We have been studying cacao of the Maya since doing photography for Sophie Coe and Michael Coe’s book on chocolate and cacao many decades ago. I drove all the way to Tabasco to do photographs for this book (in all three editions). I have also photographed cacao in the Soconusco area of Chiapas and throughout Guatemala. We have photographed Theobroma bicolor (pataxte, balamte) in the Maya Highlands of Guatemala.
Yesterday we did a lot of photography of Mayan cacao pods of diverse sizes, shapes, colors, and surface textures. Here is one pod: lots more shapes to come in future FLAAR Reports.
Posted June 08, 2022. Written by Nicholas Hellmuth
Dr Nicholas Hellmuth recently gave an interview at El Búho and he shared his comments and thoughts at Canal Más TV, where he spoke about some of his wide experience in Guatemala, FLAAR Mesoamérica and MayanToons. Below you can watch the entire interview.
About two years ago I was surprised to find a savanna with three fern species; part of the ground was literally a “savanna of low ferns.” So I named it the Savanna of 3 Fern Species. This is in the far northwest part of Parque Nacional Yaxha, Nakum and Naranjo (PNYNN).
A few weeks ago, over a hundred kilometers to the west, we found a wetland area that we named Aguada Los Dos Helechos. Two fern species stood out; the low ferns creating ground cover; the giant fern isolated in a few parts. This giant fern we have found in many areas of PNYNN and in the mangrove swamps of the Municipio de Livingston, Izabal. The giant fern has edible parts; the smaller more common fern we need to identify. We find it around the edges of savannas in the Parque Nacional Laguna del Tigre (PNLT) to the west.
These ferns grow over 2 meters tall; but they are not tree ferns (tree ferns are in the cloud forests of the Highlands and rain forests of the coastal areas of Izabal). These ferns of Peten have no thick or tall trunk. The genus is Acrostichum; I estimate species is danaeifolium, giant leather fern. Aerial photograph by Emanuel Chocooj with DJI drone camera
A focus of our 5-year project (2021-2025) of coordination and cooperation with CONAP for the entire Reserva de la Biosfera Maya of Peten is to find, photograph, document, and publish ecosystems (and species of flora and fauna). I am especially interested in wetlands, including seasonally inundated wetlands. So the pital areas surrounding seasonally dry/seasonally filled aguadas is part of my “to do” list. We have visited and photographed these pital areas before but I wanted good aerial photos so our new drone pilot came with two different models of DJI drones. We register the drone usage with the park administration before arrival and we have GPS MAPS with Garmin equipment showing every place we have been each day.
The spiny terrestrial bromeliad, Aechmea magdalenae, can be easily found in two pital habitats near the mud road between Yaxha and Nakum.
When conservation entities are reforesting areas destroyed for cattle, it would help to plant Aechmea magdalenae around the aguada (in areas reached by water only at the height of the wet season).
The soft yummy liquid and pulp around the seeds are edible. The fiber from the leaves is one of the highest regarded strings in Mesoamerica.
To find the path to reach these two pital areas it helps to have assistance by Teco (Moises Daniel Perez Diaz) and other knowledgeable guides and park rangers. The pital to the west is about 100 meters; the pitel to the east is a bit less. The fruits and flowers are very photogenic (only one fruit in mid-May, so other months are better).
Best place to stay is Ecolodge El Sombrero, just before the entrance to Parque Nacional Yaxha, Nakum and Naranjo.
On the road from Yaxha to Nakum my colleague riding to the front on the motorcycle noticed an ocellated turkey, a magnificent bird of the rainforest ,so he jumped off of the motorcycle on and hiked into a trail so he could have a better look. as he diverged from the sendero to see the ocellated turkey disappear in the jungle depths, he lifted his sight to the canopy forest and was pleasantly surprised to find a wild vanilla orchid vine flower wide open.
A wild vanilla plant is something I had never experienced before, from the moment the first wonder cry for the orchid was heard I couldn’t contain my movement to see it, so I prepared my Sony mirrorless camera and macro lens to photograph this rare rain forest flower. It was identified as Vanilla insignis.
Between the decades 1930’s to 2000, I estimate that more than half the botanical “identifications” of wild vanilla as Vanilla fragrans or accepted name today, Vanilla planifolia, are incorrect. How can vanilla vines be identified precisely if there is no complete flower? When crushed, flattened, and dried not as much detail remains. For these reasons we do photography of the flowers. Snag is that a vine flowers only about two weeks and each flower is open only about 3 hours. People we know in Peten tell us they know the vanilla orchid vines but have never seen them flower in 50 years of being in Peten. Our guide said he has been trying to find them flowering the last four years. In May 2022 our FLAAR field work research team found Vanilla insignis orchids flowering on three vines (two in PNYNN and one about 50 kilometers to the west). We thank Guatemalan orchid specialist Fredy Archila for identifying the flowers that we sent by WhatsApp the day we found them.
The FLAAR team has many years experience finding wild vanilla orchid vines in Alta Verapaz, Izabal, and Peten. But to find one flowering out in a remote area is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In 2023 we will return and find-and-photograph more now that we know where and when they flower (keeping in mind that the rainfall and temperatures vary every year).
If you are a botanist, ethnobotanist, be sure to have a permit from CONAP to do field work in any national park, plus permit from the co-administration of the park. FLAAR has a 5-year permit (2021-2025) of cooperation and coordination for flora, fauna, and ecosystem fieldwork for the entire 21,000 square kilometers (over 5-million acres) of the whole Reserva de la Biosfera Maya. FLAAR specializes in macro photography of insects and details of flowers plus video, panorama and aerial drone photography of ecosystems. Since we have been doing field work for many decades we know the local guides and local people in the villages.