A short field trip to Malay Peninsula

I had the great fortune to join my explorer friend on a short field trip to Malay Peninsula. Below are photographs of the habitats of some cryptocorynes seen during the trip.

This Malay combination rice (Nasi kerabu) was really nice, consisting of keropok, rice stained with butterfly pea flower, fried chicken, sambal, fish flakes, salted egg and assorted vegetables. 

Mix all the ingredients throughly, then slowly enjoy...

Mersing to Singapore

It rained heavily in Mersing all night long.

We woke up the next morning and was greeted with a drizzling weather while having breakfast at the hotel we stayed.

As the drizzle did not stop, we proceeded to the river side for brunch. The river was swelling with all the rain, which was not a good sign for us.

We had a fresh sotong (Malay word for squid) with chili and roti prata again.

When the rain finally stopped, we headed to the first location at west of Mersing to visit C. cf. xpurpurea (or C. cf. jacobsenii as my friend recognised it). The rain luckily did not flood this habitat too much and we were able to still locate the cryptocorynes. 

C. nurii 'Mersing' habitat was thoroughly flooded. The river had even flooded beyond the banks into the forest as could be seen from all the  mud deposits on the forest floor. The cryptocorynes could not be seen at all from the edge of the river.

I saw some pretty wild ginger species there with yellow flowers which had plantlets growing from the flowering points.

We had a durian for snack along the way back from Mersing at a road side durian stall.

We took a detour to Sedili and was greeted with another  destructed habitat sight. The C. sp. 'Sedili 6' habitat had been destroyed by excavator to form water drainage for the nearby oil palm plantation. Sad...

We were stuck in a traffic jam for close to 2 hours on our way back into Singapore due to the holiday season and had Ampang Yong Tou Fou for dinner at upper Thomson Road before ending our 2D1N road trip.

C. xpurpurea 'Malacca'

Many hobbyists recently reported finding C. xpurpurea in Malacca state and therefore I went with my explorer friend to take some photographs of it too. Below is a photograph of the overview of the natural habitat, a stream flowing out of the forest.

The leaves had cordate shape with upper side being greenish and lower side being either greenish or reddish.

The below photograph shows the typical size of a specimen and the root area having rhizome.

The pH of the water was about 6.5 and the substrate was a mixture of gravel and sand.

We found 2 unopened spathes and 2 opened spathes.

One of the opened spathe had its limb slightly torn already.

The other opened spathe was with better condition showing the slightly raised orange collar and the pink limb which was unusually long and distinctively arched.

As usual we cut open a kettle to take photographs of the male and female portion of the flower and as usual, we spotted a fly being trapped inside the limb. The fly was in a daze with its wings slightly wet, allowing us the opportunity to take photographs of it without flying away immediately.

See below for the male and female portion of the flower. I personally felt that the stigma was not the typical round and white rabbit tail shape as shown in 'the crypt pages'.

We had a bowl of Maggi chicken flavoured instant noodle with egg each for lunch at one small coffee shop as a reward for locating the above.

So it the identification above (i.e. C. xpurpurea) correct? I will leave it to the viewer to decide for yourself.