Rewilding My Lot

I recently bought myself a small UV flashlight to use on nature hikes in the dark. Scorpions are fairly common here, and they happen to fluoresce in UV light. My first sightings were at Crescent Bend Nature Park in Schertz.

I haven’t found a scorpion on our property yet, although neighbors have seen them. But of course I was curious to see if there was anything in the back yard that would glow in UV light.

I didn’t find any scorpions. The one interesting thing I did find was part of a plant that glowed.

This is a Barbados Cherry (Malpighia glabra) plant still in its nursery pot (the trunk of the plant is in the right of the two pots shown). The only part of the plant that is glowing is the end of a branch. Below is a photo in daylight. Two little branches are partly broken with the ends still attached but dangling down. The left one (the one more wilted) is the one that glows.

I can perhaps deduce that damage to this branch has triggered some sort of distress chemical that happens to be fluorescent, but beyond that I have no idea what’s going on here.