BOTANICAL INVENTORY UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO

I TAKE the opportunity to reiterate that is not really important to plant this or that, here or there without keeping records for the studious, research or just monitoring for pest management, growth habits.  Unfortunately, in Puerto Rico no one seems to understand the relevance of systematic maintenance in the field or the computer system.

Albizia lebbek

Nerium oleander

Plumeria rubra

Hymenaea courbaril

Terminalia catappa

Sterculia apetata

Araucaria heterophylla

Couropia guianensis

Yucca elephantipes

Swietenia mahagoni/macrophylla

Cordia alliodora

Muntingia calabura

Cassia javanica

Melaleuca quinquenervia

Ceiba pentandra

Cupressus sempervirens

Clitoria fairchildiana

Cocos nucifera

Barringtonia asiatica

Anadenanthera peregrina

Clusia rosea

Dillenia indica

Hibiscus tiliaceus

Thespesia populnea

Ficus nekbuda

Delonix regia

Peltophorum inerme

Enterolobium cyclocarpum

Psidium guajava

Crescentia cujete

Cananga odorata

Artocarpus heterophyllus

Agathis robusta

Ficus microcarpa F. retusa

Callistemon citrinus

Montezuma speciossima

Pimenta racemosa

Conocarpus erecta

Mangifera indica

Calophyllum brasiliense

Hura crepitans

Morinda citrifolia
Ochna mossabicensis
Phoenix sp.
Livinstonia chinensis
Chrysalidocarpus lutesecens
Caryota urens
Aiphanes acanthrophylla
Veitchia merrilli
Ravanala madascariensies
Roystonea borinquena
Corypha umbraculifera
Bauhinia monandra
Pandanus utilis
Casuarina equisetifolia
Pterocarpus indicus
Cavanillesia plataniforia
Lagerstromia speciosa
Tabebuia rosea
Pithelobium saman
Tectoria grandis
Spathodea campanulata
Thuja orientalis
Bucida buseras
Cordia sebestina

This inventory was provided by
Pablito Bayamon
pbayamon@gmail.com

This character teaches biology at the UPR.  He like Areces Mallea, Phd, is the complacent, foolish, looking the other way academician.

Pablito, no only has never noticed the tens of mutilated trees in the Rio Piedras campus. His inventory does not show anything else but trees. No bushes, vines, vascular plants that constitute the whole.

As the greatest fool, Areces, who destroyed 12 acres to plant trees and palms in Parque Donha Ines as if our flora endemic, exotic or native, is just TREES.

Once upon a time the UPR was an attractive, relaxing green space to visit. Now is just a HUGE parking lot in which the vegetation is just a waste, more cars could be parked in it... Just as they do in Museo de Arte.

THE POTS GAMUT

SOME time ago I reported me fans, informing the pathetic situation in some museum of art in Puerto Rico, to a woman with more tittles than the duchess of Alba, that by di guay is a fan of the Real Betis.

Lilliana is her name, (http://antigonumcajaneveningpost.blogspot.com

/2010/08/museo-de-arte-contemporaneo-what-is.html).
Well, I have the credentials to do consultant jobs regarding any aspect of landscape installation/maintenance, ALL of them.
As usual, pro-bono.  After I wrote a list of everything wrong with the property and inclined, hazardous Eucaliptus in the sidewalk in front, she got cute. 

In the silly back and forth messages in feisbuk, "Shakespeare, Versailles, happy mediums", were the academic lame slick utterances...followed by 'lets talk'.

In typical academic demeanor she went to mention the Keebler soda crackers tin cans used as pots in the ancient past, in Puertorico's cities/towns/country side, before the sterile cookie mold nurseries became the rule, in her vicinity.  In mine, the recycled cans were Sultana, un nombre con justa fama.  The brands could start a sociological debate, but not now.   But let the record show that recycling is something people with imagination, with money or not, have always done as in this example.

As a tribute to her, el museo de arte, and the ivory towered puertorican pundits in every academic field I dedicate this post.

