Texas Buckeye (Ungnadia Speciosa), a Member of the Soapberry Family (Sapindaceae).

Excerpts from Jim Conrad'southward
Naturalist Newsletter

from the April 7, 2013 Newsletter issued from the Frio Canyon Nature Education Eye in northern Uvalde County, southwestern Texas, on the southern border of the Edwards Plateau, Usa
MEXICAN BUCKEYES FLOWERING
On ravine slopes and simply below limestone ledges adjacent to the Frio River in northern Uvalde Canton at kickoff glance the small trees opulently abloom with pinkish blossoms seemed to be eastern North America's Redbud trees, or maybe escaped peach trees, simply up shut it was articulate that they were something else, equally shown above.

The tree's leaves were alternate (one leafage per stem node) and pinnately compound, looking a lot like hickory or walnut leaves. All the same, the asymmetrical flowers with five pink petals and a mess of difficult-to-translate anatomy in their middle were completely different from any hickory or walnut blossom, as you tin can see in the flower close-up below:

Equally I photographed the very unusual, inch-wide (2.5cm) blossoms, Fred pointed out some old fruit pods still hanging on some of the trees' outer branches, such as the ones shown below:

These capsular-type fruits have split up to release one large seed from each of three large compartments.

In most of North America there'due south only nothing similar this. Fruiting capsules with three compartments and asymmetrical or "zygomorphic" flowers immediately bring to listen the Euphorbia Family, only when I checked out all the species in that family unit found in Texas, there was nothing like it.

Somewhen, though, the lilliputian trees gave upwardly their identities. They were Mexican Buckeyes, UNGNADIA SPECIOSA, members of the Soapberry Family, the Sapindaceae, a family mostly restricted to the tropics and subtropics. Soapberry Family species North American plant lovers might know include the Goldenrain-Tree, Litchi Tree, and the Heart-Seed Vine, Cardiospermum. Mexican Buckeyes occur very spottily throughout southern Texas, extreme southern New Mexico, and barren northeastern Mexico. Though Mexican Buckeyes belong to a unlike genus than North America'south buckeye species, both are members of the aforementioned family. You might note, however, that the Northward's buckeyes carry opposite, digitately compound leaves, while Mexican Buckeyes accept alternate, pinnately (featherlike) chemical compound leaves.

In our blossom moving-picture show it's piece of cake to recognize the v rose-royal petals, also every bit the eight or nine well formed stamens with their dark, baglike anthers splitting open and releasing pale pollen grains, atop long, slender, curving, pinkish filaments. One curious thing most the stamens is that their number of 8 or 9 per blossom is unusual -- "normal" flowers acquit 3, 4, or 5 or multiples thereof -- plus their filaments are of varying lengths. Moreover, some of the whitish items clustering about the stamens' bases look like ill-formed, undeveloped stamens, some with dark anthers not producing pollen. In fact that's what the white things are -- sterile, undeveloped stamens, and that's natural for Ungnadia. Maybe they provide a foothold for pollinators.

Mexican Buckeyes are such unusual plants that they are the simply species in their genus.

In the past, Mexican Buckeye's sweetish but poisonous seeds were sometimes used past children every bit marbles. Livestock usually know better than to browse the tree's toxic foliage. Bees produce fragrant honey from the flowers.

In northeastern Mexico in caves occupied by people as far back as 8000 years, remnants of Mexican Buckeye have been constitute associated with hallucinogenic Peyote and Mescalbean remains, so it'south assumed that the species' toxic seeds were used in certain rituals.

The small tree'due south genus proper name, Ungnadia, commemorates Businesswoman Ferdinand von Ungnad, Austrian ambassador at Constantinople, who introduced the related Horsechestnut into western Europe in 1576.

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from the August 18, 2013 Newsletter issued from the Frio Canyon Nature Educational activity Middle in the valley of the Dry Frio River in northern Uvalde County, southwestern Texas, on the southern border of the Edwards Plateau, Us
MEXICAN BUCKEYES DROPPING
This Apr we never got to run across the Mexican Buckyeye'due south seeds, known as buckeyes. At present our Mexican Buckeyes' capsular fruits are ripe and splitting open, as shown below:

An opened pod with a buckeye seed staring at u.s. appears beneath:

Seeing the seed's roundness, it's easy to believe old reports of kids using them equally marbles.

If you lot're familiar with Ohio Buckeyes, which too occur hither, you tin see that the Mexican Buckeye's leathery capsule is shaped differently (not spherical), and that the seed is much smaller. The seed in the motion picture is 7/16ths inch wide (11mm). The pale tan spot on the blackish seed is the scar left from the umbilical-like "funiculus" connecting the seed to the capsule, and is referred to every bit the hilum. Buckeye seeds brandish unusually big, conspicuous hila.

Though the seeds on the basis are eaten by insects and sure pocket-size mammals, they're known to contain the toxic alkaloid saponin. Still, Geoffrey Stanford reported in a 1981 issue of "Institute Propagator" {28(ii): v-half-dozen} that he and his colleagues ate upwardly to xx seeds, finding them tasting similar pistachio basics, and suffered no ill furnishings. However, Stanford followed up by feeding Mexican buckeye seeds to rats, who consequently exhibited signs of both neurological and organ damage, virtually of them dying within 3 weeks. Once the rats died, Stanford concluded his seed-eating experiment.

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Source: https://www.backyardnature.net/n/w/ungnadia.htm

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