I still don't understand, unless the // syntax does not imply full path. Would it be possible to add a lookup table? A HoA comes to mind, keyed on leaf name, with the array values being the full paths to leaves with that name. (code untested: also not robust. meant to be concept, not implementation)

my %lookup;
add_node("/colors/banana");
sub add_node
{
   my $fullpath = shift;
   my $leaf = (split '/', $fullpath)[-1];
   push @{$lookup{$leaf}}, $fullpath;
}
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I still don't see why you'd need to access banana without full path. Is the idea that you want to find all properties that a banana has? For example, if banana occurs in both the colors branch and flavors branch, you want to know that bananas have both color and flavor (you'd also know what color and what flavor it is, too)

thor