New Mangrove Record: Rhizophora x lamarckii

20 July 2011: Can you imagine the excitement and elation I felt on discovering a mature Rhizophora x lamarckii in Pulau Ubin - a new mangrove record for Singapore? I was grinning with joy the whole day and went to bed so very happy that night. Sometimes, somehow, I cannot help but think I live a very charmed life indeed! [Haha] But profoundly though, I do feel quietly affirmed that my calling which I believe I have is real.

So as you can also imagine, my nature-loving friends were equally happy for me too. When I told them that R. x lamarckii is a natural hybrid of R. apiculata and R. stylosa, they were very intrigued and wanted to know more.

Here it is then, my friends - on your request - some simple diagnostic features of R. x lamarckii you can remember and use in the field. Happy exploring!!

A closer look at Rhizophora x lamarckii: flowering specimen for the herbarium (below).

It was the stalk of the inflorescence (the peduncle) which blew me away the instant I laid eyes on the tree. The length of the stalk is so much shorter than R. stylosa and R. mucronata, but longer than R. apiculata! Fallen flowers at the base of the tree told me much more...

Compare the stalks of the inflorescences (peduncles) of R. apiculata, R. x lamarckii, R. stylosa and R. mucronata (from left to right).

Compare the style and sepal width of the following 4 flowers: Differences and similarities described below.

Rhizophora apiculata (below): style very short - less than 1mm long.

Rhizophora mucronata (below): style sharply pointed; appearing like a conical tunic with ovary.

Rhizophora stylosa (below): style long; sepal width narrow to lanceolate like those of R. mucronata.

Rhizophora x lamarckii (below): style long like R. stylosa; sepal width broad like R. apiculata.

The density of the dots on the underside of mature leaves is markedly different for R. stylosa (left) and R. x lamarckii (centre) and R. apiculata (right); the last two being similarly and densely dotted though faint to see. R. stylosa, on the other hand, is similarly and spaciously dotted like R. mucronata (not shown here).

The claw of R. x lamarckii (located at the distal end of the sepal) is prominently sharper to the touch than R. stylosa. The claws of R. apiculata and R. mucronata on the other hand are rounded instead.

A dried petal of R. x lamarckii turns brown; margin white hairy.

A good botanical drawing (shown in part below) of R. x lamarckii can be found in The Botany of Mangroves (by P.B. Tomlinson, The University of Cambridge,1986 ). Besides other features, the sharp claw of the sepal, hairy petals, bi-lobed stigma and long style are very well illustrated.

R. x lamarckii is known to be vegetatively robust and vigorous. Our specimen is multi-stemmed and has prodigious flying buttresses and aerial roots bearing down in a messy tangle from up to 3m above.

Bark rough and shallowly cracked. The biggest of the 5 major trunks measured 47cm girth.

It lives in the soft substrate at the uppermost reach of a long snaking tidal creek.

At about 12m tall, it is already towering a head above the surrounding trees.

Detailed description and adequate photos of R. x lamarckii can be found in Australia's Mangroves by Norman C. Duke, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 2006. This hybrid can produce hypocotyl (seedlings) but fruit rarely develop beyond the immature fruit stage.

Coralline Record in Singapore Botanic Gardens

It is the most unusual place to find corals - Singapore Botanic Gardens. Coralline boulders of all shapes and sizes, intact or fragmented, line the garden paths and flower beds even today. As is evident to me at least, these were used as decorative borders long ago at the infancy of the garden during the colonial days. Their numbers and the impressive size of some of these marine relics easily suggest a time when our island is surrounded by a most spectacular 'garden in the sea' brimming to the shores with livid corals of all sorts and harvested as readily available material for such purposes. I have found them similarly employed in Ss. Peter and Paul Church at Waterloo Street.

Such grand visions of pristine seas may be lost forever but if one were to be interested in the study of corals in Singapore waters, I think a visit to Singapore Botanic Gardens is a most invaluable trip to the past. Who knows, a never-before recorded taxa might be found amongst these relics. Taken at the microscopic level of enquiry, one might even find traces of micro-fauna entombed within the recesses of their silent calcareous walls. Her coralline record could certainly hold many secrets waiting your discovery.

For a start, you may want to venture down to Area G [photo above] where most of the corals can be found. It is nestled somewhere between Swan Lake and the car park of Ginger Garden. Two or three narrow stairways will lead you down to a lower labyrinth of narrower pathways bounded by relatively high walls of corals resembling limestone gullies where even the enigmatic single-leafed herb Monophyllaea horsfieldii (a limestone specialist) grows in the company of mosses lush and plentiful. [plant photos right below]

coral1coral2coral3
coral4
coral5coral6coral7coral8Monophyllaea horsfieldii plants

Monophyllaea horsfieldii flowers

Monophyllaea horsfieldii inflorescense

Prismatomeris glabra: A shrub called Haji Samat

In Singapore it is a rare jewel sparkling white in the shadows as an understorey shrub of the great rain forest known to aborigines and remote kampong folks as a powerful aphrodisiac. It has very thin and greenish secondary veins so delicately etched as to appear absorbed into the lamina of the leaf.

