A Neotropical Savanna

John Bennett reported in December that the algarrobo tree was preparing for the dry season by changing to brown dry season leaves which he assumed had fewer stomata and therefore would lose less water than the green leaves. Here are the brown leaves.

He’s been keeping an eye out on this tree for us, and I thought I’d pass along to you his report.

Ok… time to update on the algarrobo garment renewal…

Here is the algarrobo with its new set of green chemistry labs, ready to process winter mineral carrying fluids from the ground and continue reaching out to the sun.

Nice tree, isn’t it?

Here is a closer look at the chlorophyll labs, and… what is that brown thing amidst the leaves?

Let’s take a a closer look…

Looks like some nectar sucking poisonous flying bugs have set up residence among the new foliage. A closer look at the creatures shows them peeking out their residence’s aperture. Wonder what they make of the camera flash?

Before getting entranced with the wasps, I’ll pipe in here with a reminder from John’s first report and also a couple of other observations.

In his first report, John told us that the scientific name of the tree is Hymenaea courbaril. and that it is in the family Fabaceae, subfamily Caesalpiniodieae.

Fabaceae is the bean family, which means the tree has compound, alternate leaves. If you need a refresher, there’s a pretty complete description of the bean family in the post on macano, The Living Fence. In the case of the algarrobo, the compound leaves consist of two leaflets. The subfamily is the one with the large frilly flowers, such as the Flamboyant tree.

The genus name, Hymenaea, is named for Hymen, the god of marriage. It refers to the leaflets, which occur in pairs (Botanary). The species name, curbaril, is one of the common names for the wood of this tree (Vozzo).

The tree that has just now put out green leaves will flower starting in March and continuing through July. The fruits will ripen the following year, between February and May (Carrasquilla). If you go back to John’s first image, the one with the brown leaves, and click on it to enlarge it, you will see a large kidney-bean shape in the tree. That’s last year’s fruit, due to ripen any day now.

Here’s what John has to say about the tree and its fruit:

It is an extraordinary tree, in many respects; and the fruit is one of the richest food sources you can find. Some people don’t like the smell, or taste, but I was brought up with it. When you open one of the pods, take the dry fleshy pits out and take a good sniff of the inside of the pod… I find it wonderful. But I don’t care for Roquefort or such.

So it’s about time we started watching for the fruit at the local markets, yes? And see for ourselves if we like it, yes?

Meantime, about those wasps…

There is a great variety of them in Panamá; big, small, mean, docile, with all sort of dwellings, but I have never read anything about them. For example, take a look at another bug aerodrome…

These critters always build their entrance atrium looking south.

And look at these guys… they build into walls and such, and are always curious about who is around their den… A while back I witnessed a war between these critters and ants.

Take a look at this aerial combat, between two varieties of bees…

Anyone who knows anything about the wasps or bees around here is welcome to speak up. These are fascinating abodes.