#MexicanTrees | Bursera paradoxa grows in the Balsas Basin (Mexico). It has extraordinary leaves with linear leaflets.

#Burseraceae #Bursera #BurseraParadoxa #TheBalsasBasin

There was the fantastic #atbc2025 in #oaxaca and then there was the botanical garden in Oaxaca city! Here’s the wild maize (#teosinte), #burseraceae (highest endemicity and diversity in Oaxaca!! Me for reference, look at those peeling barks!), and #ceiba

#iAmABotanist

Photo of a museum display of a lumpy sphere of brown incense.

In Mexico, since pre-Columbian times, Aztecs gathered copal, the resin from Protium spp. (#Burseraceae – same family as frankincense), for incense. This humble lump is a relic of Aztec incense on display at the Templo Mayor Museum, Mexico City. 📷: Gary Todd CC0 #resin #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

Black and white photo from the article showing a hand holding a compound leaf. The tip of one leaflet has been torn away, and droplets of resin are visible squirting out from the midvein.

Resin is under pressure in the resin canals. In some Bursera species, the pressure is so great that resin may squirt up to 2 m & last several seconds. 📷: B. trimera from Becerra et al. 2001. American Zoologist 41: 865–876. doi.org/10.1093/icb/... #Burseraceae #resin #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

Close-up photo of a pair of ovate stipules that have frilly, dissected margins.

#Burseraceae are described as both stipulate & exstipulate (without stipules). It’s unusual for a family to have both conditions. Neotropical species are exstipulate, but the stipules on this Asian Canarium odontophyllum are unmissable (📷: nicotiana CCBYNC4), #stipule #Botany 🌾🧪🌱