This is a vine growig on the roadside in Nicaragua.. and into the jungle like vegitation near the lake in a volcanic crater .. can anyone help me in the ID of this red baby... the length of the flower mat is about 6-8" long and 1 1/2" wide
Thanks... Gordon
This message was edited Feb 7, 2005 2:53 PM
here are the seed pods of my mystery flower Gordon
really cool looking plant. Did you snag that seedpod???LOL
i am with Donna thats a cool looking flower!! hoping he did snatch seed pod to have for trade in future. lol
I wasn't able t post the third picturewhen I posted before.. but this is a photo of the enntire vine as it grew there by the volcano lake... Come on experts... surely there's some clue... Thanks... Gordon
Gordon try post the pics on the ID forum. Might get a answer quicker there
The seed pod looks very much like a vine that the natives in the Virgin Islands called "Cow Itch". All those little "hairs" when you disturbed a dried pod would waft into the air and if impacts on your skin you would itch like mad, and wish you hadn't encountered the plant!
I loved that flower...very much out of this world!!
Joseph
Joseph... Yes... that must be it... FIRE like everything was ablaze... like you should go running mad across the field and over a cliff.. if it would only stop te fire.. that's the way I senced it...
Very good Joseph... thanks alot... Gordon
OH a soap and water wash .. right away and a buff with a dry towel is the cure.. I found..perhaps a little cream after .. I didn't know if it was the hairs or something living inside the hairs...
You're right also... a real knockout...a beauty.. I didn't notice the hairs becomming airbore so much as to the touch.. and if the were put into your pocket say... Yup.. that's it
Gordon
This message was edited Feb 8, 2005 1:19 AM
OMG you put the pods in your POCKET WOW talk about itch city in a very sensitive area of the body!!!
You know, in the 4 years I lived on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, I never saw the flowers of cow itch, but saw plenty of the pods in the fields I was trying to maintain!
Have you gotten them to grow for you?
Joseph
I have grown "cow itch". I actually have the white and purple variety. The species is mucuna.
When I first saw your pod, mucuna was my very first guess. However, the flower doesn't look like mucuna at all.
There are red mucunas, but they don't look like the one in your picture.
Is is possible that a mucuna vine had wrapped around a bush/tree with a red flower, and it was mistaken for the pod of the bush?
Sometimes those vines can wrap around things so well, they look like they are a part of the host plant, when they are not...
The flower looks more like a calliandra, or bottlebrush plant, while the pod looks like a mucuna.(to me, anyway)
-T
Yes.. seed Picker ... I was comming to that same point... some of the seed pods don't ive with the flower.. I was real careful to trace it back... but with the cow itch.. or similarly irritating pod... it was al I could do shortly to hold the camera steady...
well thanks... your pod of cowitch you posted looks alot like mine if it were to be green and a bit less furry.. gusss I'll have to grow them out and see what it is I have
Gordon
Your pod is MUCH hairier than mine. I did not find the hairs on my pods to sting and irritate like some say. The ones on my mucunas have been more like fiberglass. Something you don't want to get into your skin, but would only irritate for a short time.
I've read of some of the mucunas having hairs that actually sting, and leave red whelps! Maybe that is only if you are allergic to it, but not really sure...
I did grow a mucuna albertsii, and even the leaves and stem were hairy. They were the same color of hairs as are on your pod. Maybe that is what you have...
Like you said, you'll just have to grow it, but I'll bet you have the red version, as the purple doesn't have that much hair, and the white has even less. Yours is the most prickly haired pod, I've seen.
Then again, my albertsii hasn't produced a pod yet, so have yet to see on that one. Being as the rest of it is so hairy, I'll bet the pods are, too.
The seeds of the albertsii looked like a "hamburger bean", while the seeds of the white and purple mucuna, looked different from that, and smaller.
I'm pretty sure I posted a picture of the beans under the PDB of the mucuna pruriens.
If you google "hamburger bean" you can view what they look like at Wayne's world on the web.
Have you opened your pod to view the beans, yet??
Can you post a picture of the beans? That will help to id them, a lot better.
-T
Taylor,
Gordon posted this same ID request over at the Tropicals forum. Take a look at my response and see what you think. http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/483953/
-Ron-
Thanks!
So it's solved! : Combretum wrapped in mucuna!
Man!, I just can't get over those hairs...must be a difference in climate that make mine less hairy...LUCKILY! lol...
-T
I have 2 combretums I got this fall. Hopefully they will take off this summer. I also have the mucnan vine(Velvet Bean Vine) from Nadine
http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi?uid=COMBRETUM_erythrophillum or
http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi?uid=COMBRETUM_GRANDIFLORUM not sure which ones. She also gave me another one at Christmas. Have to check the tags to see if they are different ones or all the same.
This message was edited Feb 9, 2005 9:37 PM
DonnaB... I think that's a winner there Donna.. thanks .. the first link and on the left side there ... looks like a spindlely cousin to mine... whose flowers are almost a mat..
Thaks Gordon...
