Cenízaro seed pods. Photo by David Reyes.
It's planting season at the Estacion Experimental Forestal Horizontes in Área de Conservación Guanacaste. The staff at Hoizontes, led by Horizontes Manager David Reyes, have been gathering seeds from native tropical dry forest tree species. They gather the seeds from trees found both within and outside Horizontes. The seed pods (above) are from the Cenízaro (Samanea saman) tree, a tree once plentiful in Costa Rica, but now is rare to find. This grandmother and her two granddaughters (below) helped collect some of the seeds that will be used in Horizontes.
Some of the volunteers who helped collect seeds. Photo by David Reyes.
The seeds are then removed from the seed pods:
Cenízaro seeds. Photo by David Reyes.
The next step is to fill bags with soil and prepare the bags for the seeds. Much of this work is done by volunteers from nearby hotels.
The seeds have been planted. With time, the seedlings will be planted, and will hopefully grow to be as big as this Cenízaro tree:
Cenízaro tree. Photo by David Reyes.
One of the goals of the Horizontes Forest Experimental Station is to recover populations of tropical dry forest tree species, of which many are endangered, through propagation at an on-site nursery to restoration planting in various locations. We are grateful to One Tree Planted for providing funding for this project.