|
|
 22 guacimo fruits DHJanzen100684.jpg high resolution
|
|
| The horses in image DHJanzen100684.jpg above are picking up newly fallen guacimo fruits (Guazuma ulmifolia, Sterculiaceae). These olive-sized fruits are produced by the hundreds of thousands by fully insolated guacimo trees growing in and bordering pastures. The flowers were produced 10 months earlier at the beginning of the rainy season, and the small fruits stayed dormant all through the rainy season and then expanded to full-size at the beginning of the dry season, to be shed to earth-bound dispersal agents in the last two months of the dry season. Hard and dry, and covered with a thin layer of molassus, the mature fruits taste and smell quite similar to rock-hard raisins. A horse may eat 2000+ in a single meal. | ||
back to lecture slides
or skip to: