About every two months (from August 2018 through July 2019) we visit the south shore of Lake Yaxha, the southern area of Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo. On each visit we noted lots of the common thin orange parasitic vine wandering around on the ground, searching for plants to visit and suck their life-system. This July, from the boat (kindly provided every month by the park administrators IDAEH and CONAP), I noticed a yellow glow about 10 meters inland from the shore. So I asked the lanchero to go towards the shore so I could step off and inspect the orange color. Turned out it was a series of savanna-like areas with the ground literally covered with this parasitic vine.
This pano was taken with an iPhone Xs. We will be preparing a full report with our dozen panoramas of this area by Dr Nicholas (Hellmuth) plus nice close-up macro photographs by Maria Alejandra Gutierrez.
Since there is a nearly identical vine on our family farm in Missouri (Cuscuta, dodder), and as I have seen the same vine in many areas of Alta Verapaz and above Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, I assumed the identical vine at Yaxha was also a species of the Genus Cuscuta.
There are several species of Cuscuta, in different ecosystems around the Americas. We have Cuscuta growing around bushes that stand out of the water in beaver-dam flooded areas on our family farm in the Missouri Ozarks. From a distance it looks identical to the Cuscuta from Guatemala (except here in Missouri it has adapted to snow and ice during the winter).
There is also lots of Cuscuta around Solola, en route to Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Over the years we have found and photographed many locations with Cuscuta vines in different ecosystems of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. I love the color and thin spaghetti diameter of the vine. The flowers are miniature and pretty. How this vine survives is great reading (just Google it).
But after I learned there is a literally identical parasitic vine named Cassytha filiformis, I spent several days doing research and was surprised to learn that only Cassytha filiformis is found in Belize and Campeche and Peten: not much Cuscuta species in any of these areas. So now I estimate that the thousands of vines at Yaxha are also Cassytha filiformis. As soon as we are back at Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo we will do macro photography and check the odor of the vine: Cuscuta evidently has no odor, but Cassytha filiformis has an easily detectable smell. We are working on a bibliography to show you where to find all this information.
Updated August 28, 2019 First posted July 23, 2019
If you are a professor of ecology, botany, zoology, entomology, you will find species at Yaxha that will showcase your capability as a scholar. This is because there are more different ecosystems in this one single park than in most other parks. During the field trips (one each month) we have found and photographed a diversity of ecosystems around Yaxha, Nakum, and Naranjo that will help totally rewrite all the 1960’s-1990’s research done elsewhere in Peten.
Photo by Dr Nicholas Hellmuth with an iPhone Xs. Panorama of Savanna of 3 Fern Species, discovered by the team in April 2019; revisited in June 2019. This area has unforeseen diversity: it is a bog, a swamp, a savanna of ferns, and a sibal (sawgrass ecosystem). Plus has the specific Acoelorraphe wrightii palmetto palm and Crescentia cujete trees of grass savanna definition of Peten and Belize (but no pine trees and no bushes with sandpaper leaves (Curatella americana, Chaparro). So the grass savannas of the Nakum area of the park are distinctly (and unexpectedly) different than the savannas of nearby Belize.
Photo by Dr Nicholas Hellmuth with an iPhone Xs. Panorama of the west shore area of Rio Ixtinto: will be inundated in a really wet year (photographed in June 2019, height of one of the driest years in recent history).
Photo by Dr Nicholas Hellmuth with an iPhone Xs. Panorama of the unexpectedly large Savanna East of Nakum, discovered several months ago at Aguada Maya, Poza Maya. Each of these ecosystems has a different micro ecosystem every 50 meters.
To our knowledge this project (FLAAR Mesoamerica cooperating with IDAEH and CONAP) is among the first to use the concept of panorama photos to document the ecosystem diversity. Our goal is to show the world what is available for you to experience when you visit Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo. Since the sawgrass and ferns are so high we bring ladders (endless kilometers hike) so we can use a several-meter high Gitzo tripod so our panorama system (iPhone Xs, Google Pixel 3XL, Nikon D810 or Canon EOS 1DX Mark II or our other cameras) can record the plant diversity in each of the micro ecosystems.
Since there is so much to see in this park it helps to stay several days. The Hotel Ecolodge El Sombrero is located next to the entrance. You do not need 4WD to reach the hotel nor the parking lot to entire the Yaxha ruins. Boats are readily available to cruise Lake Yaxha, the cenotes at the west end, and the Rio Ixtinto near the west side of Isla Topoxte.
