Our once-a-week, high-school aged gardener took the weedeater to a grove of Miconia rubiginosa for the first time this past weekend and uncovered this.
I thought they were a particularly bright blue berry of some kind.
Took a few back to the front porch and sliced a couple open.
Hmm. Well, if “berry” means “… any fruit that has its seeds enclosed in a fleshy pulp, for example, a banana or tomato” [my computer's built-in dictionary definition], then I guess it’s not a berry. No fleshy pulp.
This is going to be fun to sort out.
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- Mystery berries (wcs4.blogspot.com)
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Something about it says Rubiaceae, and the plant looks like a Geophila, except I’m used to seeing red berries. But I think dark blue/blue fruits may exist. Hope that helps.
Hi Phyto, and thanks! You’re probably right about Rubiaceae – I’m pretty sure some Psychotria species (which this plant probably is not) have this color to their fruits. I’ll follow the Geophila lead, and otherwise keep an open mind for now.
Yes, Psychotria cyanococca has electric blue fruits, but they’re all shrubs I thought.
Plus the leaves are way different. I did find an image of Geophila macropoda with dark blue fruits here. The leaves are closer, anyway, to mine. My next step is to pull out the Rubiaceae volumes from Flora of Panama and roll up those sleeves.