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Ceiba Tree
''Ceiba'' is a genus of trees in the family Malvaceae, native to tropical and subtropical areas of the Americas (from Mexico and the Caribbean to N Argentina) and tropical West Africa. Some species can grow to tall or more, with a straight, largely branchless trunk that culminates in a huge, spreading canopy, and buttress roots that can be taller than a grown person. The best-known, and most widely cultivated, species is Kapok, ''Ceiba pentandra'', one of several trees called kapok. ''Ceiba'' species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species, including the leaf-miner ''Bucculatrix ceibae'', which feeds exclusively on the genus. Recent botanical opinion incorporates ''Chorisia'' within ''Ceiba'' and puts the genus as a whole within the family Malvaceae. Culture and history The tree plays an important part in the mythologies of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. In addition, several Amazonian tribes of eastern Peru believe deiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erythrina Crista-galli
''Erythrina crista-galli'', often known as the cockspur coral tree, is a flowering tree in the family Fabaceae, native to Argentina, Uruguay, southern Brazil and Paraguay. It is widely planted as a street or garden tree in other countries, notably in California. It is known by several common names within South America: ', ' (Spanish), ' (Portuguese) and the more ambiguous '' bucaré'', to name a few. Its specific epithet ''crista-galli'' means " cock's comb" in Latin. The ceibo is the national tree of Argentina, and its flower the national flower of Argentina and Uruguay. This species characteristically grows wild in gallery forest ecosystems along watercourses, as well as in swamps and wetlands. In urban settings, it is often planted in parks for its bright red flowers. Description ''Erythrina crista-galli'' is a small tree, the girth of its trunk measuring . Normally it grows tall, although some individuals, such as in the Argentine provinces of Salta, Jujuy and Tucumà ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Butterfly
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily (zoology), superfamily Papilionoidea, which contains at least one former group, the skippers (formerly the superfamily "Hesperioidea"), and the most recent analyses suggest it also contains the moth-butterflies (formerly the superfamily "Hedyloidea"). Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, about 56 million years ago. Butterflies have a four-stage life cycle, as like most insects they undergo Holometabolism, complete metamorphosis. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudobombax Ellipticum
''Pseudobombax ellipticum'', with common names including shaving brush tree, Dr Seuss tree, and ''amapolla tree'', is a species of plant in the subfamily Bombacoideae of the family Malvaceae. Distribution The tree is native to southern Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Hispaniola, Honduras and Cuba. Description ''Pseudobombax elipticum'' is a tree that can reach 18 m (60 ft) in height and 1.3 m (4 ft) d.b.h. Its branches are close to the base of the stem. It is a deciduous tree with succulent stems. Each of the flowers can produce hundreds of tiny black seeds (.1mm) that germinate within approximately 30 days. The flowers are fragrant and if peeled back quite sticky. Uses Uses include firewood and wood for carving handicrafts. The attractive flowers are used to decorate homes and churches in Central America. In Central America, a highly intoxicating drink is made from the tree.''Maya, Divine Kings of the Rain Forest'' (ed. Nikolai Grube), Köln (Cologn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pachira Aquatica
''Pachira aquatica'' is a tropical wetland tree in the mallow family Malvaceae, native to Central and South America where it grows in swamps. It is known by its common names Malabar chestnut, French peanut, Guiana chestnut, Provision tree, Saba nut, Monguba (Brazil), Pumpo (Guatemala) and is commercially sold under the names Money tree and Money plant. This tree is sometimes sold with a braided trunk and is commonly grown as a houseplant, although more commonly what is sold as a "Pachira aquatica" houseplant is in fact a similar species, '' P. glabra''. The genus name is derived from a language spoken in Guyana.Helmut Genaust (1983): Etymologisches Wörterbuch der botanischen Pflanzennamen, 2. Auflage. Birkhäuser Verlag – The species name is Latin for "aquatic". It is classified in the subfamily Bombacoideae of the family Malvaceae. Previously it was assigned to Bombacaceae. The name "money tree" is believed to refer to a story of its origin, in which a poor man prayed for mon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ceiba - Bagh-e-Jinnah
''Ceiba'' is a genus of trees in the family Malvaceae, native to tropical and subtropical areas of the Americas (from Mexico and the Caribbean to N Argentina) and tropical West Africa. Some species can grow to tall or more, with a straight, largely branchless trunk that culminates in a huge, spreading canopy, and buttress roots that can be taller than a grown person. The best-known, and most widely cultivated, species is Kapok, ''Ceiba pentandra'', one of several trees called kapok. ''Ceiba'' species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species, including the leaf-miner ''Bucculatrix ceibae'', which feeds exclusively on the genus. Recent botanical opinion incorporates ''Chorisia'' within ''Ceiba'' and puts the genus as a whole within the family Malvaceae. Culture and history The tree plays an important part in the mythologies of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. In addition, several Amazonian tribes of eastern Peru believe deiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesoamerican World Tree
