December 21, 2018

JUAN'S AX HANDLE
One morning this week I found Juan, one of the rancho's workers, using his machete to fashion an ax handle from a slender section of tree trunk. You can see the operation at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221bj.jpg

The wood was exceptionally heavy and compact, and its grain was straight. When I asked Juan what tree he'd cut for the handle, he gave the Maya name of Bojum (bo-HOOM). Since I didn't know what a Bojum was, he took me to a medium-sized tree passed each time I go to the garden. It was the same tree we've featured flowering at https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/cordia2.htm

There we use the name Princewood, Cordia alliodora, and our pictures show the tree handsomely laden with flowers last March. But now in December all that remains of that flowering are some brown, withered, finger-long, dried-up raceme stems with old flower pedicels, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221bo.jpg

Last March the flowers so dazzled me that I hardly noticed the tree's leaves. Now I noticed that the leaves exhibited interesting features. For example, their blades tended to be spotted with lichen patches, and the older ones curled. Also, their petioles were exceptionally long, as you can see at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221bk.jpg

The leaves' bases were consistently asymmetrical -- attaching to the petiole at different places, as seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221bl.jpg

The long petioles themselves were unusual in that they took on the color and corky texture of the surface of the twigs they were attached to, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221bn.jpg

The leaves' blades were thick and leathery, with the veins not showing very well, but if held against the Sun the venation showed itself to be of that kind whose secondary veins curve forward to connect to the secondary veins above it, as illustrated at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221bm.jpg

I had wondered why this species was called Princewood, and now Juan with his ax handle -- which turned out to be a fine one -- has shown me. The tree simply produces wonderfully strong, regularly formed wood.

Those who know Temperate Zone plants might find it surprising that this imposing tree belongs to the Borage Family, the Boraginaceae, for up north the best-known species in that mostly herbaceous family are such wildflowers and herbs as bluebells, forget-me-nots, gromwell, comfrey, heliotrope and hounds-tongue. In the tropics, plants often behave very differently from their temperate-zone relatives.

*****

"RED CEDAR'S" SURPRISING FRUITS
In a fencerow along the dirt trail to the pigpen, a small tree with pinnately compound leaves like a northern walnut tree, caught my eye with its several green, mothball-size fruits, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221tr.jpg

The immature fruits were unusual in that they clustered singly in small groups at the ends of long, slender, woody stems, or peduncles, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221ts.jpg

Viewed up close, the fruit's oddly bumpy husk proves to be covered with short, velvety hair, and most fruits were clearly divided into three sections, or carpels, like the one shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221tt.jpg

When the immature husk was partially removed, a nice surprise was found inside, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221tu.jpg

So this is one of those fruits that when mature splits into three sections revealing seeds with bright red coats inviting birds and other animals to come eat, in the hope that the seeds will be dispersed into new territory.

These were all fine field marks that probably would make identification easy. Still a feature of the twigs was so pronounced that it deserved to be documented, so you can see a twig tip at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221tv.jpg

Most tropical trees don't display such prominent buds and leafscars, and the reddish-brown covering of hairs also is special. The well formed buds indicate that the species drops its leaves about now, during the early dry season, and new leaves, flowers and stems will emerge from the buds once the rains return in June or thereabouts. Unlike most Temperate Zone trees, the buds don't bear scales -- are "naked" -- surely because here we don't have freezing temperatures to deal with.

The combination of a tree with pinnately compound leaves producing capsular fruits bearing three seeds narrowed the possible plant families down to a small handful, among which was the Mahogany Family, the Meliaceae, and that seemed like the best bet. Checking the list of members of that family occurring in the Yucatan quickly brought forth TRICHILIA HIRTA, a good old no-nonsense Linnaeus name. The species name hirta refers to the hairiness.

The only English name I can find for it is "Red Cedar," which seems completely inappropriate since it's not a cedar, nor is there much red about it. But that's the way with common names.

Linnaeus, the Swedish "Father of Botany" who back in the 1700s originated the practice of designating organisms by their genus and species name, the "binomial nomenclature" system, probably knew about Trichilia hirta because early plant explorers in the American tropics found it to be a well known tree here. The species is distributed from central Mexico and the Caribbean south through central America to Paraguay and Brazil in South America.

Belonging to the Mahogany Family, it's not surprising that its wood is exceptionally fine for woodworking, but in some places it's highly regarded because its young leaves when strewn on dirt floors and hut entrances repel fleas, lice and other such pests. The Maya I talk to don't know about that use, though.

Traditionally, leaf juice has been used medicinally, rubbing it onto arms and legs to relieve convulsions. The root is a strong purgative. In Cuba the leaves are boiled in water to prepare baths to cure ulcers. A handful of young sprouts boiled in water provides a tea of which a small cup should be taken every three hours for asthma, bronchitis and bronchial pneumonia.