Flowers are exquisitely scented and glossy; the petals, five to six, discreetly folded.

The fruits ripens purple and should easily fool you into thinking it a Memecylon species.

Alas, it is not. The single seed is gloved on one side and a coffee bean it is... Rubiaceae! : )

Red-Nosed Cicada and Glochidion brunneum

I never knew Glochidion brunneum as a host tree for the Red-Nosed Cicada. Today I found that out most serendipitously. A pair of mating Red-nosed Cicada (Huechys sanguinea) fell off the lower branch I was examining. I promptly scooped them up from the ground with a fallen leaf, and before restoring them onto a leafy twig, I took liberty of documenting their mating.

Close-up of copulatory organs.

The pair continued their mating up on the tree.

There were many others on the tree. Some were clearly seen sucking sap from the tree, especially the younger branches.

April must be their season for emergence into adulthood. I saw one halfway getting out of its nymphal coat. No sooner do they emerge, they sing, eat, and mate - all under the canopy of a lovely providential tree named Glochidion brunneum. : )

Uvaria curtisii: Remembering James Sinclair

When it beckoned from above one beautiful morning, I leaped for joy; a glorious green star lighting up an epiphany of a priceless moment. How so heartwarming it felt to know a native is still around in our treasured forest. Yes, Uvaria curtisii, you are still around in our midst! We thought you were gone for good... 'Nationally Extinct' as listed in the Singapore Red Date Book (2nd Edition, 2008). And could I ever forget James Sinclair (1913-1968) in moment like this? No, not by any chance. His prolific work on Annonaceae here in Singapore Herbarium I admire and appreciate so much. If only wishes could come true upon a green star, how I would love to have him standing next to me that morning. His collection of Uvaria curtisii - Sinclair S.F.N 39652, collected 27th May 1953 at Kruing Path, Bukit Timah - is the first and only record for Singapore.

Here, below, I took license to piece together some of his words for you in the remembrance of a dedicated botanist...

Large climber; expanded flower 4.5-5 cm, petals greenish-yellow, tomentose on both surfaces; calyx entirely covering the petals in flower bud up to the time of opening.

* Flowers extra-axillary.

Flowers solitary or often 2. Leaves thinly tomentose beneath on the entire surface and on the margin, the hairs rather soft and short, stellate.

Leaves oblong-lanceolate or slightly oblanceolate, apex acute, narrowed to the rounded base; nerves 11-14 pairs, prominent beneath, curving and interarching about 2-3 mm from margin.

James Sinclair at his desk in the Singapore Herbarium (old building,1959).

The above photo, and an obituary and an appreciation of James Sinclair 1913-1968 by H. M. Burkill, can be found in The Gardens' Bulletin Vol. 23, 30th December 1968.

Footnote: * Flowers extra-axillary: a description by Hsuan Keng, The Concise Flora of Singapore; Gymnosperms and Dicotyledons (1990)

Mitrephora maingayi

Tree: intact flower with 3 inner petals fused distally to form an open hanging basket.

Fallen outer petals.

Ash-colored trunk.

Poem: Shared Memories

Shared Memories 

Precious still from each day snatch  

and save till long past fetch 

two old doves on a window sill 

love rehatch 

 Joseph Lai, 5 Mar 2011

Myrialepis paradoxa: Paradoxically Yours

Myrialepis paradoxa - a climbing palm also called Rotan Kertong in Malay - is both monotypic and monocarpic. 'Monotypic' because it's a taxon possessing only one singular species, and 'monocarpic' because it's biologically programmed to flower only once in a lifetime, set seeds and then die. What can be more paradoxical than an event that involves a great burst of life, setting numerous seeds for posterity, yet ushering death, dying, of a mother in the end. A swansong to be true.

And should no one look at its fruit and not be confounded and surprised by its numerous tiniest of scales which, as if were, numbering the stars hidden in unfathomable scale of light-years but sparkle unmistakably just enough to illuminate one in wonderment? This, if not, is paradoxa in the greatest poetic tradition.

Fruit

Scales

Sepals

Remnant of stigma

Inside of fruit wall

Thorns

Myrialepis paradoxa (formerly M. scortechinii) compared to Plectocomiopsis geminiflora as found in one of my treasured books Palms of Malaya (by T.C. Whitmore). You may delight to know more of Plectocomiopsis geminiflora, a recent new record of Singapore, in the recently published paper in Nature in Singapore 2011 4: 1-4 (NUS) by L. L. Teo, S. K. Y. Lum and A. H. B. Loo. More photos of Myrialepis paradoxa are found there.