March 15, 2019

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YUCATAN ECHITES' STRANGE FRUITS
Down in the abandoned papaya orchard, about 25ft up a tree (8m), something new and somewhat weird looking turned up dangling from a dry-season-leafless branch, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315yu.jpg

At first I thought it was a disease-caused witch's broom, but the swollen nodes along the dangling items seemed too regularly spaced for that. With the telephoto lens a picture was taken, then later on the computer enlarged, so that certain interesting details showed up, as seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315yv.jpg

Notice that each dangling thing is one of a pair arising from a common base. I interpreted this as double fruits issuing from a dried-up calyx of an earlier flower containing two pistils. When such a configuration is encountered, the first plant family to come to mind should be the big Dogbane or Oleander Family, the Apocynaceae, which produces many vines that might twine into a treetop. Moreover, in the picture, notice that at the far right the fruit is splitting lengthwise to reveal something cottony white. In the Apocynaceae, often seeds are wind-dispersed by means of long, white, feathery hairs atop them behaving like parachutes, so we must be seeing that. Higher up some older fruits already had released their seeds, plus a few green leaves were visible, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315yw.jpg

There, the right-most fruit contains a seed ready to fly away. Here we can easier interpret the fruits' swollen nodes as holding seed bodies, while the white hairs were cramped into the narrow parts.

In that picture it wasn't clear whether the leaves belonged to the vine or the otherwise leafless tree. However, they looked identical to leaves on a viny member of the Apocynaceae we've already look at here, when flowering, what I call the Yucatan Echites, Echites yucatenensis, which can be reviewed at https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/echites.htm

In 2017 when that identification was made, so little information and so few pictures were available on the Internet that I identified the species by the sloppy process of elimination, and wasn't sure of the ID. Now that these fruits have turned up, and fit the description for the species, and because more information and pictures are available, I'm more confident.

Also, now I read that among the Maya in the Yucatan, traditionally the roots of Echites yucatenensis were mashed, ice and lemon juice were added, and the pulp applied to the bite.

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"SCHOTT'S SPURGECREEPER"
Twining up a tree along a cowpath through the woods, a wiry, modest little vine caught my eye because it bore several pairs of tiny, white leaves among larger green ones, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315dl.jpg

At first glance it seemed that the vine's terminal sprouts were withering and turning white, which made sense because the current dry season is causing many green things to die back. However, these white leaves consistently occurred in pairs on a vine that otherwise bore only one leaf per stem node, plus they were all the same size. Examining between two of those white leaves, structures turned up indicating that the white leaves were part of a flower structure. You can see one of the hard-to-interpret floral items at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315dn.jpg

The erect, green, club-shaped items appear to be dusted with pollen grains, and seem to be associated with leafy, toothed-fringed, triangular bracts arising below them. We've seen such a weird arrangement before -- though that vine was much larger, the leaves deeply lobed, and the bracts were spiny -- on the commonly occurring Spurgecreeper vine, Dalechampia scandens, a member of the Spurge or Euphorbia Family. That species can be compared at https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/dalecham.htm

When that species was documented, it became apparent that the green, clublike items were the female flowers' styles. In the Euphorbia Family, flowers are unisexual, and in the genus Dalechampia both male and female unisexual flowers occur in each flower cluster. The white leaves on both sides of the clusters are modified -- one would guess -- to attract the attention of pollinators. Remembering all this, on this new vine I set about looking for flower clusters exhibiting male flowers, and found what's shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315dm.jpg

The granular mass at the image's right is composed of pollen grains being shed by splitting anthers in a male flower. The spherical items in the picture's center are unopened buds of male flowers. At the left are three club-shaped styles. I believe the female flowers mature first, in clusters in which only the styles are evident, as in our first close-up, then later the styles dry up but remain in place as the male flowers mature. This prevents self-pollination.

So, was this a second dwarfish member of the genus Dalechampia? Another Dalechampia species was indeed listed for the Yucatan, and it matched our little vine.

This second species is DALECHAMPIA SCHOTTII, endemic just to the Yucatan Peninsula and northern Guatemala. It doesn't have a commonly used English name, so I think of it as Schott's Spurgecreeper.

In a 2010 paper published by GH Bolstad and others dealing with the pollination ecology of Dalechampia schottii it's said that our vine "rewards bees by secreting fully visible, deep-blue resin from a gland subtended by two conspicuous petaloid bracts that may play the role of advertisement." Our pictures show the petaloid bracts OK but I can't find deep-blue resin being secreted for bees.

Interestingly, Bolstad wanted to know whether the size of the white bracts influenced the number of seeds produced. They didn't, so apparently bees weren't much attracted to the flower clusters by the bracts. What attracted them was the deep-blue resin I can't find.

Sometimes what seems obvious just doesn't prove to be right at all, while something hidden turns out to be what's actually important. Thus spake our endemic little Dalechampia schottii.