*****

MILKPEA VINE FLOWERING
Beside the trail passing through the weedy cleared area below the power lines near the main highway, a bean vine twined tightly around a bush stem, its long, curving, slender flower clusters bearing both flowers and fruits, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221gc.jpg

It was obviously a bean vine -- a member of the huge Bean Family, the Fabaceae -- as indicated by the legume-type fruit pod, the flower's shape, and the compound leaf with three leaflets (trifoliate) so commonly seen in the family. A close look at the flower shows the typical Bean Family structure at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221gd.jpg

There the top petal, bearing many fine, white stripes along its length and a yellow spot at its base, is the "standard." The two slender, darker lilac petals pointing at the edge of the image's right side are the "wings," and you can hardly see the two bottom petals, which are joined along their common margin to form a scoop-like "keel." The typical bean-type legume is shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221ge.jpg

This is GALACTIA STRIATA, widely distributed from Florida and Texas in the US south through Mexico and Central America into South America, as well as in much of tropical Africa, India, China and New Guinea. In the US often it's called the Florida Hammock Milkpea, but Florida represents just a minuscule portion of its total homeland, and here it's certainly not among hammocks, so I just call it Milkpea, though it's unclear what it has to do with milk.

It's fairly commonly seen in the Yucatan, often in weedy habitats. I find no human uses for it, though certain animals surely must enjoy nibbling on those sizable bean pods. It's just one of those species existing to exist, and in that there's something worth celebrating, too.

*****

CATASETUM ORCHID FRUIT'S STRANGE APPENDAGES
At https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/catasetm.htm we look at one of the most common orchids in the Yucatan, Catasetum integerrimum, which produces large, green flowers suggesting a hooded monk with his head bent in prayer. On that page we show the orchid's large fruits, and even in our fruit picture, at the fruit's bottom there's a strange cluster of irregularly shaped, dark items. Only this week did I get good enough view of a fruit to realize that something peculiar and regularly occurring was going on there. You can see two fruits on an orchid near the hut, both with those odd appendages at the bottom, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181221cn.jpg

W.J. Hayden at his fine Flora of Kaxil-kiuic website says that the dark items are dried-out remains of the flower's sepals and petals, and now that I know that, I can see it. In the above picture, the large, scoop-shaped thing is the "monk's hood."

How would such appendages be of service to the orchid? I'm guessing that they help in seed dissemination. Later the capsules will split, and maybe those bottom parts will catch wind and shake seeds loose from its capsule, or maybe the parts will attract an animal's attention, who then will shake the fruit, sending seeds flying.

Whenever anything out of the ordinary like this comes along in Nature, it's always fun to try to figure out why the evolutionary process has made things as they are. Sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you overlook the obvious, or simply get it all wrong.

*****

VIRGINS IN PICKUP TRUCKS, ROCKETS AND THE SOLSTICE
Today, December 21, is the Winter Solstice, when days in the Earth's Northern Hemisphere stop shortening, and start growing longer.

Up north, few people pay attention to the Solstice, and down here it's even less recognized. One reason is that nowadays holidays overlap, especially here in Mexico. For example, last week, all through two nights, rockets exploded over neighboring Ek Balam and Santa Rita, as they celebrated the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Oswaldo, one of the rancho's workers, tells me that the rockets express one's faith. During the Virgin of Guadalupe days, Oswaldo took off from work to join a group of young people who'd promised the Virgin they'd run a long distance carrying a torch in her honor, if she'd grant them a wish. Oswaldo's group, alternating runners, started in Progreso on the coast, went around Mérida and ended in Ek Balam, a trip taking maybe three hours in a car.

On highways during those days it was hard to go far without having to slow for such clusters of runners at the road's edge. Normally the runners were attended by a pickup truck carrying in the back a garlanded statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and followed by a motorcycle equipped with a loud siren changing its bleating style every few seconds. In towns there was lots of drinking, celebratory eating and shooting off of exploding rockets. Now things are gearing up for the gringo Christmas on the 24th and 25th, the Christian New Year, and the traditional Christmas on January 6th. No one has time to think of the Solstice.

Both Oswaldo's ancient Maya ancestors and my own European ones regarded the Solstice as very important, as the alignment of certain Maya pyramids and Stonehenge attest. The ancients saw with their own eyes and understood with their own minds that the Solstice was the most profound physically expressed promise of rebirth and hope to be witnessed during the whole year here on Earth.

Yet, modern human society has abandoned that insight and sense of awe, and has chosen instead to make a fuss about human-designated events clustering around the Solstice.

The reasons why Christmas and January 1st occur when they do are varied, but one reason they cluster around the Solstice is because powerful people set them there, with their own interests in mind. They took advantage of the fact that people already celebrated the Solstice, by assigning dates for Christmas and January 1st near it. Then they preached against pagan Solstice celebrations. It was the old story of powerful people telling us to ignore what our own minds tell us and our hearts feel, and believe instead what they tell us to believe.

You might be interested in the web pages entitled Why is Christmas Day on the 25th December?" and "Why Does the New Year Start on January 1?".

Whatever accounts for the vast majority of people at this season celebrating everything except the Solstice, I'll have no part of it.

I say that today is the New Year, that today more than any other day of the year is when I should reflect on who I am, where, and why, and on the possibility of new personal beginnings, and of doing things better this next time around. And on the matter of Christmas, I feel that by ignoring the whole thing as it's celebrated now, I'm honoring Jesus's principle admonition, which was that we should live simple and humble lives focused on our spiritual natures.

And today is the day I'm doing this, not at Christmas, and not on the day the calendar declares as the New Year, on January 1st.

Today.

*****

Best wishes to all Newsletter readers,

Jim

All previous Newsletters are archived at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/.