We find that almost every plant has uses as we walk with the Maya forest gardeners at El Pilar. Crush buttonwood leaves as a bug repellant. Use ixkanan to heal bruises. Chechem (Black poisonwood tree) burns can only be relieved with boiled chaca bark. We can see that the uses of the 20 dominant plants include examples of the multitude of uses households encounter: food, oil, medicine, construction, products, poison, latex, and instruments! This is what makes the forest a garden.

As much as 90% of the plants in the world are pollinated by animals like birds, bees, and bats. In the tropics, pollination favors these animals as only 2% of the plants rely on wind pollination. Only one dominant plant is pollinated by the wind!

Flowers are a key to propagation. Their size, shape, color, and design are key to their pollination scheme. Red attracts birds, yellow attracts insects like bees, and white without a scent attracts night animals like moths and bats. Shapes can make access to pollen exclusive as seen with only specific hummingbirds can reach the bract of a type of plant such as the heliconia.

These dominant plants vary in appearance and anatomy, so we display the flower portion and pollination method for easy side-by-side comparison.