The Guásimo Working a Double Shift

On an afternoon of unbroken blue sky, Michel Salas and Jorge Alcalá stopped before a tree that couldn't quite make up its mind between flowering and fruiting. It was a guásimo — Guazuma ulmifolia — standing alone in open rural land, the earth dry at its feet and its branches laden all at once with tiny yellow blossoms and rough-skinned fruits at every stage of life imaginable: the firm green ones, freshly born, and the black, desiccated ones that had already run their course. They were not alone in that tree. Michel noted that the flowers draw in the reinitas — that restless little gang of the family Parulidae — while the fruits are a mandatory stop for the psittaciformes, the loros and their kin. One tree, two tables set, two entirely different groups of diners. Five photographs were taken of the individual and its surroundings. The guásimo was recorded at coordinates 10.4399°N, 75.2576°W, joining the Fundación's living inventory as one of those quiet, unassuming trees that sustain far more life than anyone might guess at first glance.