C. uenoi 'Sabal Kruin'

With the red sun guiding us, we headed west towards Kuching direction and managed to reached Sabal Kruin area say only maybe about 15 minutes earlier than our last visit, just before the sky turned completely dark. Although we did not have enough time to explore the area there, we still managed to take a rather decent photograph of the river there.

The patch of submersed C. uenoi was still there but we did not have time to search for emersed specimens and spathes which could probably be found further upstream or downstream?

I rechecked the pH of the water on the white sandy bank and re-confirmed that the pH was about 6.4 to 6.6.

We ended our search for the day and struggled to drive back to Kuching, feeling quite tired due to being on the road for more than 24 hours already by then. It was after 9pm by the time when we reached Kuching. Our dinner that night consisted of fried rice, "XO" stir fried vegetable and grilled chilli squid.

We discussed about our plans for the next day i.e. drive to Lundu area and back to Kuching, decided on the time to wake up before retiring.

C. uenoi 'Sabal Kruin'

By the time we reached Kampong Sabal Kruin area, it was just before sunset. If you search for C. uenoi on the Internet, you would find many references (i.e. on collectors' blogs) of C. uenoi originating from Sabal Kruin in Sarawak.

Another reason why I wanted to locate this was because my C. uenoi 'Sabal Kruin' in my collection recently suddenly melted and died. Locating this would allow me to better understand their natural habitat in order to hopefully grow them better next time.

It was already considered dark by the time we reached Kampong Sabal Kruin area where C. uenoi supposedly could be found, as can be seen from the photographs shown below.

Luckily I still managed to spot a bunch of cryptocorynes gowing submersed inside the river despite the darkness.

The river base was sandy and the pH of the water was about 6.5.

Below are some close up shots of the leaves, I think the photographs might had turned out better if I had used flash.

As it was really too dark to continue our hunt, we did not bother to try to search for other patches of cryptocorynes there to locate a spathe to confirm the identity. I hope those people who previously located specimens in Sabal Kruin area had already found spathes to confirm that those cryptocorynes were really C. uenoi, and that only one species of crpytocoryne (i.e. C. uenoi) could be found growing at the location.

We called it a day and ended our findings for my 1st trip to Sarawak. We passed by our targeted last location, Kampong Kerait area where C. ferruginea supposedly could be found, on our way back without stopping as we were not armed with torch lights.