9:37 am
Nikon D810, 200mm,
f/13.0, 1/200, ISO 800
9:47 pm
Nikon D810, 200mm, f/13.0,
1/200, ISO 6400
The two best documented flowers that contain chemicals that vulcanize latex from native Maya rubber tree Castilla elastica bloom in the FLAAR Mayan Ethnobotanical Research Garden. Ethnobotanist Dr Suzanne Cook has documented that the juice, from both these vines, is used by the Lacandon Maya of Chiapas, Mexico to create viable rubber.
The Olmec 3500 years ago and the Maya 1500 years ago used these vines to make latex sap into rubber that could bounce (for the rubber ball game balls, for example). MIT researcher Michael J. Tarkanian has done actual experiments (in Chiapas, Mexico) with Ipomoea alba with Castilla elastica for his B.S. and M.S. theses.
We (FLAAR, USA and FLAAR Mesoamerica, Guatemala) estimate that Merremia tuberosa may grow also in the Yaxha park. We also feel that other "morning glory vines" may also have chemicals to vulcanize rubber. So every month we visit Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo to update the lists of plants to find all utilitarian plants that would have helped the Classic Maya for thousands of years at Yaxha, Nakum, Naranjo, Topoxte Island and all the other sites around the park areas.
Posted Nov 21, 2018
