The afternoon primrose

Species name: Primula sp. (a garden hybrid of unknown origin)

Common name: primrose

Location: Ontario

Primroses are another great example of why I hate common names. The evening primrose (profiled in a blog post that you can read HERE), is completely unrelated to species in the genus Primula, also called primroses. Sure, they look a little similar (perhaps not the evening primrose compared to this garden hybrid, but some other Primula species), but that's about it. Species of primrose in this genus are native to a wide variety of locations on almost every continent (Australia seems to be excluded from the list) but with the vast majority of the species in the genus native to the Himalayas. Since this garden hybrid (which is actually quite commonly grown) has an unknown parentage, meaning the two or more species that were hybridized to create this cultivar, so I decided to play it safe and call it a non-native species.

I think this species illustrates the concept of a weed perfectly. There is no real definition of a "plant weed," nor are there truly good examples of weed species at least in the common sense of the word. A weed is simply a plant that is growing in a place that we don't want it growing. A plant that is purposefully planted in one garden might be their next-door neighbour's weed. You can probably guess that most weeds are non-native species, only because those are the plants that are most likely to out-compete their neighbours since there are no pathogens to keep their populations in check. This primrose is a great example of a weed in our garden. I have no idea who planted it in the neighbourhood, but one spring it all of a sudden showed up. I ripped it out, but not until after it had gone to seed so now it comes back every year. I wish if it was going to grow it would do it more quickly and make a nice little patch of it that we could put a fence around to keep it contained, but it seems to like being the size that it is (about 10 cm x 10 cm and 4-5 cm tall). I'll refrain from pulling it out this year and see what happens.

I don't think it should come as a surprise to any of my faithful blog readers that I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to classification of species. This is probably because of the results I've found in my own work: apparently we're not very good at defining species of fungi at all, and many things that we thought were "species" are only morphological variants. Even more numerous is the trend the other way: many things that we thought were morphological variants are actually species. It's amazing what happens when you start to sequence a group's DNA and analyze the relationships between species! The genus Primula is a great example of this. There are over 500 species in the genus, some of which are so drastically different morphology-wise (and even habitat-wise, which should tell you something about their evolutionary relationships...) that I find it incredibly hard to believe they're in the same genus. With a more thorough investigation of these 500 species and a comprehensive analysis of the group's evolutionary relationships, it wouldn't surprise me if Primula ended up being divided into 25 or more separate genera. Might even be a fun post-doctoral fellowship... :)

Internationally primrose species have been used as medicinal plants for centuries. In fact, they have so many uses that they just might be a miracle plant should all of these uses prove to be effective in clinical trials. The roots of the plants are prepared in either a salve or a tea to treat any kind of cough (pneumonia, bronchitis, common cold, emphysema, etc.), the leaves are used in a tea to treat any kind of head-related ailment (dizziness, headache, stroke, sleeplessness, paralysis, etc.) and the flowers as a vitamin supplement (rumoured to contain high amounts of vitamin A and vitamin C) as well as any kind of digestive-related problems (diuretic, spasmolytic, and sedative). That's a whole bunch of uses for one tiny plant! I find it hard to believe that it could be effective against everything that might ever ail you, but you never know. With a species diversity in the genus argued to be at 500 species, if each one had a single use that's a whole lot of uses! It's also a good example of a general rule in botany and "plant gathering as agriculture": don't ever eat anything or use something as a medicinal plant if you're not absolutely sure about the intended use. If you use the wrong primrose, your headache might turn into a dizziness spell or convulsions!

The last of the palms: Otto von Bismarck's tree

Species name: Bismarckia nobilis

Common name: Bismarck palm

Location: Dominican Republic

Well, we have finally come to the end of my images from Dominican Republic, and this is my last plant species to profile from my lovely vacation in February (I can't believe these pictures have lasted me until May! I need to go on vacation more often...). I figured since it's the last one, I should probably go out with a bang...