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COWFOOT WITH A DIFFERENT LOOK
Along the narrow entry road into the village of Ek Balam the slender, dry-season-leafless branches of small tree only about 3m tall (10ft) bore a compact cluster of white flowers at their very tips, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315ba.jpg

The flowers were very similar, maybe identical, to those on a commonly occurring, small Bean-Family tree called Cowfoot, profiled at https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/bauhinia.htm

However, on that page you can see that the species' attractive blossoms cluster in bunches along leafy stems, the leaves shaped like the prints of cow hooves. They're just not "supposed" to bunch together like this at the tip of leafless branches. However, up close, the flowers still looked like those of our common Cowfoot, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315bb.jpg

Could this be another of the Yucatan Peninsula's six cowfoot species? No. None of the other five species' flowers look like these. Apparently during the dry season our common cowfoot species is simply capable of clumping its flowers at the end of leafless branches like this.

Probably this adaptability and flexibility is what enables Bauhinia divaricata to be our most common cowfoot species, almost weedy in nature despite its handsome flowers.

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ADELIA'S FRUITS OPENING
At https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/adelia2.htm we look at the interesting unisexual flowers and three-cornered fruits of the commonly occurring small tree Adelia barbinervis, a member of the Euphorbia or Spurge Family. In our January 4th Newsletter of this year, already we were saying that the capsular fruits were almost ripe, looking ready to split open and eject their seeds. Only now are those capsules opening, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315ad.jpg

I'm pretty sure, but not 100% so, that the capsules open explosively, ejecting their seeds some distance. One evidence of this is in the above picture's lower, left corner corner, where each capsule segment's inner face displays a curved rib. I'm betting that as the capsule dries, the rib pulls on the wall segments it's attached to, and at a certain point the tension caused by the ribs causes the capsule to split violently, catapulting the seeds.

In hardly any open capsules were seeds to be found, except in one fruit among hundreds, and it's shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315ae.jpg

In that picture the two seedless walls are puckered, indicating that drying does cause contraction that could cause tension enough to split the capsule apart.

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GUATEMALAN RINOREA FRUITING IN CHIAPAS
On October 4th, 2018, during my late-rainy-season camping trip into Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state, in the deeply shaded understory of a hillside woods adjacent to Maya Bell Campground in Palenque National Park, a small tree caught my eye with its unusual arrangement of leaves and fruit, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315ri.jpg

At first glance that looks like a pinnately compound leaf with a green fruit where its terminal leaflet should be, but the laws of leaf anatomy just don't permit such a thing. A closer look showed that what appear to be leaflets are actual leaves arising opposite one another on a slender stem, and a fruit has every right to be borne at a branch tip. In fact, nearby another tree bore a cluster of branch-tip fruits in a standard raceme, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315rj.jpg

Normally I need flowers to identify new-to-me plants so,I figuring that this would be a hard one, having just fruits, I scanned the tree for more field marks. One that stood out, and which was valuable during identification, was the leaves' petioles, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315rk.jpg

First, they're covered with tiny, rusty-brown, wartlike things, a condition that one technical paper describes as "densely brownish hirtellous." Also, at the stem, the petioles start out round in cross section, but toward the blade develop a conspicuous channel. This was nice to notice, but the real breakthrough was when a fruit was cut open, revealing what's shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315rl.jpg

The capsular fruit is one-celled -- not divided into compartments like many fruits -- with three placentae along the walls, each bearing one or two ovules, which are the future seeds.

Next to the hut up in the Yucatan the most commonly occurring bush produces much smaller fruits structured very similarly to these . The Yucatan bush is Hybanthus yucatanensis, a member of the Violet Family, even though northern botanists often have a hard time accepting that the Violet Family can produce woody species. You can compare our Chiapas fruit with that of Hybanthus yucatanensis at https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/hybanth.htm

Our Chiapas tree wasn't another species of Hybanthus, but rather a member of an even woodier genus. It was RINOREA GUATEMALENSIS, distributed from southeastern Mexico and Belize south to Honduras, so basically it's endemic to Guatemala and contiguous areas. Mature trees can reach 12m tall (40ft), which is pretty good for a family we usually think of as producing little violets and pansies. It's described as inhabiting the understory of mixed or wet tropical forests in lowlands and submountainous regions usually with a pronounced dry season, and that's exactly where we found it.

In the literature, not much is said about this species. It's just one of those species that when you're wandering in the wet, shadowy understory of a tropical forest and you see it, you're glad to find yet another interesting and attractive way of being, and a species that surely has its fascinating and useful aspects, if you just get to know it better.

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WAXY-FEELING TOMATOES
At a local garbage dump I noticed a cardboard box maybe in good enough condition to flatten for a spot in the garden badly needing some kind of soil-water-preserving mulch, so I went to take a look. The Farmer's Best company had used the box for shipping tomatoes to here. Farmer's Best is based in Nogales, Arizona, but most of its produce is grown in Mexico's northwestern state of Sinaloa. What caught my attention about the box were the words shown in my picture of them at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/19/190315fu.jpg

I didn't know what o-Phenylphenol, food mineral oil petrolatum, or carnuba wax were, but I figured it would be a good idea to learn, since I eat plenty of tomatoes from local markets.

