While on a Monday bloom walk through MEMBG, I noticed that many of the immature capsule--the "avocados--of the floss-silk tree, Chorisia speciosa, at the south gate had been opened by a large hole. You learned from Rebecca Bonney in our winter newsletter ("Cotton on a Tree") that fruits of family Bombacaceae typically split open to release seeds imbedded in silky hairs. In this instance, however, our local parrot--more properly the mitred conure or mitred parakeet, Aratinga mitrata (family Psittacidae), which occurs as a small flock around MEMBG and the UCLA campus--with its strong bill had chewed through the fruit wall to consume some of the developing seeds. [Added note: Garden manager Rand Plewak says that he has recently seen the birds stealing the hairs, for use in building nests, so probably these, and not the seeds, were the reason the birds damaged the fruits.]
Perhaps you have seen or heard this conure (a conure is a parrot with a long tail) yourself. UCLA professor emeritus Nick Collias, an animal behaviorist and a friend of the garden, once informed me that this species, a native of South America from Peru, Bolivia, and western Argentina, had escaped from confinement many years ago to survive in the wild around Westwood. Aratinga mitrata is barely distinguishable from the red-fronted conure (A. wagleri), a bird with a wider South American distribution, by the amount of scarlet on the face. Quite possibly, both species may be present together on our campus.
Arthur C. Gibson, Director