Comments on: Lavender flower, red seed pods, leathery leaves

By: XanGo

XanGo — Sat, 02 May 2009 17:05:24 +0000

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By: A Neotropical Savanna » Clusia the Autograph Tree

A Neotropical Savanna » Clusia the Autograph Tree — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:06:39 +0000

[...] leaves of the Clusia tree caught my eye the first time we walked around the abandoned pastureland that was to become our [...]

By: What Clusia can do | A Neotropical Savanna

What Clusia can do | A Neotropical Savanna — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:15:40 +0000

[...] think that Clusia is an attractive tree and I like its leathery leaves and interesting flower and [...]

By: miconia

miconia — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 19:12:23 +0000

Interesting idea, spidea. I’d love to see your logo, and I’ll look around for any remaining Clusia fruits to see if I can try it. I’m not artistic at all, but I do like the idea.

By: spidea

spidea — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:17:44 +0000

I discovered when working in the Amazon that if you cut the clusia fruit horizontally you can use it to make a print design that dyes fabric. the dye doesnt wash out – its very stable – and the shape is rather nice, a sort of rough circle of little square-ish shapes. I used it to make a logo but I havent got a copy to show you right now. If i find it I can post a link.

By: nuytsia

nuytsia — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 12:34:43 +0000

Hi Mary, A rather belated comment on the Clusia fruit as it's an interesting structure. The fruit is a septifragal capsule meaning that on dehiscence the constituent carpels disinterate leaving the septa intact (the white ridges). The "red pods" are actually arils. An aril is a fleshy skin that develops on some seeds to aid dispersal. From what I can gather from this page in Clusia these have developed from the funicle. For a really nice example of this have a look at this page from Kew's Millennium Seed Bank (check out Acacia cyclops and Afzelia africana). In these examples the aril doesn't enclose the seed as it does in Clusia but in Magnolia and Euonymus species it does. In all these examples the aril is orange or red and I assume are all bird dispersed. Here in Tassie I've handled a number of small seeded species that have small white arils. These seeds are carried of by ants, the aril is then eaten and ultimately the seed is chucked away. Now what I'm trying to work out is why the fruit itself is sticky? Is this to try and disuade predation of the seeds by other organisms?