A Neotropical Savanna

Many years ago when I lived in New York City, I went birding with a small group of Audubon pros. I’ll never forget the time when one woman said, pointing to a bird whose name I’ve forgotten,

There it is – on the verbena bush!

We were in Central Park and there were lots of bushes around – and I had never heard of a verbena bush and I certainly would not have been able to recognize one. (I think I did find the bird, though.) At any rate, whenever I think about the Verbenaceae (or verbena) family these days, that incident always comes to mind, and my memory searches through those sunlit bushes, trying to guess which one is the verbena.

The memory is particularly amusing because, according to wikipedia, most plants in this family are tropical – not your basic NYC habitat. Nevertheless, the family is widespread, as we’ll see later. Here in Panama, the lantana (Lantana camara) that grows wild around our yard belongs to the Verbenaceae, as does Michael’s sandpaper vine, Petrea volubilis, and even the teak tree (Tectona grandis).

As does this plant that I’ve seen growing along roadsides, in an opening in the depth of a pine forest, and in the gardens of many of my neighbors.

It’s commonly called porterweed – Stachytarpheta mutabilis (Jacq.) Vahl.

So what do all these plants, including a tree, have in common, that they should be grouped in the same family?

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Well, Michael stepped in and helped, but no other expert came through with an identification of John’s liana. So with a flurry of emails and image exchanges, we put together an argument that the liana is in the Boraginaceae family.

First, the characteristics listed by Gentry (all illustrations from John’s plant):

- simple, usually alternate leaves

- leaves and stems with stiff hairs

- strongly one-sided coiled inflorescence (flower cluster)

In John’s plant, the inflorescence is coiled when young and then
it straightens out.

- mostly butterfly-pollinated flowers

These four characteristics strongly pointed toward Boraginaceae. To really nail the family, though, we thought we ought to look at the fruits and seeds. Here’s what the seed site has to say about the Boraginaceae:

• the fruit is either four nutlets or a drupe (fleshy with a thin skin, such as a grape, plum or cherry)
• there are four seeds

Here are just a few of John’s fruit and seed images (click on any for a larger version):

No question that these fruits are drupes, and the last image shows the four seeds. (You’ll also notice some discoloration in the last image. John says that these fruits, once cut, discolor very quickly, like apples only even more quickly.)

For those of you who remember Michael’s liana, by the way, his plant seems not to belong to the Borage Family – the leaves are opposite rather than alternate, although the opposite leaf arrangement does rarely occur in the Boraginaceae. I’m hoping that one day he’ll have time to identify it and let us know what he learns.

The Borage Family is an honorable one, with about 2000 species. It includes the famous flower, the Forget-Me-Not, comfrey, and of course, borage, for which the family was named.

So, can we go any further than family with this plant? Maybe.

Seven genera of the family Boraginaceae are known for Panama (Miller, 1988) – three genera of trees or shrubs, and four genera of herbs, lianas, vines, or clambering shrubs.

Of the four genera we’re interested in,

• if the flower petals are white, green, or yellow green,
• and the plants are woody
• while the fruits are fleshy

the plant belongs to the Tournefortia genus (Miller, 1988). With a name like that, and with the coiled inflorescence, at least in the early stages, I was sure the name had something to do with a “strong turning” as in tourniquet! Well, guess what, the genus was named for a person – Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, 18th century French botanist who was professor of botany at the Jardin des Plantes (Dave’s Garden Botanary). Sometimes you just can’t outguess botanical names.

Tournefortia is well distributed throughout Latin America.

Fourteen species of Tournefortia are known for Panama, so it may take some time before we know which species John’s liana belongs to, but it’s pretty satisfying to get this far.

And one of the neatest finds (for me) is this. While searching online for more information about Tournefortia, my eye was caught by a link to Dangling in the Tournefortia I had to follow up, of course, and it turned out to be a well-known book of poetry by Charles Bukowski.

Who can resist a title like that? Maybe read some poetry while nibbling on the fruits. What do you think, John?

Update:

Michael has succeeded in identifying his vine. It’s Petrea volubilis, also known as the sandpaper vine from its rough leaves. (Image from wikimedia commons.)

P. volubilis is in the Verbenaceae or verbena family – not in the Boraginaceae or borage family. Both Michael and John thought there were significant differences in the leaves between John’s liana and Michael’s liana. I had thought it possible that the leaves came from the same family. Shows you how much I know!

Quick! What is this flower? An orchid, a lily, or an iris?

You may have been able to answer immediately because you are very familiar with all three kinds of flowers, but what was it about this one that told you what it is? If you didn’t know what it was, don’t worry, the answer will be given later.

Orchids, lilies, and irises each belong to a different family: Orchidaceae (22,000 species), Liliaceae (1600 species), and Iridaceae (1500 species), respectively. Each family is widely distributed throughout the world. (Click on any image to enlarge.)

The flowers are so showy and beautiful that they’ve been thoroughly cultivated, and if you’re at all familiar with flowers, you can probably easily distinguish any of the three cultivated flowers. But what if you happen upon one in the wild?

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