Two Plants Without Full Names on the Loma del Alcón

Michel Salas walked the Loma del Alcón yesterday with wide-open eyes. Deep in the dense understory vegetation, where light filters through in fleeting moments and the soil carries the rich scent of damp earth and leaf litter, he came across a plant of the genus Solanum bearing, all at once, small green berries clustered in bunches and white flowers with yellow centers — as though it couldn't quite decide between fruiting and blooming. Large, somewhat velvety leaves laced with threads of spiderweb completed the picture. Further along, a mid-sized shrubby plant caught his attention, its larger white flowers peeking out between the branches. It's not Datura, Michel noted with certainty, though the resemblance from a distance can easily mislead. For now it remains logged as an unidentified species — one of those open questions that the forest of Fundación Loros holds quietly in reserve, waiting for someone to give it a name.