Jim Conrad's Naturalist Newsletter

AVOCADO TREES FLOWERING
Along the backstreets of Dzitas, a little Maya town maybe 20 minutes by car north of Pisté, branch tips of Avocado trees are loaded with diffuse, basketball-size panicles of small, yellowish flowers as shown at

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Up close, the blossoms reveal several interesting features, as seen at

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Avocado trees, PERSEA AMERICANA, are native tropical-American members of the Laurel Family, the Lauraceae. The above picture shows several features common to flowers in that family. (Other Laurel Family members Northerners might be familiar with include Sassafras, Spicebush and the Laurel itself.)

Flowers in the Laurel Family normally are yellow or greenish, with no corollas or petals, which is the case with this flower. In the picture, the fuzzy, petal-like things spreading from the flower's center are calyx segments adapted to visually attract pollinators, a job more commonly handled by a flower's corolla. The calyx has six lobes, but notice how the lobes overlap; at the left, one lobe practically lies atop another. This overlapping of sepals also is a Laurel Family characteristic.

via backyardnature.net