Species you might not have!

These plants are all volunteers in the neglected areas of the property. However, the first plant served as property boundary and also serve as soil erosion control. You can see that at its back grows a lot of several forest species.  Other plants also grow with several plants in the wild. 

  

Banaba, giant crape myrtle or Lagerstroemia speciosa

 This is an old volunteer tree in our property, more than 50 yrs old with bottom trunk diameter of ~2ft. I am not good in estimating height, but maybe about  the height of a 4storey building.  The left is the bottom trunk, lower right is the mid-trunk with branches and the top right is the canopy with flowers. It is endemic to the country, not considered endangered yet. Those we see in parks of colder countries are already hybrids, early to flower and not very tall.

Its leaves have therapeutic or medicinal properties for kidney troubles and very popular here in the country. Despite its origins in the Philippines, India and SE Asia, it is considered naturalized US plant and is considered official shrub of Texas.

                                                              

Elephant ear, giant taro or  Alocasia macrorrhiza

Our local term for this is "biga", in contrast to the common taro, "gabi". It is nice to have the syllables just interchanged in calling 2 plants with almost the same morphology. It also has corms, which sometimes are cooked lengthily as pig feeds. The specimens above differ in leaf morphology and might be of different variety or form. Its sap is very dangerous at contact that children evade them totally. However, in times of famine or war it can also be considered emergency food when cooked fully well. I agree that they are beautiful as ornamental plants, however in our country it is not utilized as such for safety. Its sap contains oxalate crystals toxic to animals and humans.

 elephant yam or Amorphophallus campanulatus

Amorphophallus campanulatus got the name because of the very prominent spadix. This is a large aroid genus, where the biggest flower of Titan arum (A. titanum) belongs. It has a big carbohydrate-rich roots underground called tubers. Only one leaf emerges and lasts for one season. That stem-like part in the photo is the petiole of the single leaf. In times of food shortage, this serves as an emergency food. That was the story of my late father as relayed to him by his father as experienced during the Japanese occupation. This plant dries totally during the dry season, but sprouts after the first heavy rains. The flower emerges first followed by the leaf. It only produces one flower per plant per year.

 The flower sprouts directly from the ground,  those showy part is the bract which enclose the sticky flowers at the bottom of the spadix. When the top central portion or spadix opens it emits the foul odor of decaying animals, in turn attracting flies that pollinate it. These plant will probably become extinct in settled areas, because humans immediately cut the flower upon sight to avoid the bad odor emitted after a few days from emergence. This specimen was actually cut by some people, i just salvaged it for this photo, because i might not be privileged to see this flower again in the future.

More Fertilizer Friday posts

Summer Outpours

Thanks to Pixdaus.com for the above photo, which i found the loveliest, young trees already in full bloom.

The golden shower (Casia fistula) tree is a beautiful sight during summer here in the Philippines simultaneous with Delonix regia, and banaba (Lagerstromoea speciosa). But it is said to be an introduced species from Southern Asia. It is famous also in India, Thailand, Pakistan. As the name implies, its spikes with numerous small flowers droop forming multitudes of dangling golden beauties. Sometimes the whole tree is fully crowned in yellow without leaves, just like the cherry blossoms and Wisteria in temperate countries in spring. Butterflies, bees, birds and other insects love to frolic in its flowers. When fully exposed in a landscape this tree is an awesome accent.

I planted two trees in our property in the province, expecting the awesome view in summers, just like the photo above. I saw young trees which are already  full of flowers in some areas in the country. However, it seems our property's soil is too fertile for this plant. It is a legume so it can assimilate nitrogen from the air and use it for its nutrition. Nitrogen is known to produce vegetative growth, so ours become too vegetative and too big. We have to prune most of the very tall branches, the disadvantage of which is the limited mature branches to produce the flowers. We just leave some branches to mature and content ourselves with some few dangling yellows.

Top left shows the tall branches in summer, which we opt to lessen by pruning. Above right shows the typical golden blossoms

Against the blue sky, the flowers are so pretty. Do you notice the black bumble bee approaching the blossoms at the right! It suddenly came when i clicked.

A lot of caterpillars feast on this tree immediately when the new leaves emerge after the first rain. It is good that our tree is very big that there are enough leaves left. Sometimes a big branch lost all leaves to these green larvae with maximum length of 3 inches. They are not cute, but they arrange themselves in a nice fashion.

Can you see the single egg dangling underside a leaf?

