It took a few hours but then the answer for what appeared to be a botanical mistery was finally found. The leaf was chewed by some beast before it opened fully, while it was rolled up and tender!

I promise you that the revelation came to me after a short late summer siesta under the wisteria but I am still embarrassed that I did not think of the explanation earlier!

While walking through our garden around the house in the small farm we have in Salta, Argentina, avoiding spiderwebs, I entered an area of thicker vegetation that I usually avoid. There there are a number of wild and garden plants. Among these, the Indian shot (Canna indica) is a very common plant in this area and, as many others, its leaves are eaten by a number of insects such as caterpillars, leaf-cutting ants, grasshoppers and others that are rather abundant in this part of the world.

We are used to loose plants to insects and fruits to birds but we take it as “sharing” as we like the birds and we do not use pesticides, except to control mosquitoes.

We have seen many eaten leaves but nothing like what I found today:

As much as I thought how this leaf was eaten in such a pattern, I have failed and I am embarrassed to admit that a caterpillar with the hicups is the only one that makes sense to me at the moment!