The Bismarck palm is native to, like almost all palm species, Madagascar and is declining in numbers there (like many, if not most, of their endemic plant species). The fertile land is being cleared and converted to agriculture, with a few select trees being saved to represent landmark "specimen trees" throughout the landscape. Bismarck palms can be incredibly long-lived, have enormous canopies if given enough space, and provide great shade and habitat for other species. By leaving even just a few Bismarck palms, Madagascar is potentially saving tens of species who use these trees as refuge. Unfortunately, agricultural crops are worth far more money to the economy of Madagascar, and these trees likely don't stand a chance of sticking around for long. It's a shame; a country that was once one of the most biodiverse locations in the world is now becoming a barren agricultural landscape. I know I've poo-poo'd on Madagascar in a few blog posts, but the more people know about their biodiversity crisis the more that can be done about it. World economies really need to start putting pressure on countries that house the most diversity to stop cutting down forests because the species themselves have some sort of economic value. It's a slippery slope once you put a price on diversity, but it's true what they say in the business and commerce world: Money talks. Fortunately for the worldwide population of Bismarck palms, they are planted in huge numbers around the world as ornamental species (in the tropics and sub-tropics; they can actually survive temperatures as low as -6 degrees Celsius for short amounts of time). There are two main varieties of this tree: the green kind that's pictured above, and a variety that is almost blue because of a very thick layer of wax that is deposited on the outside of all of the leaves (which you might guess would be much more tolerant of drought and cold snaps; you would be correct with that assumption).

Bismarck palms are some of the most easily recognizable palm trees in the entire world...once you know what you're looking for. They have characteristic fan-shaped fronds with a very thick petiole connecting the leaves to the trunk of the tree. These petioles, as you can see from the image with the pink arrow, are curved presumably to allow the fronds to sway from side to side but prevent the snapping of the fronds if shaken up and down (since we all remember from elementary school that an arch is much stronger than a straight line...right?). This also provides a really unique habitat for animals, other plant species, fungi, and even bacteria since all of the rain that the fronds catch is funnelled down the petiole towards the trunk of the tree. Because the bases of these petioles are so warm and moist, they usually rot right off the tree before the leaf has a chance of dying, especially in very warm, wet areas. The inflorescences produced are also quite characteristic, and look a bit like marine ropes emerging from the base of a leaf. These mature into flowers (some male flowers are pictured in the 8th image; you can tell because they are full of stamens and very little of anything else), which either produce pollen or ovules. These trees, like the pacaya palm (which you can read all about HERE), are dioecious meaning one plant either produces male or female flowers but never both. The trees with the female flowers end up producing the fruit, which starts off green when immature and ripens to be yellow or brown (you can see the green fruit in the bottom image). The fruit are not reported to be edible by humans, although I'm sure someone somewhere has tried them. These are the preferred fruit of some birds and other animal species, so these trees do play an integral role in the food webs of the ecosystems they're living in.

I keep mentioning that these trees are integral parts of their ecosystems, so I think it's about time to show you what I mean. In the two pictures below (the same image, the first one is unaltered and the second one has a bunch of boxes around interesting features) you can see symbiotic plants and animals all living in the same tree:

The green and yellow boxes show the fruit of the Bismarck tree: the green box shows the immature green fruit and the yellow box shows the more mature yellow and brown fruit. Inside the pink box are three different species of plants, the heart-shaped leaf vine, the oval-shaped weedy plant, and the roundish-shaped weedy plant. What these species of plants are I have no idea; they were about 15 meters in the air and I wasn't about to climb the tree to find out! There are also a whole lot of sticks at the top of the tree, which is weird (in the purple box). In fact, I'm guessing that's the way those three plant species managed to make it up into the top of that lone tree; there are no trailing stems or roots to suggest that they "climbed" up there. In the orange box we have a lone bird, who seems to just be hanging out on an old petiole of a leaf. But is he really?

Well, Mr. Bird there isn't actually just hanging out on a petiole by chance; he's protecting his nest. Yes, that massive thicket of twigs was more than likely made by that ridiculously tiny bird (you probably are aware of the species; we call them "that brown bird that makes all the noise at 5 am during the spring" and this common name probably reflects about 500 species of bird). In fact, we stood under the tree for a while and watched more than one of these little brown birds fly to and from the nest; there's likely a whole family of them living up there. In hindsight, it was probably pretty stupid standing under the tree staring up at them (not that I'm afraid of a tiny brown bird or anything): if you're really observant you'll see white patches all over the underside of the palm fronds. Those aren't patches of fungi. Those are patches of "bird paint."

