Favoritos de onjalalaina

Found in Berenty Private Reserve near the banks of the Mandrare Fleuve in riverine forest with Tamarindus indicus as a major component.

This is a plant with no foliage, hexagonal red roots, a flower that blooms just above the soil and a fruit that grows just below the ground.

In the first picture here the dirt and leaf litter has been cleared slightly to give a better view of the fruit, while the dried flower is visible above it.

The next two are pictures of the living roots, while the fourth shows dried roots. The fifth shows fruit in the ground without any clearing on my part. (These images were all scanned from slides, the next ones are stills taken on a DV video camera with 720x480 resolution)

The sixth image shows a cross section of the fruit after it had been partly eaten by lemurs, and then (after they'd moved on) removed from the ground and cut open by me. The seventh shows that fruit in the ground. And the eighth shows a lemur eating it.

The fruit is a favorite of the local lemurs (L. catta, Propithicus verrauxi) and the imported Eulemur fulvus all of whom would fight over access to them.

This was found under an stand of (non-native) Pithecellobium sp. trees, but the plant is moderately common in the area and found where these do not grow as well.

The date is approximate (the year and month are accurate, and it was toward the latter half of the month). The GPS is also not up to modern standards, this was still in the days of selective availability.