Apparently o-Phenylphenol often is referred to as 2-Phenylphenol (the o standing for ortho). The Wikipedia page for 2-Phenylphenol describes the compound as commonly used for harvested fruits and vegetables as a protection against microbial damage during storage and distribution. The US Government Toxicology Data Network page for o-Phenylphenol says that there's not enough evidence as to the compound's carcinogenicity (cancer-causing properties) for it to be classifiable. However, animal studies indicate that 5oz (142g) would be lethal to a 150lb (68kg) adult.

A World Health Organization page on "mineral oil (food grade)" describes the oil as used as a coating for fruit. Also it says that there is no doubt that the compound impedes the absorption into the body of carotene. Otherwise, basically the document says that there's not enough information available to say exactly what the effects are of food grade mineral oil in the body, but warns that "exposure to mineral oils should be kept to a minimum."

The Wikipedia page for carnuba wax describes it as a wax of the leaves of the palm Copernicia prunifera, native to and grown only in northeastern Brazil. It's used in many ways, including in shoe polishes, on dental floss, lipstick and mascara, to cover medicinal tablets, and to keep shipped fruit fresh. At the MapleHolistics.Com page for carnuba wax I find that "While carnuba wax in it’s natural form is generally considered safe for human ingestion (whether orally or through the surface of the skin) due to the fact that it does not get absorbed into our system and simply tends to pass through our bodies without affecting our biological processes." The main problem some people report with it is that eye liner and mascara containing it sometimes clog the oil glands, causing dry eye disease. Also, sometimes the palms are illegally harvested from the forest, damaging the forest ecosystem.

When I rub my fingers across store-bought tomatoes here, they're waxy-feeling. Now I know enough to keep scrubbing those tomatoes until the waxiness is gone. In fact, I scrub all such fruits and vegetables bought in stores. Here we're not even considering the insecticides, fungicides and the rest, and those compound's breakdown residues, remaining on any produce, even after a good washing.

When on the ingredients statement you find that you're eating something you don't know about, keep in mind that you can do a search on those items and find out about them exactly as has been done here.

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LAUGHING WITH THE SEVENTH MIRACLE
Everything in the Universe, it seems to me, is elegantly balanced with its opposite, in one way or another. Nowadays as hot, dry winds scorch and parch the Yucatan, brown tree leaves tumble to the ground and herbs wither leaving behind nothing but seeds awaiting rain. In a certain way, all that roughness and rawness is balanced by the contemplative environment this heat and dryness produces for old fellows at their little huts. The defoliating forest admits more light for seeing, cooling winds swirl through mostly naked trees like good-natured music, and heavy heat enforces a repose perfect for just thinking about things.

This week, philosophizing with a friend, a point was raised for which I felt that mentioning the Six Miracles of Nature was appropriate. Over the years this Newsletter often has touched on that concept. The Six Miracles are:

The concept's usefulness mostly lies in noticing that each Miracle except for the first arises from a preceding one, like footsteps along a path. The resulting path indicates a direction taken by the evolving Universe. By meditating on that path and its direction, we get a feeling for how we can harmonize our lives with it, which seems to be a good idea. For example, the Universe's evolution appears to be toward ever greater diversity and ever more interdependence among the parts, so shouldn't these features be regarded as "sacred."

Whenever I outline the Six Miracles to someone new, as was the case this week, often instead of talking more about the Six Miracles, instead the question immediately arises, "And might not there be a Seventh Miracle?" I have to admit that thinking about that Seventh one is interesting, and fun.

If I had to guess, I'd say that surely there will be a Seventh Miracle, and that maybe it already has happened elsewhere in the Universe where mentality has been evolving longer than here on Earth. Moreover, I suspect that the Seventh may consist of matured mentality and feeling merging with the One Thing, which I visualize as pure mentality and feeling.

"Laughing... " The word "laughing" is used in the above title, so why?

Taking the Six Miracles to heart, toying with the idea of a Seventh, and thinking a lot about the concept's implications, has meant for me a near total loss of any sense I ever had of my own importance in the general scheme of things. I serve as one of a near-infinite number of nerve endings for the One Thing, which is a worthy condition to be in, but it's not influential in a way most people aspire to. I've even come to suspect that my own sense of self is little more than an illusion.

However, this humbling experience has been balanced by a peace of mind and freedom of spirit that's all important to what "I" think of as "me."

So, you get slapped down about as hard as a proud, lusty fellow full of hopes and plans can be slapped down, and then you're pronounced at peace with all about you, and free.

That's not the script I read as a child, but I'm OK with it.

Besides, just what is one to do other than laugh about the whole thing?

*****

Best wishes to all Newsletter readers,

Jim

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