Romping in Rompin

I had the opportunity to go for a 2D1N trip with my explorer friend to Peninsula Malaysia 2 weekends ago to visit some nearby cryptocoryne habitats again. As usual, the trip started with having roti prata for breakfast in Johor Bahru.

And as usual, the strategy we adopted was to go to the furthest location first, then make our way back slowly. For 2D1N, we decided to venture furthest to Rompin only, then back to Mersing and Singapore. The first habitat we visited was that of C. sp. 'Pahang 10, Rompin' to see if we could locate a blooming spathe.

Unfortunately, luck was not on our side, no spathe was found and instead we were greeted with the sight of an extremely large paw print of a cat again...

The quantities of plants seemed to be much more than when we previously visited, which was good as it signified that the plants were reproducing.

We brought Mr Lee C. H. out from the jungle for a simple lunch of fried rice before heading to C. sp. 'Pahang 8, Rompin' habitat.

C. sp. 'Pahang 8, Rompin' habitat could be destroyed sooner or later with all the deforestation going on around Rompin like the case shown below.

Footpaths could now be seen being formed inside the jungle where the cryptocorynes were found, indicating that human activities were increasing in the jungle, possibly surveying the potential for logging?

A spider guarded the throat of the blooming spathe, waiting to trap insects travelling in and out of the kettle tube?

C. sp. 'Pahang 2, Rompin' could be found mixed with C. sp. 'Pahang 8, Rompin' at this habitat. We found the fruits and some unopened spathes.

We travelled to Mersing and stayed over there for the night and spent the rest of the night enjoying the simple seafood dinner and mindless chatting... 

C. sp. 'Pahang 10, Rompin' unopend spathe and fruit found

Breakfast is always an important meal to eat when you go out for a cryptocoryne searching trip. This is because sometimes after you set off you may not be able to locate a suitable place to have proper lunch along your way.

 

We went back to Rompin to visit C. sp. 'Pahang 10' and managed to locate a spathe which unfortunately was not opened yet.

 

 

  

 

Which species do you think these specimens belonged to based on the appearance of the unopened spathe?

 

 

 

We found a fruit too which was quite large in size.

 

Fortunately this time round we managed to locate a proper stall to have lunch.

C. sp 'Rompin, Pahang 10'

Rompin swamp was really a gem with many pockets of cryptocorynes specimens waiting to be found. Below are the photographs of yet another location where we found cryptocorynes within this swamp.

Both emersed and submersed specimens could be found but unfortunately, we were not able to find any spathes to confirm their identity.

Some of the submersed specimens had really large heart shape leaves.

Bettas and boraras maculata were common fishes which we always found in such swamp habitat.

If the above fishes were bigger, they might end up as our dinner i.e. clay pot curry fish head.