Showing posts with label Maya Srubs Piñuela Yucateca. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maya Srubs Piñuela Yucateca. Show all posts

Friday, July 31, 2015

Maya Srubs Piñuela Yucateca

By Liliana Usvat    
Blog 342-365
 
 















Piñuela Yucateca (Spanish) Jo’oyok or X' hoyoc (Maya), Morinda yucatanensis Greenm,  Rubiaceae Family, slender shrub with narrow elliptic leafs inflorescent clusters of pale off-white small five petal flowers in sessile globosely clusters at leaf axils; small fruits shaped like mini-cactus bumps, yellow when riped. "Piñuela Yucateca" shrubs grow commonly entangled with other plants.
 

Medicinal Uses
Mayan healers use this medicinal plant for digestive system healings and for Mayan "evil wind ailments.
 
At one time it was thought that plants from the Yucatán were a distinct species and were given the binomial Morinda yucatanensis. However, now Yucatán's plants are considered the same as Morinda royoc, and Morinda royoc is an old Linnaeus name, worthy of being preserved.
 
You can see why one of the many English names used for the vine is Mouse's Pineapple. The pineapple is formed by the close clustering of numerous maturing inferior flower ovaries. Inferior ovaries are those from which the calyx's sepals, the corolla and the stamens arise above the ovary, not at the ovary's base, in which case it would be a superior ovary.