Here's another example of plant species that exploit this tree. Again, I have no idea what species this is since they're just tiny seedlings, but these are growing from seeds that would have been blown down those arc-shaped petioles and landed at the base of the leaf where there is likely an accumulation of organic material that is damp and warm: perfect conditions for plants (amongst other things) to germinate. These plants likely won't last long being squished into a petiole like that, but depending on what species they are they might be able to complete their entire life cycle without ever leaving the protection of their host plant. If those are species that are perennials or require much more space to grow, they'll likely die before producing anything substantial.

And, like I promised in my first blog post about pictures of plants I took while in the Dominican Republic, lizards also call this tree home. These pictures represent what is likely two different species of anole lizard (Anolis spp.) that are in all likelihood native to Dominican. If you think about it, these trees are absolutely perfect habitat for lizards to hide from predators in the petiole hollows, build nests at the bases of petioles, and jump from leaf to leaf to catch bugs to eat. They were pretty curious as to what I was doing holding a camera so close to their home; I guess I did neglect to ask them permission to photograph their treehouse. Next time I'll make sure to bring "lizard waivers" with me!

I hope you've enjoyed the rather long series about "Plants in the Dominican Republic" over the last few months! 

"I've got a lovely bunch of..." revisited

Species name: Cocos nucifera

Common name: coconut palm

Location: Dominican Republic

If you think you've seen this before, you're partially correct. I have blogged about the coconut palm before, and you can read about it HERE. This was before I had really decided what I wanted my blog to become, and when I took the photograph that I used I certainly had no idea it would one day become a blog post. I figured it would be fitting while I was back in the Dominican Republic to take a new set of photos of a coconut palm and do this properly. So here it is!

The location where the coconut palm is native is currently a heated debate. There is pretty strong evidence that the tree originated around or near the Indian Ocean, since many of the uses of coconuts date back to ancient times in India. There's also more to it than that; there are also fossils from the Eocene period, 35 to 55 million years ago, in Indian rocks that depict species strikingly similar to coconut palms (these are also found in Australia). To complicate matters, coconut palms have also been used for centuries by various groups of people in South America, and there are fossils there, too, that depict coconut-like fruit in rocks that are even older than the Eocene period. So who wins? I'll let one of the experts decide that; I'd rather not have either India and Australia mad at me or all of South America :) Regardless, it's not native to the Caribbean and yet is one of the most important crops there.

Coconut palms require very unusual conditions for growth and germination of their seeds (coconuts are really seeds!). First, they have to be exposed to tremendous amounts of sea water. This helps rot away some of the hard fibrous outer husk to reveal the inner seed coat. This coat then needs to be cracked, either by the growing plant or through the natural abrasion of coconuts crashing in the waves against rocks, in order for the new plant to establish itself. The growing conditions are equally unusual: they require full sunlight, very hot temperatures, high humidity, sandy soil, and high salinity. None of these conditions on their own are very conducive to plant growth, and when you add them all together it's miraculous the plant can grow at all. When you consider the habitat in which the seeds are deposited, this should be a no-brainer that coconuts have evolved to tolerate and thrive in these conditions. They thrive on hot sandy beaches where the ocean is ready to take away the coconut fruit, transporting them along ocean currents to a new beach where they can crack open and establish themselves.

Aside from their obvious edible uses, one of the most exciting uses of coconuts is in the medical field. "Medical field?!" you say? Yes, the medical field. Coconut water is gaining popularity as a sport drink to restore electrolyte balance in the body. Does the average person need to drink it? No. Just like the average person has absolutely no use for the high-calorie and high-salt beverages bearing the names "Gatorade" and "Powerade." High-performance athletes like professional athletes or people on high-performance teams absolutely DO require some sort of electrolyte replacement. Nothing will replace your lost body water than water, but if all you're drinking is water while sweating buckets for 2-3 hours (in some cases 5 or 6 hours, depending on the sport) you're going to start feeling dizzy and get muscle spasms. This is your body trying to tell you that you're losing too much sodium and potassium (amongst other things) to be sustainable and it needs more. Enter: sport drinks. These are absolutely chock-full of salts and sugars (as well as some complex carbohydrates, but those are by far fewer in number than sugars) to replace what you're using and to give you a short burst of energy. "Normal" people who go to the gym for an hour a day definitely don't need sport drinks! So what does this have to do with coconut water? Well, it's been shown that coconut water has an almost perfect electrolyte balance in it that is in synch with what the body needs. Replacing your lost fluids, at least some of them, with coconut water is significantly more beneficial than a sugar-filled sport drink.

