Mystery Beans

Though I've found hundreds of beans over the past year and have identified dozens of different varieties, there are a few that are still unidentified.

Do any of these look familiar to you?

Coastal Expo

In mid May, I participated in a great event conducted by the Texas Parks and Wildlife, LCRA, and others, called the 2009 Coastal Expo. This educational event was held at the Matagotda Bay Nature Center and served nearly 1,000 students from area schools over a two day period.

We had many exhibits demonstrating coastal awareness and conservation.

I had the Beach Treasures table including sea beans, shells, various skulls, skeletons, and bones, along with other natural items found on the beaches of Texas.

Below is a short video which will give you a taste of what we experienced.

Replacement Beans and Wax

The beach beaning is dropping off considerably. I found a few on this excursion and also picked up a block of carnuba wax. You might notice some old regulars in this bunch - a grenade or blister pod, some walnuts and water hickorys.

I'm putting together a travelling case and need to have a specimen of all the different types I have found on the Matagorda beaches.

Operculum

OK boys and girls here is a new term you may not yet be familiar with. The operculum (little lid)is the covering over the shell of certain marine snails. When the snail dies and decomposes, the operculum remains and is washed up on the beach.

I found my first one today...you can see it below amid the beans. These were all found on the pedestrian beach right in front of the visitor center.

You will also note a black bone fragment on the right side of the picture.

I haven't identified this one yet but it has some uniusual striations that should make it recognizable to someone familiar with such things.

This is the drawer display at the Matagorda Bay Nature center. The beans are mounted on strings and can be slid along th show how they drift from where they originate to our beach.

I'm continuing to work as a volunteer at the center to help visitors learn about sea beans.

Anniversary Beans

Today was the day of celebration and we spent some time on the west jetty fishing among the rocks. I took a short walk down the beach to get the GPS coordinate of a sea turtle shell found on an earlier trip and picked up a few more beans.

The weather has been beautiful this week as you can see from this picture of the wild beach.

Two hearts, a burger, and a prickly palm.

More First Finds

Once again the day yielded some new beans - some identified and some not.

Here is some beach art we found on display as we searched just past the 3-mile cut.

This starnut palm had a beetle inside it. The egg gets deposited and the larva develops inside the nut. He had a perfect circle trap door and was a tight fit for the mature palm weevil.

Not a bad bunch of beans.

This is my first manchinel or beach apple.

Dense thickets of manchineel trees, growing along the coasts of tropical islands in the Caribbean Sea and along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central America and northern South America, produce crabapplelike fruits that drift to our shores. The outer skin erodes quickly in the ocean to expose a corky fruit layer. When the corky layer erodes or is removed, a sculptured seed pod, highly prized by collectors, is exposed. All parts of the machineel tree are extremely poisonous, with the poison concentrated in a milky juice. Contact with the juice will blister the skin, but fortunately none remains in the fruit by the time it makes its journey to Texas.

This is another unknown bean and a first find. It most resembles an ivory nut palm but isn't exactly like the one I found before.

Mermaid Purses & Beans

We found some real treasures today including these two skate egg cases aka Mermaid Purses.


I have yet to identify this new bean. That's part of the fun!

These sea coconuts are still in the husk - another rare find. One day I hope to find three together in an intact husk.

Here is the day's collection - lots of nice sea hearts, hamburgers, and purses.