To reach Nakum, try only in the dry season and only with high axel 4WD (or hiking by foot, with a guide). To reach Naranjo, an impressive area of acropolises, palaces, temples and pyramids, a high axel 4WD is essential (except during the driest month of the year, perhaps April).
Photograph with a Nikon D5, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4e FL ED VR lens, f/11, ISO 200
The root is the lower part of a plant, they are almost always underground, although there are also aerial and aquatic roots. Roots are in charge of holding the plant to the ground, absorb water and minerals, synthesize hormones and store nutrients.
Roots are usually edible, some types of them are:
Napiform: root thickened by the storage of nutrients and shaped like a turnip.
Tuberous: root thickened by the storage of nutrients, without definite shape.
It is important to mention that napiform and tuberous roots are not the same as the bulbs and tubers, which are modified stems, not roots.
It’s a vine, up to 5 meters long, with green leaves and flared lilac and white flowers. It is distinguished by its edible roots, which can be purple, white or orange. It is located in different parts of Guatemala, like Alta Verapaz, Sacatepéquez, Izabal and Petén.
Photograph with a Nikon D5, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4e FL ED VR lens, f/11, ISO 200
2. Jícama/Jicama (Pachyrhizus erosus (L.) Urb.)
Climbing plant, its flowers are blue, and its fruits are legumes. The root is very fleshy and shaped like a white turnip. They are located in the northern and eastern part of the country.
Photograph with a Nikon D5, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4e FL ED VR lens, f/11, ISO 200
3. Malanga (Xanthosoma sagittifolium (L.) Schott)
Plant up to 1 meter high with grouped and very showy leaves. With white and purple flowers with a very sweet smell. Its roots are considered a substitute for potatoes and can be cooked sweet or salty. It is located in Alta Verapaz, Izabal, Chiquimula, Santa Rosa, Sacatepéquez, Retalhuleu and Quetzaltenango.
Photograph with a Nikon D5, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4e FL ED VR lens, f/11, ISO 200
4. Ichintal (Sechium edule (Jacq.) Sw.)
Climbing plant with stems up to 10m long with green to white flowers. Its fruit is the güisquil, its tuberous root is the ichintal, which is solid and yellowish in color. It is grown in all its departments of Guatemala.
Photograph with a Nikon D5, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4e FL ED VR lens, f/11, ISO 200
5. Yuca/Yucca (Manihot esculenta Crantz)
Shrub up to 3 meters tall with green and webbed leaves with small yellow, red or purple flowers. Its root is edible, however, it is necessary to cook it since it has toxic compounds when it is raw. In Guatemala, it’s found in warm areas.
Photograph with a Nikon D5, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4e FL ED VR lens, f/11, ISO 200
Now that you know a little more about our native roots, let’s learn more about some of their nutritional benefits*
Root (100g)
Carbohydrates (g)
Fiber (g)
Fat (g)
Protein (g)
Camote/Sweet potato
17.72
2.50
0.14
1.37
Jícama/Jicama
8.82
4.90
0.09
0.72
Malanga
30.90
2.40
0.30
1.70
Ichintal
17.80
1.70
0.20
2.00
Yuca/Yucca
38.06
1.80
0.28
1.36
*Obtained from Tabla de Composición de Alimentos de Centroamérica (INCAP, 2007).
As you can see, the edible roots are rich in carbohydrates, which provide an immediate source of energy, storage of more energy and help the formation of other molecules such as proteins.
For more information, visit our website with bibliographies on native edible roots:
Left to Right: Jorge Manuel Marcos Martínez (PNYNN, helpful park ranger), Senaida Ba (FLAAR Mesoamerica), Nicholas Hellmuth (FLAAR Mesoamerica), Ricardo Herrera Marroquín (PNYNN, helpful park ranger), and Ericka Garcia (capable and enthusiastic university student at Universidad del Valle de Guatemala).
Senaida is deservedly proud because Nicholas was so focused on the wide-open white flowers of Sagittaria latifolia, which was another plant 3 meters to the left, that he did not notice this orchid in his enthusiasm to reach the other plant. Senaida hiked in separately (while Nicholas was photographing the Sagittaria latifolia plant) and noticed this Habenaria repens orchid. It is known for occurring in wet areas of Peten.