Now, you might be scratching your head and wondering how this was discovered in the first place and what sports drinks have to do with medicine. I always appreciate an inquisitive mind! Would you believe me if I told you that one of the first uses of coconut water in modern civilization was as a blood plasma replacement? Not only is coconut water completely sterile as long as the husk is intact, it also has that perfect body balance of nutrients and vitamins to be able to replace fluids lost through illness or massive trauma. During World War II it was mixed with blood units to dilute the blood (since it was so badly needed; they had to make what little blood they did have go further to treat more wounded soldiers) but still provide all of the benefits of blood plasma, then it was administered through IV to the wounded soldiers during surgeries. It can also be used as "IV fluids" either prior to surgery when the patient isn't allowed to eat food or drink liquid, or when the patient is having trouble keeping down food and water and requires replacement fluids. Coconuts aren't just good for making Bounty chocolate bars!

The last mysterious use of coconuts that many people know about but don't realize they do is as a commercial fibre source. These aren't fibres you can use to make clothing; coconut fibre clothing would feel similar to burlap if worn against the skin so I can't imagine that would be all that pleasant. Coir, what we call the fibre we get from coconut husks, is most often used as a matting material. Most of those brown scratchy "Welcome" mats you buy to put outside the door are made of coconut husks, as are a lot of the "fluffy" potting mixes that come with boxed bulbs like amaryllis bulbs. The "peat pellets" that you can buy at garden stores to start seeds indoors before transplanting outdoors are also often made at least partially of coir; they can be pressed into very small pellets and when put into warm water can absorb water and expand to be hundreds of times the original size of the pellet. It's actually a fascinating process to watch!

The Pac(aya) Man tree

Species name: Chamaedorea tepejilote

Common name: pacaya, guaya, palmito dulce

Location: Dominican Republic

The pacaya palm, sometimes called the pacaya grande depending on where you're from, is native to Central America from Mexico south to Panama. It is one of the most common palms native to the Americas, second only to Washingtonia palms native to California (which are planted in massive numbers as ornamental palm species). Because they are so attractive, pacaya palms have been transported throughout the Caribbean for use as ornamental species, but you will rarely find them outside of the Western Hemisphere. Unlike many palms, this species is highly shade tolerant, and actually "sun intolerant". The leaves, as you can see in the image above, become yellowed and sunburnt very quickly when exposed to direct sunlight so they are best planted in the shade of other trees.

The variety of this tree most commonly grown as an ornamental species are types that "cluster," as opposed to single stems. In the wild, this is incredibly rare but in cultivation it's common. It leads to a much more attractive bunch of stems, as opposed to one tall and spindly stem. The other benefit of growing this variety is that it is much more resistant to hurricane damage, since it is more difficult to disturb a clump of plants all connected via underground rhizomes than it is to disturb one lone tree.

This tree is an example of one of the many palm species that are dioecious. This means that there are separate male and female flowers on different plants; this is exactly like with holly plants, where you will only have red berries produced on female plants if the male is present (which doesn't produce red berries). The determination of "sex" in a plant is quite different than it is in a human; instead of being determined by a chromosome like it is in humans (with human females being XX and human males being XY) and it's instead a cluster of genes on a chromosome. Certain alleles, or copies of the gene, determine either "maleness" or "femaleness". The plants pictured above are likely male; in the entire cluster there was no evidence of fruit being produced, which occurs during all months of the year.

The seeds when ripe are apparently edible, as are the flowers (with the female flowers tasting significantly better than the male flowers, apparently). I would highly recommend you avoid eating any palm fruit unless you are absolutely positive of the species identification; many palm fruits are deadly toxic. In El Salvador and Nicaragua, the pickled female flowers of this plant are seen as delicacies and are served only during special meals.

