Loroco (Echites panduratus): colours, meaning, where it grows and when it blooms

Loroco is a climbing herbaceous vine native to Central America and southern Mexico. It bears clusters of white flowers with a greenish exterior, and both its buds and blooms are used in traditional cooking, especially in dishes like pupusas.

Share on WhatsApp

Flowers are white inside and greenish outside
Used in pupusas, a traditional Central American dish
Grows from northeastern Mexico to Costa Rica
Known by the same common name across its range

What does Loroco look like?

Loroco is a climbing vine with soft, non-woody stems. Its leaves are broad and oval-shaped, ranging from 4 to 13 cm long. Flower clusters grow shorter than the leaves and hold 8 to 18 blooms. Each flower has a white interior and a greenish outer surface.

Where does Loroco come from?

This plant grows wild from northeastern Mexico through Central America to Costa Rica. Though once classified under the genus Fernaldia, it is now recognized as Echites panduratus. The name 'loroco' is used consistently across its range for this species.

When and how Loroco blooms

As a perennial vine, loroco grows in warm climates typical of southern Mexico and Central America. It produces flowering shoots with clusters of buds that open into small white-and-green blossoms, harvested while still closed or just opened for culinary use.

How Loroco is used

In Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, the unopened buds and fresh flowers of loroco are gathered for food. They are commonly added to savory dishes, most famously stuffed inside pupusas, thick corn tortillas filled with cheese and other ingredients.

Questions people ask about Loroco

Where does loroco come from?

It is native to a region stretching from northeastern Mexico through Central America to Costa Rica.

What is loroco used for?

Its flower buds and open blooms are eaten, often cooked into dishes like pupusas in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

What does the loroco flower look like?

Each flower is small, with a white inner surface and a greenish outer side, growing in clusters of 8 to 18.

Is loroco a tree or a vine?

It is an herbaceous climbing vine, not a tree or shrub.

Good reading and sources

Where this page comes from

The facts on this page come from the Wikipedia article "Echites panduratus", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and from its Wikidata record (CC0). Phool rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.

It may contain mistakes. It is not medical or foraging advice: many flowers are poisonous, and traditional uses are reported, not recommended. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-03.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Plumeria: Renesis, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Mandevilla: Shuvaev, CC BY 4.0, source

French marigold: Muhammad Mahdi Karim, GFDL 1.2, source

Pinwheel flower: SKsiddhartthan, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Oleander: Unknown author, CC BY 2.5, source

Marvel of Peru: Khalid Mahmood at English Wikipedia, Public domain, source

Scarlet runner bean: Mickaël Schauli, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Tree dahlia: Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 2.0, source

Loroco