Summary: This post links to videos of Lecythidaceae tree species identifications from the Brazilian Amazon. The videos should be useful for students of Amazon botany. They also serve as metadata for botanical and DNA collections from mapped and tagged trees at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project.
My lab has been studying the ecology and evolutionary history of the Brazil nut family, Lecythidaceae, which is most abundant and diverse in the rain forests of the Brazilian Amazon. We adopted a 100 ha inventory plot at the Km 41 camp of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP) near Manaus, Brazil, as our “field laboratory” (see this 2017 post) because all Lecythidaceae trees (>10 cm diameter at breast height) were mapped and scrupulously identified by Scott Mori 30 years ago. We wanted to literally follow in Scott’s footsteps, study his mapped trees and monographs (e.g. Mori and Lepsch-Cunha 1995), and acquire the field ID skills we needed to do untethered botanical explorations of Lecythidaceae in other Neotropical forests.
We have been working with Paulo Asunção, a BDFFP field technician who worked on the original Lecythidaceae inventory. Paulo is an excellent field botanist with deep knowledge of Lecythidaceae taxonomy. For most species, we discussed and recorded relevant field characters such as outer bark texture, inner bark thickness and color, tree architecture, and twig, shoot and leaf traits. When available, we also examined fruits and flowers and made herbarium collections.
To make the most of limited field time, I took video notes as we collected >31 species in the Km 41 plot. These videos were useful to me, and since my students have asked me to post them, here they are. I expect the videos may be useful for other Amazon field workers. As a caveat, these videos capture my first impressions in most cases. I’ve verified the highlighted useful characters with Mori and Lepsch-Cunha (1995) and by studying species descriptions on Scott Mori’s excellent Lecythidaceae Pages.
The videos are presented in alphabetical order (only three species in parentheses do not yet have a video). In addition to botanical information, the videos sometimes capture our botanical discussions, the difficulty of making botanical collections, and the excitement of first encounters with unfamiliar species. Some favorites include our fruit collection of sapucaia (Lecythis pisonis), the flowering collection of Couratari multiflora, and discussing the common name/odor of Gustavia elliptica (spoiler — it smells like opossum).
The videos were taken in July-August 2017 and February 2018. Our team included the climbers Manoel (2017) and Cunha Neves (2018), Paulo Asunção, and students Drew Larson, Bruno Garcia Luize, Priscila Souza, Tamara Milton and Nicolli Cabello, with appearances by collaborator Myriam Heuertz.
Lecythidaceae of Km 41:
Allantoma decandra
Allantoma lineata
Cariniana micrantha
Corythophora alta
Corythophora rimosa
(Couratari guianensis)
Couratari longipedicellata
Couratari multiflora
Couratari stellata
(Couratari tauari)
Eschweilera amazoniformis
Eschweilera atropetiolata
Eschweilera bracteosa
Eschweilera collina
Eschweilera coriacea
Eschweilera cyathiformis
Eschweilera grandiflora
Eschweilera laevicarpa
Eschweilera micrantha
Eschweilera pedicellata
Eschweilera pseudodecolorans
Eschweilera rankinae
Eschweilera Romeu-Cardosoi
Eschweilera tessmanii
Eschweilera truncata
Eschweilera wachenheimii
Gustavia elliptica
(Lecythis barnebyi)
Lecythis gracieana
Lecythis parvifructa
Lecythis pisonis
(Lecythis poiteaui)
Lecythis pranceii
Lecythis retusa
Lecythis zabucajo
