C. sp. 'Central Sumatra 2'

I had the good fortune to obtain from my explorer friend a specimen of C. sp. 'Central Sumatra 2' which flowered inside the collection bag. The blooming spathe at it's original habitat looked like this (click here to see it). The one which bloomed in the bag looked like this:

The leaves looked like this:

The tube and kettle look like this and the front of the throat is slightly open as can be seen in some other species:

The close up of the limbs looked like this:

As can be seen, the limb and the throat formed a sharp angled fold:

As usual, I cut open the kettle to reveal the male and female parts of the flowers and found a caterpiller inside (how did the butterfly laid its eggs inside the kettle?):

Is this comparable to C. zukalii which was found in West Malaysia according to the crypt pages or is this something else?

Tweaking cultivation method again

After experimenting with growing cryptocorynes in plastic containers with the water above substrate level, I decided to use the same method to re-pot some of my cryptocorynes.

See below for the re-potting process. First I filled the base of the container with some coconut husk (I thought that this will ensure that the substrate will not be overly compacted at the base and will allow space for the roots to grow better).

 

Next since most of the cryptocorynes I re-potted are from peat rich area, I added some peat moss to the base.

 

 

Next I topped up the substrate with some ADA soil to weight down the lighter coconut husk and peat moss and added some granular fertiliser. 

 

As usual, distilled water is used.

 

 

The final layer above is filled with fine sand which I bought from the nursery.

The cryptocorynes are then planted and distilled water is added to flood the substrate (i.e. water level slightly above top of substrate).

 

The containers are left open and placed in an enclosed tank.

Hopefully the cryptocorynes will like the new cultivation environment...

Cryptocoryne nakamotoi 'Central Borneo'

My explorer friend has found a new species of cryptocoryne at Central Borneo which he has named as Cryptocoryne nakamotoi. Any comments?

 

Photograph is linked from my explorer friend's website.

Bucephalandra sp. 'Miranda' with yellow spathe

My explorer friend recently located specimens of bucephalandra with yellow spathe which I found very fascinating. This is the first time I have seen a yellow spathe for bucephalandra species, the rest are usually white / pink / green.. Below are some close up photographs of the yellow spathe for your reference.

 

 

 

 

Fascinating isn't it?

Cryptocoryne noritoi 'East Kalimantan'

My explorer friend recently went to East Kalimantan and collected Cryptocoryne noritoi from there. I was lucky to obtain some live specimens as well as some preserved spathes. Below are some photographs of these specimens and spathes.

Note the cordate shape of the leaf which is mainly green in colour both at the upper and under sides. In my opinion, as compared to C. pontederiifolia and C. moehlmannii, the leaf edges of C. noritoi are slightly more wavy and the leaf bases are more cordate. And according to 'the crypt pages', the leaf veins have furrows (depressions) along them.

Some of the leaves were brown with some slight venation too.

Many specimens had fruits meaning that they were flowering profusely previously.

Although there was no live spathe found currently, I was lucky to be able to take the photographs of the spathes which were preserved in 70% alcohol by my friend.

I fished out a spathe from the alcohol to cut open the kettle. The colour of the limb had already faded.

Note the dark spot inside the kettle.

A poor fly was trapped in the kettle and was drowned in the alcohol dip.

The male and female flowers are as shown below.

Another preserved spathe which was not fully blooming yet was cut open for photograph taking.

Hopefully the specimens below grown in charcoal filter media will flower soon so that I can take the photographs of the fresh spathe for record.

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.