The water here is not part of Lake Yaxha whatsoever; this is the exterior ring of pools of water around the Savanna of 3 Fern Species. On the aerial photographs of IGN, Instituto Geográfico Nacional, you can see non-connected pools of water in an oval pattern around this biodiverse series of mico-ecosystems. To our knowledge we are the first research team to document the plants and this ecosystem.
Several months ago Dr Nicholas (Hellmuth) found an aquatic orchid (Bletia purpurea) in dozens of locations around the edge of Lake Yaxha. While doing research he noticed that Habenaria repens had also been found in bogs and watery areas in several parts of Mesoamerica (including in the Peten area of Guatemala).
So we looked around Lake Yaxha and in other wet areas of the park...but no Habenaria repens. But when the CONAP+IDAEH park administrators assisted us to reach a remote part of Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo, Senaida Ba found Habenaria repens while Dr Nicholas was a few meters away discovering a different bog plant never before documented by any botanist for the Peten area of Guatemala (more on this in a later report of the FLAAR Mesoamerica flora and fauna research team).
This remarkable ecosystem was discovered by Dr Nicholas while analyzing aerial photographs by the Instituto Geografico Nacional (of Guatemala). Every area of the park that has "no forest" is an ecosystem we wish to explore.
And in each of these ecosystems which we have detected from aerial photographs we have found remarkable plants, in most cases plants not well documented by botanists for the adjoining Parque Nacional Tikal.
Although this aquatic orchid is well known for Mesoamerica, to our knowledge no botanist has found it previously in the Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo. Thus we are able to add another plant to the list of what is available to study in this park. We thank the co-administrators of the PNYNN for coordinating our field trip to this remote area of the park. It was a six hour hike back-and-forth, plus a boat ride to the far west end of Lake Yaxha (at which point you have to climb three very steep hills (then climb down them before climbing up the next one).
We also like to do library research (as you can see from our dozens of annotated bibliographies that we post on our FLAAR web sites). But to study plants I would rather hike six hours (after flying to Guatemala, and driving over 1,200 kilometers round trip from Guatemala City to reach the park) and experience the plant and flowers in-person than see a dead wilted, folded specimen in a herbarium.
The park has considerable potential for ecotourism, avitourism (bird watching tourism), and lots of potential for helping local Mayan people learn to protect these ecosystems so they can learn what handicrafts can be made from local plants that can be sold to tourists (obviously not grabbing the plants in the park, but finding the same plants outside the park) and then having training to learn which plants tourists will want to see and experience close up.
99% of orchid specialists with whom I have spoken told me they were not aware of water-related orchids: so the Yaxha park has immediate potential to become a travel destination for all the orchid societies and bromeliad societies in countries around the world.
Every day we are at Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo we find more wild vanilla orchid vines. These wild vanilla orchid vines are common in the bajo type of Peten ecosystem: seasonally very dry; seasonally very wet (sometimes a few centimeters of standing water if it is a very rainy year).
Today (June 4, 2019) we found wild vanilla orchid vines in the bajo vegetation surrounding the Savanna of 3 Fern Species. None were in the sibal-savanna ecosystems; all were outside, growing on the stunted trees in the bajo ecosystem.
This area is uphill from Laguna Lankaja and about 50 meters south of Laguna Perdida (three conjoined lagoons, each one perfectly round).
In Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo, most passion flower vines grow in seasonal bogs or alongside rivers. But park ranger Teco found a Passiflora vine with lots of flowers in a savanna east of Nakum. This savanna has lots of micro ecosystems.
NIKON D5, lens Nikon AF-Micro-NIKKOR 200mm f/4D IF-ED Macro; settings: f/13, speed 1/250, ISO 2000. Photo by Dr Nicholas Hellmuth
We appreciate the cooperation of the park administration (IDAEH and CONAP) which is what gives us incentive to find plants in this Yaxha park which are not yet documented for adjacent Parque Nacional Tikal.
On Topoxte Island in Lake Yaxha (many kilometers from the Nakum savanna) we found edible Passiflora fruit fallen to the ground from a vine so high in the trees that we had to use a Nikon prime 800mm super-telephoto lens to be able to see and photograph the fruit. These photos we show on www.maya-archaeology.org home page.
We are sending photos to imminent Passiflora-focused botanist Dr John M. MacDougal. We will update this post when we have the species identified.
NIKON D5, lens Nikon AF-Micro-NIKKOR 200mm f/4D IF-ED Macro; settings: f/13, speed 1/250, ISO 2000. Photo by Dr Nicholas Hellmuth
