Guaiacum coulteri

 

Guaiacum coulteri ( ) (guayacán)

Zygophyllaceae

  • Face paint materials: for blue color the resin was used. This large, woody shrub or small tree has very hard wood, and bright green, pinnate leaves. In May and June, at the height of the dry season, it produces spectacular masses of deep violet-blue flowers. The fruit opens in summer and fall. It grows in the interior of Tiburon Island and on the mainland coast from near Tasiota and southward; inland it ranges north of Hermosillo. Hair Care: the roots were mashed and moistened, an then used as shampoo. Medicine: the fruit was crushed and cooked in water, and the tea was taken as a cure for dysentery. In curing the sick, a shaman sometimes used the Seri blue for painting crosses on the patient's chest. Pigment: a blue pigment, Seri blue, was made with guayacán resin and several other ingredients, none of which is blue in its unaltered state. This blue pigment or paint was an important constituent in Seri aesthetic expression. It was used for facepaint, for coloring clay necklace beads, and for decorating pottery, clay figurines, fetishes, headdresses, arrow wrist guards, game sticks, and a wide range of other objects. In fact, it was used for almost any decorated object other than basketry. Seri blue began to be in less demand around the middle of the twentieth century because commercial building became readily available. The three ingredients used in making Seri Blue are the root bark of Ambrosia dumosa, a mixed clay in which montmorillonitic layers predominate, and guayacán resin. The Seri said that guayacán and the clay occur only on Tiburon Island. The root bark of Ambrosia ambrosoides or Stegnosperma was sometimes used instead of the root bark of Ambrosia dumosa. A. ambrosoides was said to impart a distinct aroma to the pigment.The Supernatural: Seri blue was used for seeking good luck. "People of the Desert and Sea, Ethnobotany of the Seri Indians. Richard Stephen Felger and Mary Beck Moser".

Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas más populares de este blog

Lupinus arizonicus

Imagen
  Lupinus arizonicus (Arizona lupine) ( ) Fabaceae Arizona lupine is one of the most common and conspicuous desert lupines when it blooms in sandy washes and open creosote bush scrub below 3,000 feet in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Its is particularly abundant in spring along roadsides. Although an annual, Arizona lupine is a robust plant that is typically 1-2 feet in height. Its stems and the underside of its green leaflets have long, spreading hairs. The purple flowers have a yellowish spot on each of the banners, which are the two petals that spread horizontally. "California Native Plants, Philip W Rundel, Robert J Gustafson, Michael E Kauffmann."
Leer más

Asteraceae

Imagen
Asteraceae The most diverse and ecologically significant family of woody and semi-woody shrubs in creosote bush scrub is the sunflower family. Globally Asteraceae is second only to the Orchidaceae in number of species. Memers of the Asteraceae family are challenging to identify until one becomes familiar with flower structures. The essential feature defining the Asteraceae is the presence of composite flower heads that typically include numerous tiny flowers joined in what, at first, resembles a single large flower-as seen in a familiar sunflower. The typical composite flower head is composed of two types of flowers, although either one of these types may be absent in some genera. The outer whorl of flowers in a typical composite head has three petals fused to form what appears to be a single large petal, while the other two petals are absent. These fused petals of the ray flowers, or ligules, are the attractive structures for pollinators. Ray flowers are almost always female. The inne...
Leer más

Agavoideae

 Agavoideae Joshua trees, along with other of Yucca , have a remarkable pollination system that involves a mutualistic relationship with species of yucca moths ( Tegeticula spp. ). The female yucca moth gathers pollen from yucca flowers using her specially adapted mouthparts. Once she has collected enough sticky pollen, she forms it into a ball which she presses against the stigma of every yucca flower she visits, pollinating these flowers. At the same time, she injects her eggs into the female tissue of the yucca flower. As the fruits of the yucca mature, they produce numerous large seeds and, at the same time, host the developing larvae of the yucca moth. The food sources of these developing larvae are the seeds of the yucca, but the larvae consume only a portion of the seeds. When the larvae are mature, they excavate an exit hole from the fruit, drop to the ground, form a cocoon, and emerge the following year. The undamaged seeds mature and are shed- and under appropriate condit...
Leer más