A short day trip around Kota Tinggi

I recently went for a 1/2 day trip with my explorer friend back to Kota Tinggi area to visit 2 cryptocoryne habitat. To beat the causeway jam, we set off at 0530hrs.

As usual, we started the day with some roti prata after crossing the custom.

 

 

The first habitat we visited was that of C. sp. 'Sedeli 6' which suffered massive destruction a year ago when the plantation owners nearby dug up the river to increase the water flow from the nearby oil palm plantations. After a year of peace, the cryptocorynes were still trying to re-establish themselves. Well at least they were not totally wiped out.

 

 

 

 

 Next location was the habitat of C. schulzei 'Panti'. I was lucky to spot a blooming spathe.

 

After this we spent the rest of the morning walking around the waterfall area and had some mud therapy for our tired feet.

 

 

This is nature's highway for the ants:

Some wild ginger flowers and fungus:

 

 

 

Specimens of some fishes and shrimps found around the waterfall area:

 

 

 

 

One of them ended up in in the claypot as curry fish head for lunch together with wild boar meat, sweet potato leaves and homemade bean curd:



 

 

 

That's the end of the short day trip...

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. sp. 'Sedili 3' mystery solved!

I revisited C. sp. 'Sedili 3' habitat with my explorer friend and we were happy to finally find an open spathe to confirm its identity.

From the appearance of the spathe, the species should belong to that of the C. cordata family but I am not sure which variety it belonged to. Below are the close up photographs of the spathe for your review. Note that the specimen had raised collar at the throat of the spathe.

The spathe was cut off and brought to the operation theatre for further autopsy.

The kettle was cut open and as usual, a fly "hopped" out in a daze after being unlawfully detained inside the kettle for some time.

So what do you think? Is this C. cordata var. cordata or should this be considered as . cordata var grabowskii?