C. sp. Lingga Island' natural habitat

I was lucky that my explorer friend gave me special permission to share with you guys on my blog some of the photographs of the natural habitat of C. sp. 'Lingga Island' which he took. Picture speaks a thousand words so enjoy......

The 1,163m high Gunung Daik.

The houses along the river

A street view

The Orchard Road of Lingga (i.e. main shopping street)

C. sp. 'Lingga Island'

C. sp. 'Lingga Island'

An unopened spathe.

Special thanks to Mr. N. K. for braving the tropical storm across the sea to Lingga and sharing his findings with us.

C nurii 'Mersing'

Ok, a close up shot on the C. nurii 'Mersing' leaves. The leaves veins are lighter in colour and the red markings seemed to be lined up along these veins (or is it rather because the red markings along these lighter coloured veins are more visible???)

Cryptocoryne sp. 'Lingga Island, Kampong Desa Musai Barat'

I was again fortunate to receive this cryptocoryne specimen from my explorer friend who made a trip back to Lingga Island (he went there more than 20 years ago when he was much younger). Nothing much have changed there according to what he observed and the villagers there give ample respect to the nature.

Anyway, the specimens I was given have a few unopened spathes attached but unfortunately, they all melted away when I potted them except this one.

The unopened spathe

Day 1

Day 2 (The irregular outgrowths (protuberances) on the limb of the spathe is supposed to be a typical characteristic of C. scurrilis)

Day 4

I decided to cut open the kettle of the spathe before it fully melts.

Too bad that is the best close up shot I could get with my Nokia N73......

The top of the leaf

The bottom of the leaf

Cryptocoryne nurii 'Mersing'

I had the good fortune to ride on my friend's luck to locate Cryptocoryne nurii 'Mersing' in its natural habitat and as usual, we only found it only when we were about to end our search for the day. The cryptocorynes were found on a 1m X 1m island in a slow flowing river covered with tall trees, the substrate is fine sand and the pH is about 5.5 to 6.


Below are some close up photographs for your reference, note the beautiful red markings on the leaves. Pardon me for the bad photographs due to 1) the lack of lighting as it was close to 7pm, 2) shaky hands due to the excitement as well as hunger and 3) I only had a Nokia N73 hand phone camera with me...... blame it on anything but my photography skills!

My recent contribution to nature

From this:

To this:
Luckily I was wearing a waist pouch while walking around to cover the blood stain, if not someone might have just reported to the police saying that they have seen someone with a stab wound!

C. pontederiifolia

Since my C. pontederiifolia started blooming last month, it has already continuously boomed for the 3rd time and so, I decided to cut the spathe off today for photography purpose:

Well, that's the best I could do with my Nokia N73......

Cryptocorynes found during old field trips in Singapore

Many species of cryptocorynes can be found in the wild in Singapore, many are probably not native but introduced species brought in by the aquatic plant traders and farmers due to their popularity as an aquarium species. Below are some photographic records which I took during my old field trips to just one single locality in Singapore and I was not even into collecting cryptocorynes then!

Probably an introduced species of various variants of C. wendtii (due to its popularity as an aquarium species) since this species is recorded as only distributed in Sri Lanka by the crypts pages?

Probably another introduced species and a rather popular aquarium species too, C. parva, which is also recorded as only distributed in Sri Lanka by the crypts pages.

This possibly could be C. griffithii (I thought I do see some tinges of redness below the leaves) which is recorded as a native species in Singapore by the crypts pages, finally!

Could this be a submersed C. x timahensis (i.e. transplanted to this place from Bukit Timah Hill since this species could really fetch very good money for the aquatic plant farms nearby)? If yes, this is another not only native but endemic species of Singapore according to the crypts pages!

I was lucky to managed to find a spathe of C. pontederiifolia there too. The crypts pages recorded its distribution as only in West Sumatra. Is this likely be an introduced species too or could this possibly be a native species since Sumatra is actually not as far from Singapore as compared to Sri Lanka?

The above are just pure speculations and if I identified any of the species shown in these old photographs wrongly, do let me know and sorry for the errors.