Lecythis ampla
Lecythis ampla
- Common name
- Olla de mono
- Scientific name
- Lecythis ampla
- Genus
- Lecythis
- Family
- Lecythidaceae
- Location
- Sarapiquí, Heredia
Natural history
Lecythis ampla belongs to Lecythidaceae, the Brazil nut family. In Costa Rica it is known as olla de mono, jícaro or coco de mono. It is an emergent tree of very wet lowland forests: it grows from southern Nicaragua to northwestern Ecuador and, in Costa Rica, on the plains of the northern zone and the Caribbean slope, below 800 m.
It can reach 45 m in height and more than a metre in diameter, with a straight bole and no branches along its lower two thirds. It is deciduous: it drops almost all its leaves before flowering and renews them at the same time as it opens its lilac flowers, in the middle of the year. Its woody, lidded fruits take about ten months to ripen.
The individual in the gallery grows in Sarapiquí, Heredia. Its photographs show the clean bole, the crown rising above the canopy, the wavy-edged leaves, the flowers and the hanging fruits. The library explores the fruit that gives the tree its name and the flower that only large bees can open.