Guava research in Guatemala

Posted April 2014

We are finding out all the diverse range of uses of guava, of every part of the plant.

Much to our surprise, it turned out we had a guava tree in our own garden: never knew since the garden is like a thick jungle at times. But when it bloomed, Sofia Monzon took great photos of the flowers.

Psidium guajava L., Guava Flower, photo by Sofia Monzon

You can see the full article Here.

The Passion flowers and its mysteries

Posted April 2014

The genera Passiflora, known commonly as the passionflower.  known by Native Americans since before the time of the Spanish conquest by other names. The first Spanish explorers did not know these plants and began to call "passion fruit" because its fruit reminded them of pomegranate (Punica granatum), a European species. Shortly after, the same Spanish (especially the Catholic missionaries), aided by creative and amazing imagination, suggested that the forms and structures of the flowers were a representation of the passion and suffering of Christ.  This religious symbolism was spread over time, until in 1737 the famous Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus decided to use as Passiflora genera name (Tillet 1988 Kugler & King 2004).

According to the religious interpretation of the flower, each party represents some aspect of the crucifixion of Christ:

• The crown of filaments: the crown of thorns
• The three styles and stigmas: the three nails
• The androgynophore: flogging column
• The five stamens: the five wounds of Christ on the cross
• Leaves: the spears which pierced the side
• The glands of the leaves: the 30 pieces of silver that Judas received for betraying Jesus.

Passiflora lingularis, Granadilla

Over time you were adding other aspects and interpretations of history.

These flowers are found in warmer areas, mostly tropics, throughout the world. Passionflower extracts have been classified into several categories of chemical activity: anxiolytic, spasmolytic, hypnotic, sedative, narcotic and anodyne (Ozarko 2001).

In a field expedition, when I was looking species of passionflower, a farmer told me that when people have insomnia uses flowers to sleep. Other people use the flowers in tea or soup to reduce stress and to sleep for many hours without being interrupted.

On this trip I had the opportunity to see P. quadrangularis and P. ligularis in wildlife because we are informally cooperating with Armando Caceres, author of medicinal plants of Guatemala and he provided where the plants are.

Importantly, many pasiflora species growing on non-native Guatemala. For example we have in our garden four species of Passiflora and none is native to Guatemala, belonging to South America.

MacDougal, J. M.

1983      Revision of Passiflora L.  section Pseudodysosmia (Harms) Killip emend. J.
MacDougal, the hooked trichome group (Passifloraceae). Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University,  Durham, North Carolina

 Ozarko, G.

2001.     Passiflora. http://www.ion.com.au/~iridology/Passiflora.html

Tobacco flowers are handsome garden plants

Posted April 2013

We at FLAAR institute are studying tobacco of the Maya and Aztec. As part of our project we are raising tobacco plants (not to smoke ourselves but to appreciate the natural beauty of their flowers).

Tobacco and the various other leaves used by the Maya of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Mexico, and El Salvador are a traditional indigenous cultural feature of importance in their medicine and religion.

Tobacco red night black background Westcott photo by Sofia Monzon.

Plus most of the ingredients of Maya and Aztec snuff and cigars have gorgeous flowers. Although I do not smoke myself already at age 19 I had discovered a Maya vase showing a person smoking a cigar (a 9th century vase in the Tomb of the Jade Jaguar which I discovered while a student at Harvard doing archaeological work for the University of Pennsylvania Museum at Tikal, El Peten, Guatemala).

Plus while doing research in the archives of Sevilla, Spain and Guatemala CIty, on the Spanish documents describing the Cholti Lacandon Maya cigars I learned more about this venerable tradition.

n other words, it is important to understand the natural beauty associated with tobacco and its several thousand years association with the advanced cultures of prehispanic Mesoamerica.

Izabal area is great for botanical research

Posted Jan. 2, 2013

A lot of botanical research tends to be done in the "Maya area" of Peten. Yet over the last year we have found that Izabal, and adjacent Alta Verapaz, offer considerable diversity of eco-systems to allow finding lots of the utilitarian plants which we seek.

Bixa orellana, the seed of this plant is used in our day to flavor foods, the Mayans used to make chocolate as a flavoring too, photographed by Nicholas Hellmuth.

Our goal is to locate, and photograph (when flowering or fruiting) as many of the plants in our list of utilitarian plants of the Mayan people.

We will be spending the coming week in Izabal, starting with the Frutas del Mundo facilities about 20 minutes before Rio Dulce. Dwight Carter has developed a great place to do botanical research here.

Mayan ethnobotanical photography of dye plants

Posted December 26, 2012

Christmas week is a great time to study plants in the area around Lake Atitlan. Our focus is edible plants and plants which produce dye for cotton.

We are photographing cotton: they are a tree here. Not a mere bush. Found beautiful examples of sacatinta plant (produces blue dye, like indigo). But the flower is a gorgeous orange.

Nicotiana is the plant of tobaco, but in the Association of Women in botanical colors we learned that they used as colorants for their threads, photograph by Nicholas Hellmuth.

Found Canec flowering and tree tomato at altitudes much higher than Lake Atitlan. Tree tomato looks like a granadilla but is a tomato. It is the size of a normal fruit tree.

It helps to document that the Maya eat many more things than maize, beans, squash, and much more than root crops too. Plus, the diet in every eco-system was different, since some plants grow only at high altitudes.

Intensive photography of edible leaves in the diet of Mayan people

Posted Nov. 5, 2012

Crotalaria longirostrata, Chipilin Flower, photographed by Nicholas Hellmuth. Copyright FLAAR 2012

In addition to studying indigenous tropical fruits, nuts, vegetables, and grains of Mesoamerica, we are also doing research on edible leaves (lots more than just spinach-like options).

Last week we were near Mazatenango to donate a set of photographic enlargements of cacao fruit to the local cacao growers association of San Antonio Suchitepequez. When in this area we always select a hotel which has as large a garden as possible, in the hopes of finding Mesoamerican plants in bloom. There is one hotel which has a small milpa in the back, plus two cashew nut trees.

Every month a completely different plant is in full bloom: six months ago it was the cashew trees. Last week it was the chipilin plant, Crotalaria longirostrata. Although it is the leaves which are eaten, I spent my time focusing on the pretty yellow flowers. Later this week we will add an entire web page and photo essay on chipilin flowers.

Exhibit of photographs of 
Mayan ethnobotanical beauty

Posted September 2012

High-resolution digital photographs of sacred trees and sacred flowers are now on exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden, St Louis, Missouri. These photographs, by Nicholas Hellmuth and Sofia Monzon, show the ceiba tree and flowers of most of the relatives of this sacred tree.

The exhibit continues through to November 18, 2012.

Lots of new publications on Maya ethnobotanical topics coming for 2012

Here are front covers of a whole series of photo-essays on Pachira aquatica. The flower of this or related species is pictured in Classic Maya art of Peten. Research project on all trees of Maya Mesoamerica with conical spines

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research project on all trees of Maya Mesoamerica with conical spines

I have been photographing the spines on the trunks of Ceiba pentandra trees for several decades. I raised Ceiba when I was creating the Yaxha Parque Nacional in Peten. And today I raise Ceiba in the ethnobotanical garden surrounding our office.

But there are many more trees with spines than just Ceiba pentandra. So we have a long-range project to identify and then find and photograph each species. Below is a set of specimens that we located over the Christmas holidays (we work all holidays, as they are a convenient time to get out of the office and into the rain forests and fields).

Ceiba pentandra spines at FLAAR.