The shedding tropical almond tree

Species name: Terminalia catappa

Common name: Indian almond, tropical almond

Location: Dominican Republic

The tropical almond is a very large tree, reaching heights up to 35 meters tall, native to the warm tropical regions in Asia, Africa and Australia. This particular species (that common name applies to 6 or 7 species in the genus; one of the reasons why I'm not a big fan of common names) is native to India and surrounding area, reaching as far east as China and Thailand. It is planted extensively throughout the New World Tropics (the Caribbean Islands, and Central and South America) as an ornamental species. It was discovered that the seeds of the tree are edible once the very tough outer husk is removed from the fruit, and when this husk is added to fermenting sugar cane an amaretto-like beverage can be produced (and hence the name "tropical almond," not just for the appearance of the fruit which are pointed to by the pink arrow in the third photo).

I have seen this tree on every single one of my tropical vacations; I'm pretty sure I've even seen it planted in Florida. Normally to see an ornamental tree or shrub species everywhere isn't uncommon, since if it's pretty in one area it's likely going to be pretty in another area. But to introduce a species that sheds its leaves during the peak tourist season, as well as its fruits that often attack unsuspecting tourists, is just plain silly to me. You've got all of these thousands of species of native trees to tropical North and South America that keep their leaves all year round; why not use one of those?! For the entire week there were people pulling leaves out of the pool, since during the summer months this is a wonderful shade tree and so logically is planted in areas where shade is desirable.

Medicinally, this plant has been very popular in native herbal medicines around the world for a wide range of treatments: it has reported use in India and Suriname for dysentery and diarrhea, and in Taiwan for liver disease. Interestingly, this plant has gotten a lot of press recently because of the reported benefits it might have in fighting cancer. There are some chemicals in the leaves that reportedly act as antioxidants, but there have been no studies that have shown that this plant has any effect on cancer cells, either in the body or in petri dishes (from any species!). Should someone "prescribe" this plant to someone who has cancer or suggest they drink a tea prepared from the leaves it is highly unlikely to result in death, but don't expect it to melt the cancer cells out of the body. So far it's a fake cancer cure at best. It does have some proven health benefits, but only for a very narrow portion of the world's population. In a study that examined bark extract from this tree they noted that it has the ability to kill the plasmodium that causes malaria, even when this plasmodium displays resistance to all (or many) of the drugs we currently use to treat or prevent malaria. This is a very promising result for those who are diagnosed with (and who die from) multi-drug resistant malaria every year.

For those of you who are fish enthusiasts, you have likely been in close contact with this plant and just didn't realize it. The leaves can remove toxins from water, especially heavy metals that might be contaminating the water. They are used to condition water before it is prepared for fish inhabitants in aquaria. Also, it has shown promising activity in preventing the spread of water molds that grow on fish (usually called "Ick"), effectively reducing disease in fish populations. If you've ever purchased a betta fish (sometimes called a "Siamese Fighting Fish" in pet stores), you've likely purchased a fish that was treated with these leaves as preventative measure to ensure it gets to you, the consumer, disease-free.

Shhh. Don't wake the morels!

Species name: Morchella angusticeps

Common name: black morel

Location: top secret!

Now, normally I don't have the species status diagrams on blog posts when I blog about mushrooms, because it's so difficult to determine if a species is native to a specific location. The black morel is one of the exceptions, thanks to a paper published in late 2012. The authors looked at the distribution of the 13 known species of morels and sequenced their DNA to see how species are distributed around the world. What they found was shocking for a few reasons. First, there actually aren't 13 species of morel, there are 65. Just a few that we didn't know about! And second, the distribution of different species of morel is very restricted and always predictable. In eastern North America, black morels are always Morchella angusticeps, but up until 2012 we would call them Morchella elata. Turns out Morchella elata is only found in cool-temperate Europe and nowhere else.

