall (100ft) and its trunk can measure 100cm in diameter (3.3ft)
Kulinché has no commonly accepted English name, and of course its Maya name isn't used in other cultures throughout its distribution area extending from the moist lowlands of central Mexico south through all of Central America and most of South America. It's a "canopy tree," meaning that in well developed forests it's among the taller species. At its base enormous flaring buttresses often are formed.
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BONELLIA BUSH FRUITING
A fruiting, eight-ft-tall (2.5m), shrub or small tree has turned up fruiting along one of the rancho's cow trails through the woods. You can see the plant's green, lemon-like fruits and leathery, willow-like leaves at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928bb.jpg
I had no idea what it was, so began looking for good identification features, though without flowers I didn't have much hope for success. One of the first features that caught my attention was that the leaves were sharp-pointed at their tips, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928bc.jpg
While looking at that hard, dark little spine at the leaf's tip with a hand lens, I noticed that the leaf's venation also was curious. A few weakly defined, widely spaced secondary veins broke off the midrib in the regular way, but also the leaf body contained many indistinct lines running more or less parallel with the midrib, apparently independent of the secondary veins. Holding a leaf up against the Sun revealed the patterns seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928bd.jpg
We've seen bright points and short lines -- "pellucid" structures -- in leaves before, but nothing like this.
So far I was drawing a blank about this plant's identity, but maybe the fruits would show something special. Looking at the fruits, it was noticed that often they appeared in pairs, and that their fruit stems joined a flowering stem from which flowers had fallen, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928bh.jpg
This informed me that the flowering structure, the inflorescence, had been a raceme -- one with a central axis on which flowers on little stems, or pedicels, were borne. This was an important detail.
Breaking the top off one of the immature fruits revealed what's shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928be.jpg
Well, this is something special. Those pale yellow, beanlike items on the side of the waxy, orangish item occupying the fruit's center are immature seeds. They don't appear to be attached to the fruit's central core, like normal seeds in an apple or tomato, nor even to the fruit's exterior wall, as in a papaya. Now a fruit was cut from top to bottom, revealing what's seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928bf.jpg
The whitish item on the orangish item's side is an immature seed, and it clearly isn't attached to the wall, nor does the orangish item display a central core like a normal fruit. When the orangish item was nudged from the husk, the developing seeds' points of attachment became clear, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928bg.jpg
Ovules in flower ovaries, and the developing immature seeds that come later, are attached to the ovary or maturing fruit by a "funiculus," the plant equivalent to an umbilical cord. The part of the ovary or developing fruit to which the funiculus attaches is called the placenta. Among flowering plants, the placenta's structure is distinctive from family to family. If you find a plant with unusual "placentation," then you've found something special. And our cow-path bush's fruits displayed very unusual placentation.
Our plant's placentation is described as "free-central with ± globose (spherical) central axis," and such placentation is found in only a handful of plant families. You might find it interesting to compare what we've seen in the above photos with my altered photo of a drawing in my old Bailey's "Manual of Cultivated Plants," shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928bi.jpg
At the very helpful online Plant Families of the World Identification Key, our plant's amazing placentation and the few other details noted above were enough to introduce me to a plant family I'd never met before, the mostly New-World tropical THEOPHRASTACEAE, which I suppose to be known as the Theophrastus Family. According to the online Flora of North America, members of the Theophrastaceae are "often evergreen, usually glandular-punctate or with secretory resin canals appearing as dark dots or streaks... " which sheds light on those strange, shiny lines shown in our leaf close-up.
Once the family was known, it was easy to compare our pictures with those of the few members of the Theophrastaceae listed for the Yucatan. Our plant is a member of the genus Bonellia
Three or so Bonellia species are listed for the Yucatan. Our plant matches images of BONELLIA MACROCARPA, but the other species are so little documented and scantily described that I can't be completely sure that we have the species macrocarpa . Bonellia macrocarpa is by far the most commonly documented here, and I feel maybe 90% sure that that's what we have.
