October 19, 2018
YELLOW MOMBIN FRUITING
Lately, along the rocky forest trail that I jog each morning at dawn, in a certain spot the ground has been littered with the peanut-size items shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181019sr.jpg
Those are seeds, and the reason they're covered with dirt and tatters of dry leaves is that the fruit's skin and flesh have been removed, leaving the seeds sticky. During the night, animals fed on the fallen fruits, leaving the seeds. Probably the main critters eating them are the coatis, or tejones, which nowadays are roaming in large groups. My Maya friend Juan told me that this week he saw a pack of about 50 coatis, mostly young, crossing the road as he biked to work. Earlier this month in Guatemala's Petén region tree species was producing fruits, and I happened to photograph some with their skins and flesh intact, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181019ss.jpg
On the forest trail, it was easy to see which tree was dropping the fruits, for overhead there was just one big tree overarching the whole area, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181019sp.jpg
The telephoto lens showed that the tree's leaves were pinnately compound, something like walnut leaves, as seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181019sq.jpg
This is an important tree species in humid, lowland forests throughout tropical America and goes by many names. In English it's often called Yellow Mombin or Hog Plum. In Mexico the main name is Jobo (HO-bo). It's SPONDIAS MOMBIN, a good old Linneaus name, and a member of the Cashew, Mango or Poison Ivy Family, the Anacardiaceae.
At https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/spondias.htm we have an extensive page on the closely related, much cultivated Spondias purpurea, known in English as Spanish Plum or Red Mombin, in Spanish as ciruela, the word for "plum." Spanish Plum trees, however, are much smaller than those of Yellow Mombin -- up to 8m (26ft) as opposed to the Yellow Mombin's 20m (66ft) -- while Spanish Plum fruits are larger. The flowering clusters, or inflorescences, also are very different. Spanish Plum trees are commonly cultivated, while Yellow Mombin trees seldom are.
I first encountered Yellow Mombin while spending a few months among a family in Tamazunchale, San Luis Potosí, in east-central Mexico, gathering experiences for my first book, On the Road to Tetlama. My Nahuatl-speaking host one day brought me a tasty, even somewhat fizzy drink that at first I assumed to be a commercial product, maybe something like the old Kool-Aid powder that was mixed with water. However, my friend told me he'd made it from Jobo fruits being sold in traditional markets at that season. Later I found that not only drinks but also jellies and sherbets are made from the sharply tasting, somewhat acid fruits.
Belonging to the family in which Poison Ivy occurs, you can imagine that Yellow Mombin produces interesting chemical compounds. In traditional medicine the fruit has been used as a diuretic, and to bring down fever. The tree's bark is astringent and is used for diarrhea, hemorrhoids, gonorrhea and other problems. From the flowers a tea is brewed for stomach ache, cystitis, and such.
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WHITE WATERLILY
A couple of weeks ago, on October 1, I checked into the campground of El Rosario National Park adjacent to Sayaxché, in Guatemala's lowland northern department of the Petén. The campground overlooks a pretty little lake, and here and there along the lake's margin waterlilies were flowering. You can see one at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181019ny.jpg
Good fieldmarks for this species are the low, broad "teeth" along the floating leaves' margins, and the flower's white, slender petals. I think the white splotches along the leaves' margins are precipitated calcite, because the bedrock there is limestone and the water was very limy. A close-up of the blossom is seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181019nz.jpg
At first I thought the black specks dotting the inside faces of the blossom's petal-like calyx lobes was dirt. However, then I recalled that in 2011 we met this species in mangrove swamps along the Caribbean coast of the southern Yucatan Peninsula, near Mahahual. At that time we saw that one name given for the species, besides White Waterlily, is Dotleaf Waterlily. The "dirt" on the blossom is those dots extending onto the calyx. Our page for the species is at https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/dotleaf.htm
Back then I mentioned that in the 1970s I'd worked with an archaeologist interested in the White Waterlily's role in Maya art and spirituality. Nowadays more information on the matter is available, as you can see on Entheology.Com's White Water Lily page.
