In October while visiting friends in Peten we were taken to an area that they told us no botanist or ecologist (that they are aware of) has seen or knew about in the recent 40 years.
We also doubt that earlier botanists were aware of this awesome tasistal: Cyrus Lundell should have been here in 1930’s-1960’s, he knew lots of pine savannas around La Libertad. Peten. But we have not yet found a Lundell documentation of this mass of Acoelorrhaphe wrightii palms. Botanists Standley, Steyermark and their capable team were definitely never hiking these trails (they missed much and probably most of Peten since they worked primarily from dried specimens in botanical gardens and university and natural history herbaria). If in fact no botanist or ecologist has ever visited or even realized that this tasistal existed, this is a sad conclusion. So we hope that someone can find previous mention of this area (it is a 5 minute walk from the Arroyo Petexbatun, 8 minutes downstream from Hotel Ecological Posada Caribe). We thank the owner and administrator of this property for permission to experience this frankly awesome ecosystem. We thank Julian Mariona Hotel Ecologico Posada Caribe for showing us this previously undocumented habitat.
Posted Dicember 09, 2019