Bonellia macrocarpa is native to Mexico, the Caribbean area and Central America south into Honduras, growing in what the online Flora of North America calls thorn scrub, though our vegetation is a little lusher and taller than what I think of as scrub. The Flora of North America profiles it because it has escaped around Miami in Florida, finding a home in spoil deposits and fringes of mangrove forest. No English name is give for it, though in Spanish it's called "Pico de Gallo (Rooster Beak, for the sharp-pointed leaves), Limoncillo (Little Lemon), and Naranjillo (Little Orange). The fruits are eaten by wildlife but not humans. Sometimes the plants are grown as ornamentals.
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ANOTHER FACE OF PIGEONBERRY
At https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/pigeonby.htm we look at the commonly occurring, weedy Pigeonberry, which is closely related to the northern Pokeweed. I've grown accustomed to thinking of them as soft herbs with woody bases, usually about knee high but rarely growing head-high. This week along a cow trail through the woods I found what looked exactly like the normal Pigeonberry, but it was different. A flowering sprig of this plant is shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928rv.jpg
What was different about it was that the above sprout, instead of being part of a low herb, grew from a woody-based vine entangling ten or so feet of dilapidated fence, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928rw.jpg
Also, I remembered the flowers as having stamens whose filaments bent over the ovary, crisscrossing one another, as shown on our Pigeonberry page. The fence-plant's stamens spread widely, not crisscrossing at all, as seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928rx.jpg
The red fruits were the same, though, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928ry.jpg
Surely this was a second species of Pigeonberry, a second species of the genus Rivina. However, no second species was listed for the Yucatan.
It turns out that Pigeonberry can display forms ranging from small herbs to large, woody-based, much-branched vines, and it's all the same thing. A drawing in my old Bailey's Manual of Cultivated Plants also shows stamens crisscrossing over the ovary, and says that the plants only reach 3ft high (1m). Apparently Bailey didn't know how the plant behaves in the tropics, and his drawing was of a newly opened flower, like my earlier pictures. More mature blossoms have widely spreading stamens.
So, as with humans, it's easy to gain false first impressions of plants, so it's worth continuing to pay attention to details, even when you think you know all you need to.
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CASEARIA CORYMBOSA'S FRUITS MAKING BIRDS HAPPY
At https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/casearia.htm we look at a common forest tree here, Casearia corymbosa, with no commonly used English name. Nowadays the fruits are maturing, and partially eaten fruits and empty husks litter the ground below the trees. Some fruits are shown in various stages of disrepair at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928cc.jpg
Another shot shows that certain fruits do non-standard things, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928cd.jpg
Atop the exposed seed at the top left, a green sprout has formed, apparently because recent rains have kept the seed moist. This suggests that the seeds are ready to germinate as soon as they hit the forest floor. At the picture's bottom, right, two seeds have formed in a fruit that normally produces only one seed.
I was surprised that the fruits' husks split into three parts, to reveal such a red seed coat thinly covering a shiny, orangish seed. Judging from the many birds of various species gather in fruiting trees nowadays, the red seed coat does a good job attracting their attention, and encouraging them to swallow the whole seed, carry it away in their intestines, and plant it in poop deposited at some new location. But it's apparent that some birds just peck at the red seed coat, exposing the seed but not carrying it away.
Anyway, nowadays so many of these seeds litter the forest floor, and the trees are so common, that it's clear that the system functions very nicely.
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OLD MAN'S MILPA UPDATE
At https://www.backyardnature.net/n/p/180720.htm, in my "Old Man of the Milpa" essay, I introduce you to the Maya milpa system, and speak of an old man who, unlike most of his neighbors, refuses to plant an incomplete milpa, but rather plants his corn, beans and squash all together just as his forefathers did for millennia. On that page you can see what his milpa looked like not long after planting. Nowadays the corn is tall and tasseling out, as you can see at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928mp.jpg
The corn is about ten feet tall (3m), taller than North American corn, but not as productive. Soon after the pictures on the "Old Man" page were posted, the rainy season fizzled out and the milpa's bean vines died from lack of water. The squash and corn survived and now are doing very well.
