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Tropical plants and flowers 3-25-2010. A botanist’s dream. Annato, or Lipstick Bush, is a common spice. Annato lipstick in action. Who can resist plucking a Hotlips flower and sticking it between your lips?. Now you see why they are called hot lips.
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Tropical plants and flowers 3-25-2010 A botanist’s dream
Who can resist plucking a Hotlips flower and sticking it between your lips?
Bat Flowers (Tacca) are so named due to the black flowers reminding someone of bats.
Orchids are not uncommon, but depend on the right amount of rain to bloom.
People love orchids because they are beautiful. Biologists love them because they are sexual tricksters.
Utricularia, or Bladderwort, is an insectivorous plant. In the U.S., they are almost all aquatic. The roots and insectivorous bladders (the white ones) of this species grow in soil. The specimen is from a cloud forest in Venezuela.
Jackass Bitters is one of the most important medicinal plants to the Maya. It is most often used for an upset stomach (“thebitta, the betta”)
The beefworm plant oozes a white, alkaloid that Maya use to kill botfly larvae.
Marcos Ack shows the white alkaloid ooze that one dabs on the beefworm to kill it.
Red-sticky is a common plant used by the Maya to stop bleeding. They just wad up the leaves and press them on the wound. It gets its name from the reddish stem.
Fish Plant is a rounded leafed plant that the Maya use to wrap fish when cooking. It also has medicinal uses.
Cassava (manihot, manioc, yuca) is a staple food of the Maya.
Vincenti Ack and Macal, also called poi. In the southeast, it grows wild along bayous and rivers and is called Elephant Ear, Colocasia.
This is parapim, the kek’chi name for the viagra-like plant used in San Miguel.
A Caribbean favorite is cristophine (called merliton in New Orleans).
Pipers (same genus as black pepper), with their characteristic seed stalks sticking straight up, are from the tropics.
An unidentified legume in fruit. Note the closed leaves to the left. Near Belmopan, 8-07.
Bougainvillea is a common tropical landscape species (also comes in purple & peach).
Pineapples grow in most people’s yards, and are wonderful when fresh.
Bottlebrush plants attract a variety of nectar feeding animals.
Frangipani’s, a commonly seen non-native, are very pretty and aromatic.
Helios is a non-chlorophyll plant found in Cockscomb in 2004.
Heliconias come in a variety of shapes & colors. Have interesting communities of organisms that live in those colorful bracts [good research topic!]
Vincente Ack demonstrates how to make a sound like a toucan with a heliconia flower.
Gingers are also common in the tropics – and there are a number of species.
Drip-tip leaves – very characteristic of tropical plants. They ensure that the leaf doesn’t stay wet and encourage growth of mold and mildew.
Melastomataceae – a characteristic plant family of the tropics.
Mistletoe: Central Venezuela. The plant (l), the very sticky seed (r) that sticks to the bill of birds, and a new plant (bottom) that grows from a seed scraped off the birds beak on the limb.
Cacti are also typical of most tropical environments. (Why?)
Devil’s Guts is a type of cactus that produces a tasty fruit called pataya.
Solanummammosum: fruit of Udder Plant (l) and spines on another species’ leaf (r) that prevent predation.
Most species of Solanum are toxic; again, note the spines on the tops of their leaves. BTW, the tomato is a member of the Solanaceae.
Datura (Angel’s Trumpets) are common. This is a common source of hallucinogenic compounds.
Jade vine is a common ornamental in the tropics. (Another legume…)
