Vigorous Vine with Red Fruit

It was originally suggested that this is an Arrowhed Vine. Looking at the leaves it obviously is not, Last September/October it's fruit had ripened and eventually fell. I was hoping to see the flowers when they happened, possibly in the Spring.
This morning my attention was drawn to the most mature of these vines. It had well developed new fruit with the remains of the flowers attached. I had to use my camera with a 17 x zoom to see the fruit clearly.
I was a little peeved at having missed the flowers again.
These vines are rooted in the ground but tenaciously cling to my mature trees and disappear into the canopy.
They existed in the virgin forest before I cleared it to make my garden. So I assume it is a native plant.

If I knew the family I could easily find the Genus in our Flora (hopefully)

The red fruit was photographed at the end of September. The main vine today.

This is a photo taken today of the new fruit.

John, yep that is a Syngonium species. They have fruit here in Florida too, but I have never noticed the flowers.

Wikipedia says http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngonium that they are native to your forests.

Native Lupin in Florida>

Many thanks, my memory is getting fuzzy. I should have remembered that these vines like Philodendrons have various leaf forms depending on their maturity.
Syngonium podophyllum is the species. The only one mentioned in our Flora with bright red fruits. It is also tolerant of less humid conditions. It has been used as a pot plant in the USA for at least the last 50 odd years.
The flower is insignificant and carried high on the vine could be easily missed (and was).
Like many epiphytes the fruit takes almost a year to ripen.
I was pondering how new vines are appearing at the base of younger trees. I suppose my Jays or other largish birds eat the fruit, perch in the trees and drop the seeds.

I have now discovered many seedlings of this vine scattered around the garden.
I recognised them by their distinctive arrow head leaves. The animals and birds have been busy propagating. I will move some of them into the woods.

I would be willing to bet that the animals have already begun that project....

A nice pot that I planted>

My largest Arrowhead Vine has started flowering again. This time we were more observant and captured an image.
It already has well developed green fruit so it must be a happy camper.
Because of garden expansion the host for the vine is now part of the cultivated garden proper. Therefore the vine has been receiving a regular watering and some fertilizer.

Following my daily observations of this vine, I have caught a flower when the spathe has just opened. The Pollinating beetles are hard at work. The Philodendron and other plants with similar naked flowers also rely on beetles.

Tropical plants that are called aroids all seem to have a similar flower.

Lots of bromileads have similar flowers>

John,

Any bromileads in your forest?

No bromeliads that I have noticed. I tried growing pineapple but it was a dismal failure. Pineapples do grow just up the road in Belize and in the SE.
Here it is drier than most lowland tropical parts of Guatemala and we have a distinct shortage of epiphytes.
One of my next projects is to grow some Epiphyllum phyllanthus species from seed. These will be kept in the Nursery and given the right conditions. The seed is coming from Brazil and the supplier assures me that they will germinate in 8-10 days. He test germinates the seed before he sends it

For a lark I planted some BOP seeds. One of them germinated in 7 weeks, amazing.

Is your seed coming from Maruo Peixoto?

Begonia>

My supplier is:- Cassio van den Berg, Feria de Santiana, Bahia. North of Salvador not far from the coast, tropical with a wetter climate than mine.

He is famous, in the biological arena. Un conocido del amigo o del profesional?

Yes Indeed a very famous young man in his field, specialising in Laeliinae Orchids. His name is attached to many species, Dr Cassio van den Berg is a Professor at the University of Feria de Santiana. He has been published and has been a guest at Kew.
I came upon him by chance on Ebay.