While visiting the parents of one of the student interns (who has a scholarship from FLAAR to study computer science and Q'eqchi' plant names), we found a substantial pod of guapinol, Hymenaea courbaril.
This pod was significantly larger than the pods we found under a guapinol, Hymenaea courbaril tree 40 minutes east of Lachua, Alta Verapaz.
Size difference is because it is warm climate near Lachua and colder, more mist, and higher altitude between Senahu and Cahabon (where the family of Senaida live).
Giant pod of guapinol, Hymenaea courbaril, found in Q'eqchi' house.
To help students and scholars, as well as people around the world who are interested in Maya culture, we continue studies of Ceiba aesculifolia. This is the relative of the arbol nacional, Ceiba pentandra. Ceiba aesculifolia, pochote, cebillo in local slang, grows mostly in extremely dry areas, and may have longer conical spines (though many trees have almost no spines whatsoever in one eco-system overlooking the Rio Motagua).
Here is a drawing by botany student Vivian Diaz, to show the seedling growth of Ceiba aesculifolia.
Magnolia trees are all over Orlando, Florida and the same species are in gardens in Antigua Guatemala. But this species is not native to Guatemala. We are seeking the several rare species which are native in Guatemala.
Magnolia grows mostly in extremely remote mountain areas and is being decimated since it makes great wood for flooring and other aspects of house construction. The native species are large handsome trees (so are a constant target for being chopped down).
Our interest is preserving both this species as well as documenting other uses that do not require the tree to be destroyed (the Maya used magnolia for thousands of years).
Our additional goal is to see how many other species of Magnolia we can find in the departamentos of Alta Verapaz, Huehuetnenango, and El Quiche.
Magnolia flower found blooming in late May, at high altitude, deep in a remote forest.
Normally we study plants of the Lowlands, but last week we drove through the Cuchumatanes (mountains) of El Quiche area. Not even any maize up here, yet considerable population of Mayan-speaking people.
Lots of potential for ethnobotanical research here.
Most of the new research results reports on sacred flowers, edible plants of Tikal, flora of Yucatan, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Chiapas, Belize, Honduras, etc will be in PowerPoint format so that professors and instructors can use our material in their courses.
However this material is not intended to use used as filler for miscellaneous web sites who simply fill their pages from the work of others: the FLAAR material is for universities, museums, research organizations, and other appropriate institutes and associations. The photographs themselves are copyright 2015 FLAAR, and should be credited to Nicholas Hellmuth and Sofia Monzon.
Plants of the rain forests, swamps, and deserts are covered (yes, there are cactus covered dry areas in the "rain shadow" between Sierra de las Minas and the Motagua River of Guatemala). One of the remarkable sacred flowers of thousands of years of the Maya religion and iconography blooms here (we also raise them in our research garden).
We cover both Maya subsistence, diet (and occasionally recipes) for the Neo-tropical dominant plants of the ancient Maya.
While photographing in a field near Rio de los Esclavos, Departamento de Santa Rosa, a local person came up to introduce himself. Turned out he was a Mam speaker who had several years experience living and working in USA. But it also turned out that he knew medicinal plants of many areas of Guatemala. So we recently did a field trip in the fincas of the family who owns the building which we rent for our offices.
It is always a good idea to know the owner of the land where you are doing plant photography, and to get to know the local people from nearby villages.
We are now posting a bibliography on medicinal plants to document our continued research. Since we have found many plants which are not in other textbooks, we are seeking grants and funding to continue our long range program to find, photograph, and publish all the local, native Mayan medicinal plants of Guatemala.
