Conostegia xalapensis, and edible fruit of Municipio de Livingston

Conostegia xalapensis, photo taken with an iPhone 12 Pro Max by Dr Nicholas Hellmuth.

In our field trips of our recent project in Livingston, Izabal; we have found Conostegia xalapensis, also called Palo de uva or “grape stick” in English by the locals. One of the guides that lead us to “Cueva del Tigre” explained us that the fruit is edible with a very similar flavor and shape as the grapes, just like its common name.

We didn’t find the plant with its fruits, so we couldn’t taste it, but we do found its beautiful tiny flowers. The flowers have 5 petals, which measure between 4-6mm in color white or pink.

According to the Tropical Plants Database (2012) it is a is a shrub or small tree growing up to 10 metres tall that distributes from Northern S. America, through Central America to Mexico and Cuba. The edible fruits are gathered from wild tress, whilst the trees are sometimes also semi-cultivated.

Taxonomy:

Family	Melastomataceae
Genus	Conategia
Species	Conostegia xalapensis
Synonyms	Conostegia acuminata Steud. Conostegia apiculata Wurdack, Conostegia arborea Steud., Conostegia attenuata Triana
Common name	Palo de uva, Capulín

References Cited and Suggested Reading on Cyperus esculentus

ALMEDA, Frank
1993
Melastomataceae. Flora del Bajío y de Regiones Adyacentes, Fascículo 10. 36 pages.

Available Online:
http://www1.inecol.edu.mx/publicaciones/resumeness/FLOBA/Flora%2010.pdf Note: Information on page 7-9

CASTRO-Luna, Alejandro and Vinicio SOSA
2009
Consumption of Conostegia xalapensis fruits and seed dispersal of Coussapoa oligocephala by the nectarivorous bat Hylonycteris underwoodi Thomas, 1903 (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae). Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment. Volume 44, 2009 - Issue 3

Available Online:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01650520903184636

GONZÁLEZ-Santana, I. H., MÁRQUEZ-Guzmán, J., CRAM-Heydrich, S. and R. CRUZ-Ortega
2011
Conostegia xalapensis (Melastomataceae): an aluminum accumulator plant. Physiologia Plantarum, 144(2), 134–145.

Available Online:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1399-3054.2011.01527.x

HERNÁNDEZ, Ivette, ROJAS, Octavio, LÓPEZ, Fabiola, PUEBLA, Fernando and Cecilia DÍAZ
2012
Dispersión de semillas por aves en un paisaje de bosque mesófilo en el Centro de Veracruz, México: Su papel en la restauración pasiva. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 85: 89-100.

Available Online:
https://scielo.conicyt.cl/pdf/rchnat/v85n1/art07.pdf

KRIEBEL, Ricardo
2016
A Monograph of Conostegia (Melastomataceae, Miconieae). PhytoKeys 67: 1-326.

Available Online:
https://phytokeys.pensoft.net/article/6703/