The habitat of morels is very similar amongst all species; they are known root associates of decaying roots of living trees. Usually when the tree is cut down the morel species can still exist for a few years but quickly decline in numbers of fruiting bodies (or mushrooms) produced until none are left. The yellow morel is often associated with trees of the rose family, especially apple trees. Don't expect to go to an apple orchard to go morel hunting! The catch is that these apple trees must be left alone for years in an abandoned field in order for morels to fruit. There is definitely something to the idea that they thrive in undisturbed areas! The black morel fruits under hardwood trees. There is another species of black morel in eastern North America that is found almost exclusively in coniferous forests, but now we're finding that this species only occurs north of 44 degrees of latitude! This begs the question: what is the species found in pine reforestation areas south of 44 degrees? Is it the same species as the morel fruiting under hardwoods? For the distributions of each species to be so narrow, I find it hard to believe they would also be habitat generalists. Usually when a species occupies a narrow range they also have adapted to a very specific niche within their range (which is especially true in the fungi).

It's not often that I withhold the location of my finds, but if I published where I found these morels I just might be lynched by the mushroom community! :) It is a general rule that one NEVER divulges the location to morel patches since they are so rare. Morels are a prized edible group of mushrooms, selling for up to $50 per 100g of dried mushrooms in some areas. Wouldn't you want to keep that all to yourself?! If you want morels you're going to have to find your own secret hunting grounds.

Holy guacamole!

Species name: Persea americana

Common name: avocado

Location: Dominican Republic

The avocado is not only a popular tree crop but also a popular ornamental plant species. It has huge morphological variation in the shape and colour of the fruit (one of the reasons why I didn't clue in right away that this was an avocado tree) based on the variety grown, and can also either be a dwarf tree (like this one) or can grow up to 20 meters tall. A bit awkward to pick the fruit! The avocado is native to Mexico and prior to the domestication process was actually a purple pear-shaped fruit with yellow-brown flesh. Very different from the purple oval-shaped fruit with green flesh that we get now! I'd say that the avocados we buy in the store now are slightly more pleasing to the eye, although I doubt they taste any different.

Considering how common the product is, this tree took me forever to identify! Part of the reason is because of its very unusual leaves, which are in part a product of something called "phenotypic plasticity": a trait can vary along some sort of morphological continuum given different environmental conditions. This is incredibly useful in most cases, like being able to produce more surface hairs on your leaves when experiencing conditions of drought, which actually reduces the amount of water lost from your leaves. Other traits, like leaf shape, I'm not sure how it would confer some sort of benefit to the plant. But obviously it does, or else the plant wouldn't bother! The type of leaf this tree was producing at the tips of the branches are called cuneate leaves, which are very wide at the tips and gradually taper towards the base of the leaf. This is a relatively uncommon leaf shape, but a plant commonly grown in temperate areas that has this shape of leaf is the flowering magnolia tree. Another interesting characteristic about the avocado is how the seeds are dispersed. They aren't. Probably not all that successful for an avocado tree! Where these trees are growing in forests in the tropics and subtropics, animals may investigate the fruit and carry them off to eat them elsewhere, but that's not how the fruit would have originally been dispersed. The thought for how avocados were once dispersed stems from the idea that way back in geological and evolutionary time, many more megafaunal species roamed the earth in all habitats (think of the wooly mammoths that North America used to have). In Central and South America there were enormous mega-sloths that were probably, along with gomphotheres or elephant-like herbivores, the main dispersal organisms of this and many other large-seeded plants. These animals would have been big enough to eat the avocados whole, passing the seeds intact through their digestive systems and excreting them in their poo. Their intestines would have scoured the outer seed coat and kept them nice and moist, and the animal's excrement would have acted like a pile of natural fertilizer to kick-start the growing process. Next time you eat an avocado, think about how big your stomach would have to be to not notice that you're eating avocado seeds. Those would have been enormous animals!

