March03_2010

Botanical Glossary - Home - References Cited

Stage III at Monte Alban - This is the golden age of Monte Alban. The stage reached its maximum splendor in about the year 500 and lasted to about 1000 AD. The grandure was not all Zapotec - it had a Mayan influence from the south and a Teotichuacan influence from the north which made significant cultural contributions. The temples and pyramids we see today seem to have been constructed from that period.

Monte Alban is a complex city, with its numerous tombs tunnels, plazas, ball courts, and pyramids. The Great Plaza (main Plaza) is situated on the top of the hill, from which there is a magnificent view of the surrounding three valleys. The plaza is surrounded by four large platforms. The Patio Hundido, a sunken patio, is reached on all sides by steep stairs.

The oldest Monte Alban period is represented by some of the most interesting sculptures found here. Danging figures on large stone slabs in bas-relief.

Photos - Frames left and right: These rusty red figures (circa 500 ADMonte Alban IIIb culture) are made of clay were found in the residential area by the South Platform. The god Xipe Toltec 'our lord the flayed one' patron of springtime and jewelers (right frame)

Center frame: Relief carvings on stone slabs - some of the finer detailed sculptures of the Monte Alban site.

Photos - Frame left: Another clay figure sculpted - circa 500 ADMonte Alban IIIb culture.

Frames right and center: Outside the Museum in the Northern section of Monte Alban: This bizzare looking trunk and branch is from Arilia Spinosa (Hercules Club Tree) commonly known as Devil's Walkingstick, is a woody species of plants in the genus Aralia, family Araliaceae, native to eastern North America. The various names refer to the viciously sharp, spiny stems, petioles, and even leaf midribs. It has also been known as Angelica-tree. This species is sometimes called Hercules' Club, Prickly Ash, or Prickly Elder, common names it shares with the unrelated Zanthoxylum clava-herculis. Aralia spinosa gets confused with Zanthoxylum clava-herculis, and is often mistakenly called the Toothache Tree. It does not have the medicinal properties of Zanthoxylum clava-herculis. ralia spinosa was introduced into cultivation in 1688 and is still grown for its decorative foliage , prickly stems and large showy flower panicles. Plants are tough and durable, doing well in urban settings. Plants are slow growing and can be propagated from seeds and root cuttings.

Aralia spinosa is occasionally cultivated for its exotic, tropical appearance, having large lacy compound leaves. It is closely related to the Asian species Aralia elata, a more commonly cultivated species with which it is easily confused. Aralia spinosa is an aromatic spiny deciduous shrub or small tree growing 2-8 m tall, with a simple or occasionally branched stem with very large bipinnate leaves 70-120 cm long. The trunks are six to eight inches wide with plants umbrella-like in habit with open crowns with stout wide spreading branches occasionally produced, though plants generally grow in clusters of trunks that are branchless.

The flowers are creamy-white, individually small (about 5 mm across) but produced in large composite panicles 30-60 cm long; flowering is in the late summer. The fruit is a purplish-black berry 6-8 mm diameter, ripening in the fall. The roots are thick and fleshy.

The young stem is stout, thickly covered with sharp spines and for the most part branchless or slightly branching. The leaves are the largest of any tree in the continental United States, although the casual observer might not think so, as the leaflets are but two to three inches long. The leaves, however, are so compound, in this case doubly pinnate and sometimes pinnate again, that when one measures from the swollen base of the prickly petiole to the apex of the farthest leaflet the tape frequently records three feet and the spread of the pinnae from side to side is often two feet. In the autumn these leaves turn to a peculiar bronze red touched with yellow which makes the tree conspicuous and beautiful.

The habit of growth and general appearance of the Devil's Walkingstick are unique. It is usually found as a group of unbranched stems, rising to the height of twelve to twenty feet, which bear upon their summits a crowded cluster of doubly compound leaves, thus giving to each stem a certain tropical palm-like appearance. This slender, swaying, palm-like character is in the north only true of the young plants, for after a single stem has buffeted the storms of many winters it becomes a scrubby, deformed, little tree whose great leaves can scarcely cover its ugliness even in summer. In the south it is said to reach the height of fifty feet, still retaining its palm-like aspect.

Bark: Light brown, divided into rounded broken ridges. Branchlets one-half to two-thirds of an inch in diameter, armed with stout, straight or curved, scattered prickles and nearly encircled by narrow leaf scars. At first light yellow brown, shining and dotted, later light brown.
Wood: Brown with yellow streaks; light, soft, brittle, close-grained.
Winter buds: Terminal bud chestnut brown, one-half to three-fourths of an inch long, conical, blunt; axillary buds flattened, triangular, one-fourthe of an inch in length.
Leaves: Clustered at the end of the branches, compound, bi- and tri-pinnate, three to four feet long, two and a half feet broad. The pinnae are unequally pinnate, having five or six pairs of leaflets and a long stalked terminal leaflet; these leaflets are often themselves pinnate. The last leaflets are ovate, two to three inches long, wedge-shaped or rounded at base, serrate or dentate, acute; midrib and primary veins prominent. They come out of the bud a bronze green, shining, somewhat hairy; when full grown are dark green above, pale beneath; midribs frequently furnished with prickles. Petioles stout, light brown, eighteen to twenty inches in length, clasping, armed with prickles. Stipules acute, one-half inch long.

Photos - Frames left and right: Euphorbia Tirucalli (Pencil Tree) also called Indian Tree Spurge or milk bush) is a shrub that grows in semi-arid tropical climates. Milk bush produces a poisonous latex which can, with little effort, be converted to the equivalent of gasoline. This led chemist Melvin Calvin to propose the exploitation of milk bush for producing oil. This usage is particularly appealing because of the ability of milk bush to grow on land that is not suitable for most other crops. Calvin estimated that 10 to 50 barrels of oil per acre was achievable. Hankie Milk bush also has uses in traditional medicine in many cultures. It has been used to treat cancers, excrescences, tumors, and warts in such diverse places as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malabar and Malaysia. It has also been used as an application for asthma, cough, earache, neuralgia, rheumatism, toothache, and warts in India. There is some interest in milk bush as a cancer treatment. However Euphorbia Tirucalli has been associated with Burkitts lymhpma and thought to be a cofactor of the disease rather than a treatment.

Center frame: The wall showing intricate stonework at the Ball Court.

Click here for more photos of Monte Alban for this day.