Photographed by Nicholas Hellmuth with the remarkable camera in the brand new Apple iPhone Xs.
Bromeliads tend to grow up in trees; they use the branches and forks in the tree for support. A photogenic example on Topoxte Island (Lake Yaxha), Yaxha ruins, and Nakum ruins areas is Aechmea bracteata. These bromeliads are not parasites.
But there are several genera of bromeliads which are terrestrial (they live only on the ground). Some are solitary or if in a group, only a few (Bromelia karatas) but others occur in massive colonies of hundred(s) of plants. Aechmea magdalenae is found in literally masses, around seasonal aguadas (seasonal waterholes). Teco helped us find two such impressive areas between Yaxha and Nakum.
A week ago, while driving between the Naranjo section of Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo, Q’eqchi-Mayan plant scout, Pedro Chub Choc, of the FLAAR Mesoamerica, saw a previously unseen mass of unknown bromeliads with a mass of plum-sized fruits directly along the edge of the road. Our research team was able to identify these as Bromelia pinguin.
The spiny leaves help this Bromelia pinguin plant be a popular “living fence” since neither animals nor people will cross a row of these spiny plants. But they are mainly in extremely dry areas: Jocotan or the Motagua River dry areas (km 50 to 100). Thus I was very surprised to find Bromelia pinguin wild in Peten.
One of our goals in the Yaxha Nakum Naranjo national park is to make a list of as many of the unique plants as possible. Even though this thicket of bromeliads is outside the park, now that we know its eco-system (surprisingly, on a low hill, NOT in an aguada area), we can try to find the same species within the park. We believe they can be found between Yaxha and Nakum, though the eco-system there is not hilly, but dry seasonally wet “aguada-like” areas. More to come after we do further research.
If you enjoy seeing photogenic and exotic plants, consider visiting Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo, Peten, Guatemala. You can stay at the hotel Ecolodge El Sombrero (and if you are clever to be there same days as Dr Hellmuth and the FLAAR team are there, you can have dinner and ask questions).
Two of our review editors at FLAAR will be at Photokina 2018: Erick Flores and Dr Nicholas Hellmuth. We hope to see you there. We photograph all around the world, but our favorite are Neotropical plants of the Mayan world (Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador).
Since we photograph such a diverse range of plants, animals, landscapes, historical architecture, it helps to attend Photokina. We attended Photokina 2016 and will attend Photokina 2018.
About every three days, Ipomoea alba plants have been blooming in our FLAAR Mayan Ethnobotanical Research Garden (surrounding our office in Guatemala City).
Here in this photo you will notice that we have multiple cameras aimed at three different flowers which open between 6:40 and 7 pm last night. Nicholas is using two Nikons (D810 and D5); Erick is using a Canon EOS 1DX Mark II. All lighting is by F. J. Westcott (Spiderlite TD5, still hard at work after over a decade); all tripods are Gitzo via Manfrotto (functional after many many many years). If you want to see the setting (in the FLAAR Mayan Ethnobotanical Research Garden, 1500 meters above sea level, Guatemala) click here
But what we need are better ring lights, plus lighting which is more “directional” (like old-fashioned Dedolights, but lights which don’t require all the accessories). So one item we will be looking for at Photokina 2018 are lights for macro photography. SAVAGE is moving in this direction so we will be sure to be in their booth at Photokina 2018.
We will also be looking for ring lights (because Nikon curiously does not offer ring lights). Canon has really excellent ring lights; Nikon has separate individual units that are great for some situations, but are not as good as ring lights in some situations.
If you are planning to attend Photokina 2018 this September 26 to 29, you can have as a free download our Photokina 2016 report with recomendations, comments and brands who were present. Also with photo studio equipment exhibited and digital camara reviews.
Ipomoea alba at our Mayan Ethnobotanical Research garden, Guatemala CIty, 1500 meters altitude.
Photo taken with a Nikon D5, natural light, no flash, Gitzo tripod, early evening (circa 6:15pm).
The flower at the right opened first; the flower at the right opened about six minutes later.
On www.FLAAR.org home page we show a third flower that opened 3 minutes later about one meter away.
Ipomoea alba is one of several "morning glory vines" whose juice allowed the Olmec, Maya, Aztec and all their neighbors to vulcanize rubber (thousands of years before Thomas Goodyear thought he had "invented" vulcanization).
We also have the other vine (different Genus and species) in our garden and hope to get the others growing soon. This other vine grows within two meters of Castilla elastica trees (native Mesoamerican rubber tree) out in the wild. Ipomoea alba grows about 20 km away (in same eco-system).
We photographed the opening sequence so we can make a video (out of the 350 individual photos we took over a 12 minute period).
Will take a while to turn all the photos into the video, so check back later this summer.
Here is a sample of the 4-petalled flowers we have found growing in remote areas of Guatemala.
4-petalled flowers were used to decorate Late Classic (Tepeu 2) polychrome vases, bowls, and plates throughout the Peten and adjacent areas.
I discovered two bowls with 4-petalled flower designs in Burial 196, Tomb of the Jade Jaguar, Tikal Str. 5D-76, in 1965, while a Harvard student working as an architectural and photographic student intern on the University of Pennsylvania Tikal Project.
4-petaled flowers and 4-rows sepalos.
I have always been curious what actual flowers were the models. My ICA Salamanca 2018 lecture on this topic will be posted next week. Then later we will issue a PDF showing the entire list of 4-petalled flowers that exist in Guatemala, and indicate which we have found and photographed, and which we still need to locate so we can photograph them.
We have discovered totally unexpected epigraphic and iconographic documentation during the recent 6 years of photographic field trips in every eco-system of Guatemala.
Canon EOS 1Dx Mark II , EF100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens, f/10, 1/125, ISO 125
While in Izabal several weeks ago, courtesy of the many hospitable people we know there, we found two areas with wild vanilla orchid vines. One was at water level (literally), alongside the Izabal waterways. The second was about 10 km away, in the hills south of Lago Izabal.
In each location there were “wild vanilla orchid vines everywhere around us.”
Experienced orchid botanist Fredy Archilla is letting us know when other vanilla orchid vines elsewhere may bloom. Plus we have several contacts who have told us about wild vanilla vines that their friends know about.
It is essential NOT to collect wild vines from the forests without special permission. It is even more helpful that the trees are not chopped down: vanilla orchid vines require trees to grow, flower, and produce vanilla pods.
More to come, but we definitely want to have Guatemala given more space in ALL future articles and monographs on vanilla orchids of the world. The Maya of Tikal and of El Mirador had orchid vines. We estimate wild vanilla vines can be found at Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo.
We are also working on Muc (Orejuela, a seasoning) and wild bamboo native to Guatemala… yes, bamboo of the Mayan areas: not bamboo from Asia.