When I pass by the milpa on early mornings, I hear rustlings in the field, and I'm pretty sure that it's birds and coatis (raccoon-like mammals) tearing into immature ears of corn, feeding. You can see an example of their work at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180928mq.jpg
The greenish corn grains haven't had time to develop, but already they are a little plump and juicy, and might provide a good meal to a Yucatan Jay, who is a famous corn-pilferer. These days more than ever you see coatis rushing across the highways, their tails stiffly held behind them and their bellies surely full of corn.
Because of the erratic seasons this year, most farmers in the area didn't even plant their milpas, having been unable to slash and burn their fields before the rains set in. However, the government pays their subsidies even if the crop has failed or, apparently, never planted. This year the coatis and corn-eating birds will pay special attention to the old man's milpa.
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THE BLUE-BLACK GRASSQUIT'S HARD WORK
At https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/blueblak.htm we meet the Blue-black Grassquit, a common finch- or bunting-like bird in this area's abandoned fields with plenty of tall grass. On that page we see something extraordinary the little bluish-black bird does: From an exposed perch in a grassy field, suddenly he'll issue a high, sharp tsik! and launch straight up into the air for a foot or two, then just as suddenly return to the perch. And this return to the perch is a head-first dive-bomb, not a peaceful settling down. Our pictures show it. They're worth reviewing.
I'm thinking about this nowadays because for the last month or so each time I've biked down the rancho trail, when passing a certain abandoned field, the same bird always has been in more or less the same place, every 15 seconds or so doing his jump/dive routine. How many thousands of jumps must he have accomplished in his life? And he's showing no sign of slowing down.
And, why does he insist on diving head-first, instead of just calmly settling back in place? I assume it's because he's showing other grassquits who might be looking that by doing it the hard way, he's obviously a fit, serious grassquit capable of protecting his territory, so don't come around trying to sneak a few of his grass seeds.
Of course many humans work just as hard, in their own ways, and one suspects that at the root of it all the reasons are the same: To keep up appearances, to impress the opposite sex and intimidate possible rivals, to maintain one's territory, to do "what's right."
This compulsion to make the extra effort that runs throughout Life of Earth is worth thinking about. I've come to believe that 99.99% of all we do and think, including such compulsive behavior, arises from genetic and social programming. We're like robots programmed to reproduce in a way that evolution proceeds in a certain direction, then to die and let the next generation do the same thing, ever refining the species.
Thinking like this might get depressing, except that there's that tiny part of our thinking and feeling not in the 99.99%. That part from time to time nudges us a little beyond where we'd normally go, inspires us to be a little more than we normally are, and enables us to think a little clearer than usual. That part not in the 99.99% is the fountain of natural gracefulness, of enduring art, and true spirituality.
With grassquits, that which is not part of the 99.99% concerns itself with refining the species, not the individual. But with higher-order mentality of the kind possessed by humans, that which is not part of the 99.99% manifests in the individual's mentality. This is an evolutionary leap from one dimension to another that underscores the importance the Universal Creative Impulse places on mentality. Or maybe it means that through mentality we can transcend the physical and enter the spiritual.
Ancient Oriental mystics developed meditation techniques enabling us to look into ourselves, identify that part of our mentality that is not part of the 99.99%, settle next to it, and bask in its radiance and perfection.
Yet, there are many kinds of meditation, many paths to the radiance and perfection. When I go to town past the weedy field, lovely and green in brilliant sunlight, with its hard-working little grassquit jumping, calling tsik!, and executing his perfect head-first dives, by intensely paying attention, that's my meditation.
Moreover, I'm finding that in this little world defined by what I behold, think about and feel, there must be infinite meditations, each as good as the next, as long as one really pays attention.
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TRAVELING
One again my visa for staying in Mexico is expiring and I must leave the country before returning with a new visa good for six months. I'd like to have permanent residency in Mexico but you may recall that last April I was rejected for not having enough money.
This time I'm trying for a new visa at a different crossing than I've used before and have no idea how it will turn out, or even -- during these times of annoyance with Trump policies -- they will give me six months. Anything less than six months hardly makes it worthwhile to keep coming and going, and I may have to look for a new country.
So, probably I'll be gone for only one or two weeks, but it's all up in the air. We'll just see what happens.
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Best wishes to all Newsletter readers,
Jim
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