Cat Tien National Park I

Besides visiting Ho Chi Minh City, my friends and I also visited Cat Tien National Park, which is about a 3 hour drive from the city. We spent a short time there, just an afternoon and the next morning but the trip was still pretty pleasant.

We went to the wrong path when we started our free and easy trek and entered into an area surrounded by grassland, bamboo forests and lined with planted trees. However, there were still quite a decent amount interesting unknown plants fruiting and flowering.

This was a very common climber sprawling around many trees.

The fruits are three winged~

Fruits of a tree probably from the family of Meliaceae.

A tree, probably from the family Phyllanthaceae.

This tall tree had palmately compound leaves and large reddish flowers.

Some bamboo forests beside our path.

Reddish fruits from a legume climber.

Tetrastigma vines!

It was also flowering and fruiting~

This was my favourite climber due to its beautiful pink flowers.

Here are the leaves.

Many tree canopies were covered with this plant and its mass flowering was rather spectacular.

A tree from Malvaceae~

Many of them were fruiting also.

Some yellow inflorescence,

and fruits from a legume tree.

Again, an unknown tree flowering~

A  scrambler with very pretty pink flowers.

Here is a close up~

We had some fun playing with the seeds from a cultivated Lagerstroemia tree. They are shaped in a way which allowed them to spin in the air.

This was another nice shrub flowering.

Leaves of the shrub~

This Climber looks like an plant from the family Acanthaceae.

A rather short trip of about 2 hours before we head back for a night drive on a lorry for a tour. Going by the same trail, the guide showed us many Samba deers grazing on the grassland which skirted away after seeing us. Only this one above stayed longer than usual looking at us curiously.