I’ve sent you an email. After you send the images, I’ll post them here as an “update” to the post. If I can’t identify them, perhaps a reader can.

Mary

How would I go about sending pictures to you or attaching them to a reply on this web?

How nice to hear your experiences in Costa Rica. I envy you your field of poro poros. I really, really like them. The pink-flowering roble is probably a Tabebuia species, perhaps Tabebuia rosea. Check the images on this post:

http://ntsavanna.com/tabebuia-strength-and-beauty/

If your tree is different, leave another comment and we’ll figure out a way to identify it.

Thanks!

Mary

I was checking the internet to see what I could find out about some of the flowering trees I see near my home in Guanacaste province in Costa Rica, and here you are.

We have about twenty Poro Poro on our three acres, which now have pretty much finished flowering. I know we have lots of Cortez in the area, but I have yet to have one pointed out to me close up. I’ll be using your picture as a reference.

I have also seen many Guayacan on the ranch where our property is. Thanks to you, I now have a name for them.

We have a couple trees that have just started blooming with clusters of small light pink flowers, which have a delicious sweet aroma. A Nicaraguan man who was helping us with some work said they are Robles. Could this be the pink version of the Guayacan you speak of? The flowers are very much smaller, though clustered in a similar way. I’ll send you a picture, if you would like. I think I would need your e-mail address, unless you can tell me another way I could send a picture.

I look forward to looking through some of your archives.

~Shelley

Your comments continue to enrich my knowledge and that of my few but loyal readers, and I am very grateful. Thank you!

You have given me good reason to resume and energize my quest for the origin of poroporo.

I looked for images of the Krapfia weberbauerii and found only one, here. The page is in Japanese and there are many plant images on it, but if you look for the English text Krapfia weberbauerii, you will find two images side by side of this lovely “buttercup.” Wonderful!

Mary

For instance, there’s a beautiful flower that grows in the highlands of Peru called “rima rima” (Krapfia weberbauerii; Ranunculaceae). In Quechua, this means “speak, speak,” and if a child hasn’t learned to talk by a certain age, it is said that the flower should be tapped gently on the tongue or lips.

~Shelley

Ah, the tropics – no fuel bills, either! Not to rub it in, of course.

I have not been able to find the origin of poroporo. The online Spanish dictionary that I use gives poro as meaning “pore,” with all the same connotations as the English word. In South America there is an additional meaning for poro – a squash in the shape of a pear. So nothing in Spanish seems to fit – maybe it is indeed an indigenous word.

~Shelley