 POTS BY NUMBER

l
Pandanus 
oval galvanized steel
ll
Barleria repens/Clitoria ternatea
Sideways terracota frog acquired by the missis in charge. It is a good time to tell the reader that Barleria and Turneras (3species) occupy
the most space in the collection, also as individual plants.
lll
 Sideways endemic Zamia, among others, plant a present from Rengui, me inlaw.
Terracota on top of 
same
lV
Capsicum florescens
Citrus sinensis
Fiberglass
V
DK cranberry like 
fruit tree
Concrete, pot is one of two, a present from Don Miguel, neighbor and #1 garden fan.
VI
Myosotis, Asparagus and Turnera subulata
Tin 

that is that...

THE PROPAGATOR REPORTS

If you look at the map of America, the geographical possibilities to find out what is going on with the horticultural scene are rather few.
Gardening and horticultural aesthetics do not seem relevant to the average citizen.  It does not matter the ethnic, gender, sexual preference, social, age, religion, economical, educational segment of the population, it is real.

However, I decided to practice gardening to the best of my skills, credentials, experience and botanical certificate from the NYBG.

From what I observe, many gardeners with blogs in any continent, depend exclusively on nurseries and opinions expressed by others in a vacuum without references or trajectory. Buying, selling, pretty photos,  seem to be the important issues within this group.

My approach is a little different. I collect, propagate, make compost and my own soil. This way I avoid bringing home, diseases from nurseries. 

Here is the inventory of what I have propagated from

seed*, cut stems**

and division ***, during the last six months

4 white Plumerias **

1 Allamanda

6 Turnera subulata

1 Thunbergia alata

3 Pseuderantemun reticulatum

4 Origanum vulgare

3 Rosmarinum officinale

4 Ocimun basilicum

3 yellow Hibiscus

2 Capsicum florescens

12 Pedilanthus tuberose ***

3 Manihot esculenta

15 Mirabilis siciliana *

3 Carica papaya

UNCOMMON COMMON TREES IN OUR URBAN CONTEXT

T he monster fifty percent showing in the footer, Mangifera indica, is over 70 years old.  In our
old and recent past, people used to plant trees that not only would provide shade, but fruits also.


This lower income  vicinity has plenty of old fruit trees including, Artocarpus altilis of legendary fame brought to film in Moutiny on the Bounty.  It tells the story of the travels of this food staple for the British slaves in their territories in  America. 


But that is another story that perhaps you could research and write...later...


That other photo is an Anacardium occidentale with over 125 of age.  It is so big and wide I took a picture of the trunk to provide an idea of the magnificence of this specimen.


The differences between these two are many, but the important one for now is that I have seen maybe thousands of mango and breadfruit trees in every conceivable country side and urban contexts in Puerto Rico, USA, but only ONE, cashew, shared here.


The amount of dishes, deserts created with the fruit of the featuring trees in the Caribbean is wide. Unfortunately, each others creativity with gastronomy is mostly unknown for the general population of the English, Spanish, French and miscelaneous languages/cultures in the Caribbean.


It would be interesting to publish an inventory of every tree in every island with their botanical names and all their gastronomical possibilities. 

This type of botanical inventory would be helpful in many ways.  For example,
if there was any interest in sharing the information among the mentioned, better controls for disease and integrated pest management could be developed.


An inventory of adequate trees for the urban context is necessary. Down here  street trees are arbitrarily selected and planted foolishly by ignorant employees in the private and public sectors  creating multiple and costly problems.


Problems with aesthetics, height, shape, leaves, organic waste, sidewalks, paved surfaces and water pipes are visible in any town and city streets of Puerto Rico... A systematic inventory for the country side/urban context would be useful to all.  

that is that

EARLY AND LATE BOTANICAL MEMORIES

  T he earliest and more distant is the still  impressive, 54 years later, Antigonon leptopus, growing in the horrendous cyclone fence of the Luis Munhoz Rivera, elementary school in Caguas City.  Mothers and grandmothers kept Pothos in glass jars inside their houses. Diffenbachias and , Hibiscus in their mostly compacted soil or cement, recycled cracker tin cans pots in cities and country side.

