Michel's Yellow Flowers in the Forest

Among the dense vegetation of the sanctuary, Michel Salas paused before a shrub that deserved a closer look: the Bola de Gato, Thevetia ahouai, standing between two and three meters tall, its long, glossy leaves catching the light like green ribbons in the sun. It was a day of active flowering, and the plant made no effort to hide it — buds barely emerging, blossoms half-open, and one flower fully unfurled, all of it a tubular yellow that drew the eye even through the filtered light of the canopy. It belongs to the family Apocynaceae, a lineage of plants that keeps its secrets: showy and striking on the outside, the Thevetia ahouai is also toxic in nearly every part of itself — hence, perhaps, its folk name Huevo de Gato, that curious blend of tenderness and caution. Michel photographed the find carefully, capturing the different stages of blooming, before logging the coordinates and moving on. It is the kind of encounter that reminds you that within the 520 hectares of Fundación Loros there is far more than the eye can take in at a glance — sometimes all it takes is pausing where the yellow burns bright against the green.