There it's noted that in ancient Maya iconography the rain god Theotihuacan often was depicted with water lily leaves, buds and flowers, usually held in his mouth. A Mayan hieroglyph known as the "Jaguar Water Lily glyph" apparently represents a transformed shaman whose transcendent state was aided by the use of White Waterlily flowers. Apparently the flowers are somewhat hallucinogenic, and in recent times have been used by some recreationally.
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ORNAMENTAL VANILLA ORCHID VINE
On September 28, as I spent the day in Mérida visiting my friends Eric and Mary before taking the overnight bus south to Guatemala, I toured their backyard garden, which is more interesting year by year. A succulent vine creeping up the house's wall with help of braces caught my attention, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181019vn.jpg
Up closer the leaves were similar to those of many orchids, but the main feature cuing me to the orchid identity was the thick, white aerial roots seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181019vo.jpg
In Mexico when you find a vining orchid you think of the genus Vanilla -- the orchid producing fruiting pods from which vanilla flavor is extracted commercially. Eric's vine wasn't producing flowers, but it did bear a cluster of pods, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181019vm.jpg
Some of those pods are turning brown, apparently to fall off, and the others are so slender that they don't look as if they will produce seeds. Maybe the flowers wen't visited by the right pollinators.
About 50 species of the genus Vanilla are recognized, all native to tropical regions around the world. Ornamental vanilla-vine cultivars have been developed, so when you find a Vanilla growing in a garden like Eric's, you can never be sure which species you're dealing with. However, the one on Eric and Mary's house is very similar to one we photographed at Yaxunah just south of Chichén Itzá here in the central Yucatan, as you can see at https://www.backyardnature.net/travel/yaxunah/vanilla.jpg
Our wild species is Vanilla fragrans, distributed from southern Mexico though much of Central America, and it's a good bet that what's growing on Eric and Mary's house is that species.
You can read how vanilla flavoring is making a comeback, and learn about its history, on the TopTropicals.Com Vanilla Page
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MEDITATION
Different people think of "meditation" in different ways. To some it's sitting cross legged focusing on an inner center of peace, while I, for instance, speak of the organism-identification/ looking-up-the-name/ digesting-the-information/ writing-about-it process that occupies most of my time as a meditation. So, what's "meditation"?
The New Oxford American Dictionary installed on my Kindle reader defines meditation as "The action or practice of meditating." So, what does the word "meditate" mean? Oxford says:
"think deeply or focus one's mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation."
That covers a lot of ground. My identification/ looking-up/ writing process qualifies because it focus my mind on specific parts of Nature, and I do it not only as an innocent way to kill time as I approach my end, but also for spiritual purposes.
The reason I'm bringing up "meditation" here is that lately letters from people I know in the US and Europe have been expressing more and more disquiet, even desperation and rage, at the course their respective societies are taking. Thing is, being upset hurts the one feeling upset, and accomplishes nothing. Those who say that being upset has a value in that it provokes us to take action against what's upsetting, should remember that it's best to fight when you have a clear, focused, well informed mind, not in a discombobulated mental state. Therefore: Meditation.
In the entire Universe, for humans on Earth, there's nothing more appropriate to meditate on than the Earth's Natural processes and things. When you meditate -- calmly pay close attention to -- the plants, animals and ecology around you, eventually, somehow, you gain a perspective from which even the most saddening events can be endured. I can't say how this happens or why, only that it's been my experience that it does.
Another reason for meditating on Nature is that all our thoughts and feelings are profoundly affected by our hormonal states, our brains' ever-changing electrochemical environment, the brain neuron connections we've inherited, etc. In contrast, the things of Nature have evolved refining themselves for millions and billions of years, their evolution taking into consideration such matters as the hostility and rapacity of certain other beings, of all the tricks a mind can play, and the effects of reality's chance events. What better to meditate on -- to anchor our thoughts on -- than something that has survived for so long, and something that, when we pay attention, strikes us as beautiful and good?
Of course, meditation won't undo processes at work in the world right now that will make things worse for future citizens, and it won't keep Life on Earth in a state that in the future we might recognize or find appealing. It merely calms the spirit and focuses the mind, which is needed when, among other things, one wishes to mount a defense against an enemy.
*****
Best wishes to all Newsletter readers,
Jim
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