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!

I have a vine or tree vine… don’t know, that grows in my home in Las Cumbres, and birds and butterfly love the fruit, can you tell me more about it? John Bennett

What a great challenge!

First I studied the pictures carefully, saw that the leaves were alternate, the vine appeared to be woody, which in botanical terms means it is a liana, and the inflorescence was something I’d never seen before. So I turned to Gentry’s key, and then wrote back with some questions:

Could you tell me whether your plant has tendrils, or is it growing up a tree without attaching itself? Also, are those leaf edges slightly toothed or are they completely smooth? Finally, if you break off a leaf, do you see a milky sap or latex coming out of the leaf stem?

John wrote back with his answers, some more images, and some thoughts on the matter.

Hmmm! It’s definitely a “liana”, woody… no tendrils… it is self supporting or at least, partly self supporting, as you might see in the photo. I say this because apart from its main stem, it has a profusion of intertwined lesser ones that are propped up by a wall fence. This makes me wonder what would happen if the fence was removed. It seems the weight of the whole thing might cause it to collapse.

I believe it’s a species native to our islands. The fruit  is edible (I’m still alive) and has an interesting taste, but if you squeeze it for its juice, it rapidly turns brownish; oxidizes or something. The leaves are slightly serrated and no sap when broken.

The first pictures I sent where shot from my house, where my caretaker chopped the branches off to make way for my pepper victory garden.

Later he sent along some nice pictures of creatures that enjoy his liana:

Look who comes to dine at my liana.

Plus a myriad other feathered dinosaurs like the Manacus vitellinus… It’s a beautiful bird, but very secretive. I took some pictures but not well focused. It is quite abundant behind our house in a ravine; but it does come the liana to feed. The seeds of the fruit are very small, so that I chew them when I eat them.

and so does other winged folk like…

or… and…

With his additional information and with the motive of possibly attracting toucans and more beautiful butterflies to my neck of the wood if I could possibly grow this liana here, never mind tasting a new fruit, I went back to Gentry and, well, my entire botanical bookshelf.

I wrote back to John that I thought the liana might belong to the family – sticking my neck out here – Boraginaceae, the borage or forget-me-not family. I sent a picture of an inflorescence from one example at Tropical Plant Guides, but his plant was definitely not from that genus. However, he did write:

Boraginaceae or boraginaceous seems to be in the right track in many respects. I’ll confess that I had made a query back a while, through a friend of mine, Fernando Pascal, that works in the Smithsonian, and I had an answer from a botanist, but then my hard drive collapsed and the answer was among the files that had not been backed up at that moment, so I lost them… but now I seem to recall it could have been the Boraginaceae but, yes there are some differences…

I have developed a relationship whit this liana, because it came up on its own outside of my computer hideaway at home, where I work now days, to avoid traffic madness and fuel bills, plus I get more work done. Anyway, the liana sits there with all these incredible creatures singing, eating, sipping nectar and such. The liana is also quite prolific, its small plants sprouting around the area, I believe the seeds must go through the intestinal tract of birds and, presto¡

So here’s your puzzle: Have you ever seen this liana? Do you know what it is? Do you have any ideas about it? Stories about it? Leave a comment if you do, or if you have any other thoughts along these lines.

John and I are both curious.

Update: Here are the leaves mentioned by Michael in the comments below. It’s possible he’s found the same liana in Cerro Azul. That would be neat. Left = top side; right = bottom side.

Update 2: John has now taken some single-leaf images for comparison. Again, left = top side; right = bottom side.

Hmm. John’s thoughts are:

Not so sure the leaves are the same… the pattern of the “veins” seem to differ, my liana’s veins are more symmetric and the leaf seem to be wider with less undulations at the edge. But… I am only an aspiring botanist, or nature enthusiast.

Anyone else?

Update 3: Michael sent along some images of the flowers from his liana. He now thinks his plant may be in a different family than John’s liana, and he could be right. What do you think?