Tropical plants 1

In keeping with the usual topics of this blog, it is time for some quick thoughts on the plants being encountered here in the Yucatan, where we are in the actual tropics. Merida is not a particularly "green" city, being densely populated and much of it built during centuries when the concept of the urban forest did not yet exist. Most houses in the old town front on the sidewalk, and the sidewalks in many areas are too narrow to allow for any planting.

Plants, however, sometimes have other ideas. This mini-ecosystem seems to have grown up through a crack in the sidewalk near a downtown building and is doing its job of attracting pollinators.
 

Of course, private gardens and public parks exist all over the city. This tropical paradise is the walkway/driveway to the front door of our guesthouse.

 

And while I do not yet know the names of many of the more spectacular plants encountered around here, or whether they are native to this part of the world, some of them are indeed spectacular. This lovely thing rains orange blossoms on sidewalks all over town,

actual orange blossoms cover some of a city's less pleasant smells with their nostalgic sweetness, bougainvillea are everywhere, climbing to the tops of mature trees, and we have been lucky enough to be here when the royal poinciana (not seen since my Florida girlhood) are in bloom.

Lucky indeed.