Avocados are a great example of a product that is becoming more expensive to purchase because of our growing practices. Avocados are "made" to be grown in Mexico: that's where they evolved and that's where they're best adapted for growing. Sure, we CAN grow them in the United States, which is regularly done in California and Florida, but why would we bother? The plant requires deep watering in order to bear fruit, and water is a hot commodity in California, and the right growing conditions are rare in Florida. This drives the cost of avocados up, only because we're trying to grow them in suboptimal conditions. So why don't we just import them from Mexico? Well, we do now. But up until recently this was not allowed because it was believed that all Mexican avocados were infested with type of fruit fly that would completely destroy crops in the southern United States. I wonder why the government wouldn't assume the fly would travel across the border on its own since it could fly, but apparently that wasn't ever a possibility. The border was completely closed to Mexican-grown avocados until almost the year 2000, which was when the US set up a foreign fruit inspection station outside American borders. It's amazing what we're prepared to do for some guacamole! Today, the US and Canada both accept avocados grown in Mexico, Peru, Chile, South Africa, and New Zealand.

Despite these being tasty fruits to humans, you should always be very careful when using avocados in your kitchen if you have house pets of any kind. Avocado skins are deathly toxic to cats and dogs (as are all parts of the plant if you choose to grow it as an indoor species, which many people do), and they don't seem to understand to stay away from it. A good rule of thumb, especially if you have a dog that likes to raid your garbage can and you like making guacamole, is to rub lemon juice all over the skin before you throw it out. Dogs and cats HATE lemon juice, so that will usually get them to stay away. If you use a compost pile and like to compost avocado skins you might want to make sure you have some sort of deterrent around the outside of your compost pile; rabbits, squirrels, horses and cows (if you live on a farm), and birds are all also deathly allergic to avocado skins.

Brief Hiatus

UPDATE: thanks to those of you that e-mailed me while I was away at the conference to tell me that my brain had already gone on vacation when I posted this blog. Yep, definitely won't be back on Wednesday April 1st because that wasn't a Wednesday, and this Wednesday is apparently May 1st. My how time flies! Whoops.

It's been a while, hasn't it?!

I just wanted to apologize for my brief hiatus and to let everyone know that it will continue until Wednesday May 1st. This week started the "Marking Essay Fun Times!!!!" party for one of the classes that I'm a Teaching Assistant for, and the marks are due on Wednesday. That, mixed with the fact that I'm at a conference all weekend means no time for fun and games! I know. It's a sad week.

But on the bright side, the weather has been wonderful these last few days, and will be all weekend! Well, unless you're somewhere where the weather is going to be terrible this weekend, and then sucks to be you! So go outside and enjoy life outdoors. Find your own plants to take pictures of! Tell me about them! And if you'd rather just sit and wait...I'll be back on Wednesday :)

Cheerio! Thanks for being patient :)

It wouldn't be a good story if that was the whole story

Species name: Delonix regia

Common name: flamboyant tree, Royal Poinciana tree, flame tree (but not the true flame tree)

Location: Dominican Republic

Unfortunately, when my mom and I were in the Dominican we just happened to miss the best time of the year to view these trees in the Caribbean. I've included a picture at the bottom of this blog post to show what the tree would look like in full bloom, if we happened to see in sometime between May and September (although, it blooms at different times of the year in different countries). The flamboyant tree is native to Madagascar, where is is near-endangered. The last IUCN Red List had this species listed as endangered, but since then there have been concerted conservation efforts in the wild to not only protect this species but also to aid in the tree's reproduction and repopulation. These efforts have been mostly successful, but there is still "seed poaching" that occurs in the wild to supplement the ornamental tree trade. If you do buy this plant as an ornamental species (its flowers make it a very popular ornamental species), make sure you know the source of the plant and that it's not from wild seeds. Once introduced to an area in the tropics or sub-tropics it reproduces easily if the appropriate conditions are met, and can survive well in the wild as well. It is said to be naturalized in many countries in mainland Africa as well as throughout the Caribbean and in Asia. It isn't reported to be invasive in any of these areas, but even a slight shift in climate could lead to population explosion and it out-competing its neighbours. There's a fine line between a naturalized species and an invasive one!

The flamboyant tree produces brilliant orange, red and yellow flowers (depending on subspecies and cultivar or variety) before the leaves are produced. Once the flowers start to wither and fall off the tree, it invests all of its energy into producing the characteristic leaves of trees in the bean/pea family (or the Fabaceae): twice pinnately compound feather- or fern-like leaves (which can also be seen in the Kentucky coffeetree which you can read all about HERE). I traced one of the leaves of this tree in red so you can see just how large one leaf really is. When I was in the Dominican, this tree was in the process of shedding its leaves for the rest of the dry season, and it would regrow them in about May or June during the rainy season. Since it is salt- and drought-tolerant, it makes for the ideal Caribbean tree.