And here is the pupa under a Tunera subulata leaf. I've looked for pupa on the tree itself, but cannot find any. It is typical for most larvae to leave the host plants when they are about to pupate. That is a defense mechanism for them.

I hope you can see the butterfly at the center of the photo. I spent much time following these butterflies. Come egg laying time, and it is a wonderful sight looking at the yellows and yellow-green butterflies literally swarming around the Casia tree. I am not sure if they are called sulfur butterflies, but they flutter their wings so fast and fly on an up-down-up-down manner, which is the courting/mating ritual. They also alight so quickly on the leaves, not leaving a few moment for me to take their photos. They also stay up there higher than other butterflies. Unlike the swallowtails, they are more difficult to document.

Above is another version of its color, however the differences in color might just be the gender. I've read that these sulfur butterflies are whites, yellows, and orange. Ours are actually yellows and yellow-greens. The latter are even larger than the yellows. I hope i can take nicer and closer photos this coming rainy season.

Cherry blossom too?

The Cherry blossom, Prunus serrulata, of Japan is a very famous bloom in temperate climates. It is commonly associated with Japan but grows in other countries too, but of course not in the Philippines and other tropical Southeast Asian countries.  Nobody will say the cherry blossoms are not beautiful.

We in these part of the world has our own 'cherry blossom', which actually is called Palawan cherry. Palawan is a group of islands in the western part of the Philippines, which has a unique geographical and vegetative characteristics than the rest of the country, even if our climate is the same. It still has virgin forest areas protected from cultivation and agricultural practices. The beaches are still pristine and beautiful. Palawan is one of our provinces and boasts of many wonders of nature, like the Subteranean River, one of the world's wonders. Another uniqueness of that province is the Palawan cherry, Casia nodosa, also a leguminous plant. That means it fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere through its roots, and have pods as their fruits. Legumes include the peas, beans, alfalfa, and peanuts.

Would you say this 'cherry blossoms' is also as beautiful as the famous cherry blossoms?

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Wildflowers...that's what we thought...at first!

Dennis and I, a few years ago were so enthusiastic to make a coffee table book about wild flowers. We will get the photographs, he will provide some artistic sketches on the complete plant, and we will decide what to do next when it comes publishing time. "Who will provide for the publication", I said, it will be very costly. He said we will decide when we get there.

The following years we took photos, photos and more photos of the supposedly "wild flowers" we saw during our out of town travels. I only had a Point and Shoot then, but he eventually got a new DSLR. When it's time to arrange and choose the better ones (maybe there are no best) and write something about its classification and whatever comes to mind about the flower...hopes went dead! Even just the identification is so difficult! Moreso, most of them are already domesticated somewhere, it just happened to traverse a lonely path and became wild. Maybe an owner throw some parts or seeds and it went growing untended, as if WILD. Many of them are not even indigenous.

Hence, i will put them here, visually thinking this is a coffee table book!

Capparis micracantha

I saw this stunted bush while walking in the bushy secondary growths in Mabini, Batangas. I thought it is wild and endemic, but how will i know. Research work on this, i realized is so tedious and difficult...especially if you don't have much time. The next is also from the same area.

Breynia nervosa

Costus afer (spiral ginger)

This member of the ginger family is vigorously growing in a formerly farmed area, now conquered by the invader plants. The white delicate flowers at the apex only bloom for a day.

Clerodendrum intermedium (kasupanggil)

This 'kasupanggil' as the old people call them, is also growing luxuriously in a second growth forest. But there are also some coconuts scattered around, untended and just left on their own.

Heliotropium indicum

Ipomoea sp.

This vine grows along the roadsides and one of the last survivors during the summer hot months in Western Batangas. Those green roundish top-like structures near the purple flowers are the fruits. They mature in summer. The yellow variation at the right might not be an Ipomoea, as the leaves are different. However, i still don't know what they are!

Stachytarpheta jamaicensis

This is not domesticated but can be found in marginal areas. Only the butterflies love this! My 7-yr-old nephew, Allen, impressed her mother when he recited its scientific name. Its common name, though, is porterweed.

Tecoma stans (yellow trumpet bush)

This yellow flowering bush is vigorously growing in the wild areas in Siquijor, an island difficult to reach in the Visayas. There is no airport yet there, and the 1-hr boat ride from Dumaguete City is normally rough due to converging currents along the way. Siquijor, beautiful by itself, is made more awesome because of the profuse growth of this plant.