The flora of Yucatan

The vegetation of the peninsula is not the tall rainforest most people picture: it is low deciduous dry forest, a woodland that drops its leaves in the dry season. That is why the same road looks like a different country in April and in September. On top of that there is barely any soil — the limestone is a hand's width down — and almost no rivers, so everything growing here has learned to sit out a drought.

The trees you will learn to recognise

The ceiba (yaxche). The sacred tree of the Maya: it held up the sky, roots in the underworld and branches in the thirteen heavens. You spot it from far away by the straight grey trunk and the nearly horizontal branches, like a parasol. When young, the trunk is covered in thick spines. The huge ones in village squares are usually there because nobody has dared to cut them down.

The chaka (gumbo-limbo). Reddish bark that peels off in thin strips, like skin after sunburn — in Mexico it is nicknamed "the tourist tree" for exactly that. Easy to see along any roadside.

The black chechen. The one worth identifying. Its sap irritates the skin and raises blisters like a burn, and leaning on the trunk or sheltering under it in the rain is enough. The trunk carries dark patches, as if splashed with oil. Tradition says the chaka grows near the chechen and that its bark soothes the rash: they do tend to appear together.

The sapodilla (chicozapote). The chewing-gum tree: the trunk was cut in zigzags to bleed the latex. Its timber is so hard that the lintels of the temples at Chichen Itza and Uxmal were made from it and are still in place a thousand years later. It also gives a sweet brown fruit sold in the markets.

The ramon (ox) tree. An evergreen whose seed was eaten — and is being eaten again — ground into flour. Many archaeological sites are surrounded by ramon woods where Maya houses once stood: no coincidence, they were planted next to the home.

The flamboyan. Not native, but from May to July it paints the whole of Merida red and no photo of the city in those months escapes it. There are yellow and orange varieties too.

The huano palm. The fan-leaved palm still used to thatch traditional Maya houses, the oval ones with white walls you see from the road.

On the coast and in the mangrove

Arriving at Celestun or Rio Lagartos the landscape changes completely: the four mangroves appear — red, black, white and buttonwood — each at a different distance from the salt water, forming a living wall that holds the whole estuary together. What each one does is covered in the guide to the mangroves of Yucatan.

On the beachfront the usual cast is coconut palms, sea grape — round thick leaves, edible purple bunches — and the low dune scrub that holds the sand together. That strip looks neglected and is not: without it, the beach leaves.

The plants you end up eating

• Chaya. A large-leaved shrub cooked like spinach; it turns up in chaya water, in eggs and in tamales. It must be boiled; it is not eaten raw.
• Achiote. The red seed that colours and flavours cochinita pibil. The spiny pod opens full of brick-coloured grains.
• Habanero chilli. Grown across the peninsula and holding a Yucatecan denomination of origin. At the table it always arrives on the side, as a salsa or chopped with red onion.
• Sour orange. The base of the recado and of almost any Yucatecan marinade. Not eaten on its own: it is for marinating.
• Pitahaya, nance, saramuyo and mamey. Seasonal fruit that shows up in the markets of Merida and that hardly anyone knows outside the region.

Henequen, the plant that built the city

Henequen is an agave with rigid, sharp-tipped leaves that yields a hard fibre. That fibre made the world's rope between 1880 and 1930, and that money raised the mansions of Paseo de Montejo and the haciendas people visit today. You still see it planted in neat rows and in the yards of restored haciendas.

Flowers you will see without looking

Bougainvillea over any wall downtown; the frangipani (sak nikte), white and scented, which appears in Maya poetry and on temple walls; tajonal, a small yellow flower from which bees make the most prized honey on the peninsula; and small orchids hanging from branches, which almost nobody notices because they are not the big florist kind.

What is better left alone

• Black chechen. As above: do not lean on it, do not cut branches and do not shelter under it in the rain. If it brushes you, soap and water as soon as possible.
• Cowitch (mala mujer). A plant with stinging hairs that itch for hours. It grows along the edges of paths.
• Henequen and young ceiba spines. Neither is venomous, but they genuinely puncture.
• Do not pull up plants at archaeological sites or in reserves: it is forbidden and several are protected species.

When each thing looks its best

To line this up with the weather and the prices of each month, it is worked out in when to visit Yucatan.

Where you see what on our departures

None of these is a botanical outing: they are cultural and nature routes where the guide names what turns up. The detail of each is in the tour catalogue.

Frequently asked questions

The wildlife of Yucatan · What is a mangrove · Henequen and Paseo de Montejo · When to visit Yucatan · Yucatan guides