Syngonium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araceae, native to tropical rainforests in southern Mexico, the West Indies, Central and South America. They are woody vines growing to heights of 10–20 m or more in trees. They have leaves that change shape according to the plant's stage of growth, and adult leaf forms are often much more lobed than the juvenile forms usually seen on small house plants. The scientific name of the genus comes from the Greek words σύν and γονή and refers to the fused ovaries of female flowers.
Enterolobium cyclocarpum, commonly known as guanacaste, caro caro, monkey-ear tree, or elephant-ear tree, is a species of flowering tree in the pea family, Fabaceae, that is native to tropical regions of the Americas, from central Mexico south to northern Brazil (Roraima) and Venezuela. It is known for its large proportions, expansive, often spherical crown, and curiously shaped seedpods. The abundance of this tree, especially in Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica, where it is prized for the shady relief it provides from the intense sun, coupled with its immensity, have made it a widely recognized species. It is the national tree of Costa Rica.
Spondias purpura is a species of flowering plant in the cashew family, Anacardiaceae, that is native to tropical regions of the Americas, from Mexico to Brazil. It is also very common in most of the Caribbean islands. It is commonly known as jocote, which derives from the Nahuatl word xocotl, meaning any kind of sour or acidic fruit. Other common names include red mombin, plum, purple mombin, hog plum, ciriguela, ceriguela, seriguela, siriguela (Brazil) cocota, ciruela huesito (Colombia), ciruela, ciruela traqueadora (Panama), ciriguela, cirigüela, cirguela, cirguelo (Ecuador), makapruim, and siniguelas (Philippines). It is a popular fruit throughout Central America, particularly in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and in Costa Rica.
The great green macaw, also known as Buffon's macaw or the great military macaw, is a Central and South American parrot found in Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador. Two allopatric subspecies are recognized; the nominate subspecies, Ara ambiguus ssp. ambiguus, occurs from Honduras to Colombia, while Ara ambiguus ssp. guayaquilensis appears to be endemic to remnants of dry forests on the southern Pacific coast of Ecuador. The nominate subspecies lives in the canopy of wet tropical forests and in Costa Rica is usually associated with the almendro tree, Dipteryx oleifera.
Muntingia is a genus of plants in the family Muntingiaceae, comprising only one species, Muntingia calabura, and was named in honour of Abraham Munting. It is native to the neotropics, from Mexico south to Bolivia, with edible fruit, and has been widely introduced in other tropical areas.
Couratari is a genus of trees in the family Lecythidaceae, first described as a genus in 1775. They are native to tropical South America and Central America.
Lecythis pisonis, the cream nut or monkey pot, is a tropical tree in the Brazil nut family Lecythidaceae. It is known in its native tropical America as sapucaia or castanha-de-sapucaia. The fruit is shaped like a cooking pot and contains edible seeds.
Lecythis is a genus of woody plant in the Lecythidaceae family first described as a genus in 1758. It is native to Central America and South America.
Aniba is an American neotropical flowering plant genus in the family Lauraceae. They are present in low and mountain cloud forest in Caribbean islands, Central America, and northern to central South America.
Ficus insipida is a common tropical tree in the fig genus of the family Moraceae growing in forest habitats along rivers. It ranges from Mexico to northern South America.
The Isthmian–Atlantic moist forests (NT0129) are a Central American tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion located on the lowland slopes on the caribbean sea side of Nicaragua and Costa Rica and the Gulf and Pacific Ocean sides of Panama. The forest species are a mix of North American and South American, as this region only became a land bridge in the past 3 million years.
Guazuma ulmifolia, commonly known as West Indian elm or bay cedar, is a medium-sized tree normally found in pastures and disturbed forests. This flowering plant from the family Malvaceae grows up to 30m in height and 30–40cm in diameter. It is widely found in areas such as the Caribbean, South America, Central America and Mexico serving several uses that vary from its value in carpentry to its utility in medicine.
Simarouba amara is a species of tree in the family Simaroubaceae, found in the rainforests and savannahs of South and Central America and the Caribbean. It was first described by Aubl. in French Guiana in 1775 and is one of six species of Simarouba. The tree is evergreen, but produces a new set of leaves once a year. It requires relatively high levels of light to grow and grows rapidly in these conditions, but lives for a relatively short time. In Panama, it flowers during the dry season in February and March, whereas in Costa Rica, where there is no dry season it flowers later, between March and July. As the species is dioecious, the trees are either male or female and only produce male or female flowers. The small yellow flowers are thought to be pollinated by insects, the resulting fruits are dispersed by animals including monkeys, birds and fruit-eating bats and the seeds are also dispersed by leaf cutter ants.
Pentaclethra macroloba is a large and common leguminous tree in the genus Pentaclethra native to the wet tropical areas of the northern Neotropics, which can form monocultural stands in some seasonally flooded habitats. It has giant, bipinnate leaves shaped like feathers. It uses seed dispersal by water to establish itself in new areas, having floating seeds that are left behind after the waters recede after floods or tides. It has hard timber which is not very resistant to rot in the tropics, but it can be treated, has a pretty pink-red colour when dry, and has a number of uses. Oil used in cosmetics is extracted from the large seeds. In the northern Amazon region the bark is used in herbal medicine as an antivenom, and in the Guianas the bark has been used as a fish poison. Despite their toxicity, the seeds are eaten by variegated squirrels, parrots and macaws, and serve as the nurseries of the larvae of the moth Carmenta surinamensis.
Lecythis zabucajo, the sapucaia or paradise nut, is a large nut-producing tree occurring in the Guianas, Suriname, Venezuela, Ecuador, Honduras and Brazil, and which distribution range is much the same as that of the greater spear-nosed bat. Although not singling out Lecythis zabucajo, Jacques Huber noted in 1909 that fruit bats played the most important role in seed dispersal in Amazonian forests. The quality of its nuts led to the species' being introduced to numerous tropical countries, notably Trinidad, where it has flourished. The nuts are a valuable food resource and yield oil suitable for cooking and domestic use.
Cosmibuena is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. The genus is native to Chiapas, Central America, and South America as far south as Brazil.
Omphalocarpum elatum Miers is a tall, tropical African tree belonging to the family Sapotaceae, remarkable for the large fruits growing directly from the trunk, and in many ways resembling the Lecythidaceae genus Napoleonaea. It is found in Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ghana, the Central African Republic, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Angola in the south. The fruits are favoured by elephants, the only animals able to break through the hard shell. They do this by skewering the fruit with a tusk while using their trunk to brace it against the ground. Having passed through the elephant's digestive tract, seeds germinate more readily. Although not yet endangered, the tree's life cycle is tied to that of forest elephants, and may become threatened in regions where elephant populations are under pressure.
Astrocaryum standleyanum is a species of palm known by many common names, including chumba wumba, black palm, chonta, chontadura, coquillo, palma negra, pejibaye de montaña, güerre, güérregue, güinul, mocora, pucaishchi (Chachi), and chunga (Emberá). It is native to Central and South America, where its distribution extends from Nicaragua to Ecuador. It is most common in central Panama, even becoming abundant in the tropical forests around the Panama Canal, but in general it is not a common plant.
Pouteria viridis is a species of flowering plant in the family Sapotaceae known by the common name green sapote.
Lecythis minor, the monkey-pot tree, is a small tree with toxic seeds that occurs in South America.