World trees are a prevalent motif occurring in the mythical cosmologies, creation accounts, and iconographies of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica. In the Mesoamerican context, world trees embodied the four cardinal directions, which also serve to represent the fourfold nature of a central world tree, a symbolic ''axis mundi'' which connects the planes of the Underworld and the sky with that of the terrestrial realm. Depictions of world trees, both in their directional and central aspects, are found in the art and mythological traditions of cultures such as the Maya, Aztec, Izapan, Mixtec, Olmec, and others, dating to at least the Mid/Late Formative periods of Mesoamerican chronology. Among the Maya, the central world tree was conceived as or represented by a ceiba tree, and is known variously as a ''wacah chan'' or ''yax imix che'', depending on the Mayan language. The trunk of the tree could also be represented by an upright caiman, whose skin evokes the tree's spiny t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xibalba
(), roughly translated as "place of fright", is the name of the underworld (or quc, Mitnal) in Maya mythology, ruled by the Maya death gods and their helpers. In 16th-century Verapaz, the entrance to Xibalba was traditionally held to be a cave in the vicinity of Cobán, Guatemala. Cave systems in nearby Belize have also been referred to as the entrance to Xibalba. In some Maya areas, the Milky Way is viewed as the road to Xibalba. Inhabitants Xibalba is described in the ''Popol Vuh'' as a court below the surface of the Earth associated with death and with twelve gods or powerful rulers known as the Lords of Xibalba. The first among the Maya death gods ruling Xibalba were Hun-Came ("One Death") and Vucub-Came ("Seven Death"), though Hun-Came is the senior of the two. The remaining ten Lords are often referred to as demons and are given commission and domain over various forms of human suffering: to cause sickness, starvation, fear, destitution, pain, and ultimately death ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Axis Mundi
In astronomy, axis mundi is the Latin term for the axis of Earth between the celestial poles. In a geocentric coordinate system, this is the axis of rotation of the celestial sphere. Consequently, in ancient Greco-Roman astronomy, the ''axis mundi'' is the axis of rotation of the planetary spheres within the classical geocentric model of the cosmos. In 20th-century comparative mythology, the term axis mundi — also called the cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, center of the world, or world tree — has been greatly extended to refer to any mythological concept representing "the connection between Heaven and Earth" or the "higher and lower realms." Mircea Eliade introduced the concept in the 1950s. Axis mundi closely relates to the mythological concept of the '' omphalos'' (navel) of the world or cosmos. Items adduced as examples of the ''axis mundi'' by comparative mythologists include plants (notably a tree but also other types of plants such as a vine or stalk), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Civilization
The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in the Maya Region, an area that today comprises southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. It includes the northern lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, the Mexican state of Chiapas, southern Guatemala, El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. Today, their descendants, known collectively as the Maya, number well over 6 million individuals, speak more than twenty-eight surviving Mayan languages, and reside in nearly the same area as their ancestors. The Archaic period, before 2000 BC, saw the first developments in agricul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mopan Language
Mopan may refer to: *Mopán language, a Mayan language spoken in Belize and Guatemala *Mopan people, an indigenous Maya people, whose native language is Mopan *Mopan River, in Belize's Cayo district * SS ''Mopan'', a British cargo liner intercepted and sunk by the German battleship ''Admiral Scheer'' on November 5, 1940 *Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN), a special body of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) See also * Mopane (other) Mopane ''Colophospermum mopane'', commonly called mopane, mopani, balsam tree, butterfly tree, or turpentine tree, is a tree in the legume family (Fabaceae), that grows in hot, dry, low-lying areas, in elevation, in the far northern parts of so ... * Mopani (other) {{disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Within this region pre-Columbian societies flourished for more than 3,000 years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Mesoamerica was the site of two of the most profound historical transformations in world history: primary urban generation, and the formation of New World cultures out of the long encounters among indigenous, European, African and Asian cultures. In the 16th century, Eurasian diseases such as smallpox and measles, which were endemic among the colonists but new to North America, caused the deaths of upwards of 90% of the indigenous people, resulting in great losses to their societies and cultures. Mesoamerica is one of the five areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently (see cradle of civ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, the era covers the history of Indigenous cultures until significant influence by Europeans. This may have occurred decades or even centuries after Columbus for certain cultures. Many pre-Columbian civilizations were marked by permanent settlements, cities, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, major earthworks, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European colonies (c. late 16th–early 17th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations and oral history. Other civilizations were contemporary with the colonial period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own wri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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