Comments on: Sangrillo – a little red (latex)

By: mary

mary — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:14:51 +0000

Thanks, Wayne. And now that I’m here in the tropics, learning botany, I often wonder what the temperate counterparts are. I see that I must look up Hypericum – I have only the vaguest memory of St. John’s wort – to get a sense of Clusiaceae in the US. As far as kicks-in-the-butt, yes, I’m still astonished to see all the various Asteraceae trees.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:17:32 +0000

Mary, I’ll echo Ian’s remarks on the thoroughness of this (and previous) posts, as well as the excellent documentary photos. They’re really remarkable treatments, and from the point of view of a botanist who knows most closely the area of temperate ecosystems he lives in, a real eye-opener.

Our Clusiaceae here at latitude 33 degN are limited mostly to Hypericum, and these are at best small shrubs. They still remain among my favorites of plants.

One of the kicks-in-the-butt for temperates like me is to get to know a member of the family, some small little orphan, and then discover that in the tropics that there are huge numbers of species of related plants the size of trees.

By: mary

mary — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:37:04 +0000

Thanks, Ian. It's probably a good idea to give the name right up front. My posts are usually a little too long to ask people to hold their curiosity until the end! Interesting that you associate Vismia with badly burned areas in Trinidad. The guys in Costa Rica (Zamora et al.) seem to think that their "pioneer" qualities are a good thing, helping open areas more quickly than otherwise return to normal, whatever that is. They did not, however, mention burned areas as a place where they're found. Around here, the most common environment for them is abandoned pastureland. It is, however, a local habit to burn large swaths of grassland as a way of clearing the brushy growth that occurred during the rainy season. In such places, Miconia, Clusia, and Vismia usually occur together (I have no data for this, just an impression).

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:33:00 +0000

Cool post – I love your thoroughness and the sense of discovery in them. It’s even more fun if I think I know what they are up front. (Well, at least if you guess them right).

I don’t remember Vismia having red latex. It makes me wonder if I’ve ever broken a leaf off one. They’re very common in Trinidad, but I have a negative reaction to them because they mean that the area has been quite badly burned. I’ve come across lots of stands of Vismia that have very little else growing between them.