Another tree with edible fruit for the Maya Coccoloba belizencis Standl. has edible fruit

Posted October 18, 2019

One of our goals is to find, photograph, identify, and publish every edible plant that was available to the Classic Maya for thousands of years. Last week we found another one.

While hiking though the extensive rain forest around hotel Posada Caribe (Guatemala) I noticed the largest leaf that I have ever seen on any tree in Guatemala. There are lots of vines and ground plants with giant leaves, and heliconia have leaves several meters long. But for a tree in Guatemala, these are the largest leaves I have ever seen.

Botanist IARNA ING. César Castañeda kindly suggested it was possibly Coccoloba belizencis Standl. naturally we need to find flowers or fruits to be sure since at Tikal there are more than 18 species of Coccoloba, Family Polygonaceae.

Various species of the genus Coccoloba have edible fruit. Cyrus Lundell lists Coccoloba lundellii Standl. and Coccoloba uvifera (L.) Jacq. as Uva (“grape”) with edible fruits with pulp. Coccoloba belizencis also has edible fruit.

Not one species of Genus Coccoloba has yet been documented for Yaxha though surely a botanical student with plenty of available time could fine a herbarium somewhere in the world with one. And if we do further field work at Yaxha in the future, finding lots of species of Coccoloba will definitely be in our “to do” list.

In 54 years exploring diverse forest ecosystems of Mesoamerica, this is the first time I remember seeing any tree with leaves this large. If you wish to see these trees, they are behind hotel Posada Caribe, along the Arroyo Petexbatun, municipio of Sayaxché, Petén, Guatemala.