The uvito and the pringamosa bloom together

That Sunday, March 22nd, Michel Salas stepped into the forest beneath the deep blue sky that only the dry Caribbean morning can offer. Deep in the reserve's thick scrubland, where branches lace together overhead and leaf litter crunches underfoot, he came upon the uvito blooming once more — the same climbing plant with its pale yellow-white flowers that has already earned its place in earlier pages of this journal — draping itself over the shrubs as though it had never stopped growing since the last visit. A few meters away, half-hidden within the brushy undergrowth, Michel spotted two individuals of Urera baccifera, the pringamosa that commands an instinctive wariness from anyone who has ever brushed against it by mistake. There it stood, with its yellowish-green lobed leaves, stems bristling with fine spines, and small clusters of white flowers emerging near the top. You don't touch it — but you do look: in that corner of the reserve's 520 hectares, the pringamosa blooms with the same unhurried calm as everything else around it. Michel logged four photographs and two GPS points for the area — coordinates 10.4456°N, 75.2598°W — before continuing on his way. The tropical forest does what it always does: quietly, and right on time.