Archytaea triflora

Family / Families: Bonnetiaceae
Scientific Name(s): Archytaea triflora Mart.
Location(s): Kaieteur Plateau, Guyana
Entry Author(s): Daniel Mosquin
Copyright Holder(s): Cody Hinchliff@Flickr
Image Permissions: Please contact the copyright holder for permission to use.
Photographer(s) Appreciation: Cody Hinchcliff@Flickr has shared photographs of plants from some of the most out-of-the-way places, including this one from Guyana: Archytaea triflora. Thanks once again--it's an old photo, but a good one!
Tags: Bonnetiaceae, Guyana, Malpighiales, via Flickr

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).