Fortunately for my blog, this isn't just an exciting tree because of its flamboyant flowers (which you can't even see! A let-down). This is what botanists call an exciting "specimen tree." A specimen tree is a tree that is unique and exciting on its own, regardless of what the rest of the species does. For one, this tree is enormous. Normally flamboyant trees reach a maximum height of 12 meters but normally they grow to about 5 meters. This tree has got to be about 10 meters tall; it's just as tall, if not taller, than the 3-storey building behind it. But that's not the only thing that makes it exciting. It's a perfect example of a micro-habitat. Hard to believe that a tree could be an example of a micro-habitat, but I invite you to walk around to the other side of the tree and tell me what you see.

The other side of the tree

Do you see what I see? It's a bit more obvious now, but that sure looks like a giant woody root running down the trunk of a tree. Could that possibly be a root?! Well, let's zoom in near the base of the tree and find out...

The base of the tree

Yep, that's definitely a root. So what the heck is growing off of that tree, and where is it coming from?! Roots grow in the ground, not out of leaves and down trunks!

The split in the trunk of the tree

Well look at that. There's actually another plant growing out of the trunk of the tree, where the main trunk splits into two. There would be just enough space in there that the rain would accumulate some sand and dirt that the wind blows on the branches of the tree, plus the falling tiny leaflets of the leaves in the spring, that if a seed happened to fall into that space it could germinate and grow for a while. Now, this plant didn't just grow for "a while"; it has actually been incredibly successful. But is that the whole story to this tree?

Wouldn't be a good story if that was the whole story!

Actually, there isn't just one plant growing in that tiny space. There are actually three different species (shown by the red arrows). The first is the one that's the lowest down, which sure looks like some kind of amaryllis or spider lily to me. Keep in mind that the first photo is as close as I could get to this tree, and I certainly wasn't about to climb it to get a good look even if I could get closer. So we'll just go with "unidentified lily-like monocot" for now unless someone else has a better guess for me! The second, marked by the upper arrow on the right hand side is also an "unidentified monocot", but I actually think I know what this one might be. I have a pretty strong suspicion it's a false bird of paradise (which you can read all about HERE) because of the arrangement of the leaves. Unfortunately for these two species, neither of them is going to survive long given the amount of space they have. Both of these species grow from either a bulb or a swollen underground stem called a rhizome; without a vast supply of nutrients from which to sustain their underground storage organs, the above-ground green parts can't survive. The top red arrow, however, points to a plant named the umbrella plant, named for its umbrella-like leaves. The species name of this plant is Schefflera arboricola, and is a very popular ornamental plant native to Taiwan. It thrives in tropical conditions, and can survive in very nutrient-poor soil. It also grows roots incredibly quickly (mainly due to the fact that they need to seek out what few nutrients there are in the soil), which is the contributing factor to the death of most umbrella tree houseplants (most of them become root-bound and the roots suffocate themselves in the pot). Thankfully for this species and its fast-growing roots, it can "escape" the death-trap that it found itself in (like the false birds of paradise and that lily-like plant) and anchor itself in the soil at the base of the tree.  The pink arrow indicates where the roots wrap around the branch and connect to the stem of the plant, showing that it really is all one plant. Eventually, if left to its own devices, the flamboyant tree will die and decay long before the umbrella tree. What will be left will be a giant hole in the middle of the umbrella tree where the flamboyant tree used to be, and it will look like it's standing on stilts. Fantastic! This creation of micro-habitats in the main branching points of trees in tropical forests is actually incredibly common; if you walk through a tropical jungle you'll notice a lot of "trees on stilts" where exactly this phenomenon happened over and over. If you manage to be the first plant that out-competes its neighbours for resources and hits the ground first, it's a fantastic place to be to avoid predators that want to munch on your bright green nutrient-filled leaves. They would have to be incredibly determined to climb a big tree to eat a seedling! There are far more of them on the forest floor that would make a better dinner.

The flamboyant tree in full bloom (courtesy of Wikipedia).