Branch tip with flowers of Archytaea triflora
From what I can determine, you would have to travel to the Amazon rainforest or a South American botanical garden to see today’s species. If it is in cultivation elsewhere, it hasn’t been photographed and shared online–an unlikely scenario, given the photogenic flower of Archytaea triflora.
As I correct & modernize the old entries (particularly by adding tags), I am starting to get a better idea of what Botany Photo of the Day has and hasn’t covered in its 13+ years. With that perspective, it seems like a harmless enough venture to try for certain small goals within the overarching one of celebrating plant biodiversity through science and beauty. For example, can we get a photo of a native plant from every country of the world? Can we get a photo of a representative from each flowering plant family? Today’s image has a checkmark besides both of these: neither Guyana nor the Bonnetiaceae have previously been featured.
Bonnetiaceae is a small plant family consisting only of shrubs and small trees. There are approximately 35 species in 3 genera, with 30 of these from Bonnetia. The family has a distribution that covers two parts of the tropics: Cuba & South America in the New World, and Malesia & Cambodia in the Old World (no representatives in tropical Africa!). If you are hoping to compare it with a family that you may be familiar with, Bonnetiaceae is a sister family to the Clusiaceae.
Archytaea triflora (no common name that I can locate) is native to northern Brazil and Guyana. Information about the species is hard to come by; Reflora (Flora Do Brasil 2020) has perhaps the most information on Archytaea triflora, and even at that it is sparse (though it does include additional photographs and scans of herbarium specimens). It does note that Archytaea triflora is associated with rock outcrop vegetation in the Amazon rainforest.
Botanical resource link: Botanical Art Worldwide is
A groundbreaking collaboration between botanical artists, organizations, and institutions worldwide, creating and exhibiting botanical artworks of native plants found in each of 25 participating countries.
Among those countries is Brazil, with its exhibit including an illustration of Archytaea triflora! Read the About page for more details. One of the important dates is May 18, 2018, (the “Worldwide Day of Botanical Art”), when the exhibits in each of the participating countries will be having some sort of special event (and for Canadian BPotD readers, the exhibit is in Ottawa at the Canadian Museum of Nature: see Art of the Plant).
Relatively new to BPoD and liking it very much as you serve up a daily dose of botanic beauty and wonder. My wife thought today’s flower resembled in some ways the “logo” flower adopted by our local California Native Plant Society chapter, viz. Mentzelia lindleyi, Blazing Star, in the Loasaceae family. Thanks, again, for great photographs of our planet’s floristic wonders.
I can see that. It did make me check to see if there were any pink-flowered members of the Loasaceae (there aren’t).
Two check marks, what a thrill! Thanks for featuring this photo Daniel. Seeing it brought back good memories. The photo was taken at Kaieteur Falls at the edge of the Guayana plateau, hands down the most other-worldly and utterly scenic place I’ve ever been. I’m not sure how amenable A. triflora is to being grown outside of rocky outcrops in the Amazon, but it certainly has merit for its ornamental qualities. The growth form is neat and upright (in the full tropical sun anyway), reminiscent of a columnar rhodododendron, and the silvery red-margined foliage with is striking, to say nothing of the flowers. There were even some plants at Kaieteur with a beautiful yellow variegation… in case tropical horticulturalists were looking for even more reasons to visit there.
“Can we get a photo of a representative from each flowering plant family?”
Not likely, given that currently, every level of taxon seems to be revised almost daily. Including plant families…
My observations are that things are settling down at the Order and Family level–the number of changes from Angiosperm Phylogeny Group Version 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 were much higher than from 3 to 4. It seems like things are settling down.
At levels below that, though, I wouldn’t bet on the changes slowing down significantly.