Cryptocoryne sp. 'Singkep 4'

The next morning, we woke up and went to the town centre for breakfast. We had fried Chinese noodles with sweet black sauce, quite delicious. We discussed and agreed that our plan was to try to locate back C. sp. 'Singkep 1', C. sp. 'Singkep 3' and C. sp. 'Singkep 4' within the first half of the day, and then travel to Lingga Island for the next half of the day.

However, luck was not at our side. The previous night rained quite heavily and therefore, the stream where C. sp. 'Singkep 1' could be found was heavily flooded and the cryptocorynes could not be easily reached or seen.

We spent the next hour riding along mountainous dirt track trying to locate the natural habitat of C. sp. 'Singkep 3' but as my friend did not remember the GPS location and the way to the stream where he found the cryptocorynes. We gave up after one of our ojeks suffered a flat tire due to the rocky path which we were travelling along.

After repairing the flat tire, we finally reached the 1st cryptocoryne location for our 2nd day of our field trip, the natural habitat of C. sp. 'Singkep 4'. It was a small stream filled with cryptocorynes. Utricularia sp. could be found growing in abundance in the stream too.

The cryptocoryne leaves had greenish upper sides with red main vein and reddish under sides.

We were lucky to find a few spathes to better aid in the identification of the species of the cryptocoryne here. The first was an un-bloomed spathe.

The second spathe was a fully opened spathe with creamy coloured limb. The throat had some tiny specks of purple.

The third spathe had a section within the throat along the collar coloured in purple.

As we did not had much time, we waited until night time in Lingga Island hotel to cut the spathe to photograph the male and female portion of the flower. We had to use LED torchlight to enhance the brightness, which was why the photographs looked as if they were unnaturally tinted in blue.

From the photographs of the various spathes, which species did you felt C. sp. 'Singkep 4' could be comparable to? C. schulzei?

The substrate of the stream was sandy mud and the pH of the water was quite low at about 5.0.

We ended our field trip on Singkep Island at about 1330hrs and went to the jetty at Jagor, waited for a few other passengers to arrive (to share the cost) before making our way to Lingga Island via a small motorised boat.

Cryptocoryne sp. 'Singkep 9'

We rode towards our final destination for day 1 of our field trip, the natural habitat of Cryptocoryne sp. Singkep 9'.

It was another black water stream. The cryptocorynes cold be found submersed in this stream, with their leaves stained and covered by mud-like debris.

The leaves had greenish upper side with red main vein with pallid side veins. The under side was reddish in colour.

pH of the water was low as could be seen below. I tried to reach the substrate under the water but was not able to reach it while balancing on a rotting log over the black water stream which was rather deep, all I could grasp out was the rotting debris of the log.

My friend had found the spathe of this cryptocoryne, refer to his blog. If I were to guess the species, maybe it could be comparable to C. schulzei?

We decided to call it a day in the evening and went to Dabo town to find a hotel to stay. Unfortunately for us, there were some teaching conference held over the weekend and many of the hotels we went to were full. We were lucky that one of the hotel decided to rent out one of its reserved rooms to us.

Below is a photograph of the lobby of the hotel. There were a few detailed maps of Singkep Island and Riau Archipelago hung on the wall of the lobby and we took a few photographs of them as they were good references.

We had dinner in a simple restaurant nearby our hotel. It was housed under a wooden building and the main attraction was satay (BBQ meat on wooden skewers). We had to wait rather long for our satays as there were many people ordering large orders of take-aways. The satays were served together with pieces of ketupats (rice cake) and cucumbers all in one plate, covered with thick peanut sauce and fried shallots. Delicious and very filling! My friend's version was slightly different, the satays were served separately with black sauce and cut red chilli.

Cryptocoryne sp. 'Singkep 8'

Cryptocoryne sp. 'Singkep 8' was found growing submersed in a black water stream flowing out of a forest. Again, we had not been able to find the spathes of this cryptocoryne to determine its species.

I stepped into the stream to collect some specimens after my friend assured me that there were no leeches...

The leaves of this cryptocoryne has green upper side with markings and reddish underside.

The pH of the water was low, below 5.0 but the substrate was sand mixed with stones (laterite?).

This is the link to my explorer friend's blog entry on C. sp. 'Singkep 8'.