Ninety five percent of my life has taken place in urban contexts in the colony or the metropolis. The five left, was rather brief and intense in Aguas Buenas City, during a couple of summers 1959/60.

I spent the time between my maternal aunt, Marta,  and Generoso, my  grandfather and farmer, in Mulitas and Juan Ascencio distant vicinities with unpaved yellow/red compacted and slippery clay. 


I still remember Generoso over sixty years old, weeding his plantation of Alocasia Macrorizia and Oryza sativa, one early morning when the sun was still  somewhat shy.  The peculiar sound of the rice stalks against the Alocasia leaves waving against the wind never left me thoughts.


My relatives, both,  lived in houses without electricity or water, with the mandatory outhouses.  It is rather odd that half a century later, half the world still lives like that, with many, close by, and no outhouses like Haiti.  But this is no sociological report. Back to the studio.


F ast forward to 1968/69.  Those were the years if I remember correctly that I propagated anything in my life.  Cannavis sativa and Bauhinia monandra from seeds and Ficus pumila from a stem.

To close this post, Generoso with a first or second grade of school was an avid reader and very opened minded.  One of our last conversations dealt with Cannavis cultivation in Puerto Rico in those years. 

To my surprise and my mother's discomfort, he told us very casually that he new many farmers who got rich with the planting and selling. 

My views on gardening, horticulture and the environment have been forged with lots of anger and pain.  I witnessed the destruction of Puerto Rico. I grew up between that world that I do not see with any romanticism, the agricultural, turned into a concrete plastered cage, noisy, hot, maze, hell of highways and roads poorly designed, with no maintenance, vertical/horizontal houses and buildings without ANY aesthetic, scale and proportion considerations in the San Juan Metro Area and the rest of the island. 

Puerto Rico has been plastered with concrete/asphalt, left and right, malls, 
fast food joints, gas stations with the complicity of politicians, bankers, lawyers, architects, engineers and politicians, it has been like watching vultures, any of your preference, ripping off the island and its resources and beauty, for profit and avarice.

In consequence, my views on gardening and the surrounding people are atypical, always within this context.  Not just complacency with the pretty pictures and the self.   Just flora/fauna, some aesthetics, collecting, and propagating, without pollution or noise.

that is that.

If you like this or did not
check my trajectory:

endemismotrasnochado.blogspot.com

puertorrikenhadasinmostaza

and last not least

antigonum cajan

eveningpost.blogspot.com

  

ENHANCE YOUR SURROUNDINGS

with the nature at hand..

When living under my concrete/asphalt surroundings, anyone could enhance their immediate flora and fauna, planting guerrilla style*; broad leaf weeds, vines, bushes and plants growing wild in this city context.

The only requirements for success, is the self seeding behavior of the chosen species on one hand.  On the other, some aesthetic value that will change in each situation or individual.

On a necessary third hand, drought, heat, sun resistance

and salty breezes species will certainly do well.

Cosmos sulphureous is so strong that it will survive in broken cinder blocks debris as shown at right.

Rainy days are the best time to proceed, since the force of the drops hitting the ground will disperse soil particles all over.  The increase in humidity will accelerate the viability and seeds opening.

This is one of my favorite aspects of setting trends.  I have dealt with this more than once  in endemismotrasnochado and antigonumcajaneveningpost. blogspot.com,

about it more than once for the last five years.

 the 

inventory

if interested:

 Merremia quinquefolia

Ipomoea quamoclit/aegyptia

Clitoria ternatea

Cosmos sulphureous

Passiflora foetida/pallida l.

Centrosema pubescens

Crotalaria retusa

Bauhinia monandra
Hibiscus cannabinus

Urena lobata

This inventory is the one I have planted at the time, but it has no limits, it depends on what I find on my strolls or during extremely rare car trips around the isle on  ill kept roads and highways.

A couple are DK, if you know the botanical name, share it if you will.