Berry fruity CCNR

Today I was back a different part of CCNR again with some friends. Not as much flowers and fruits as I expected, but still, it wasn’t that bad.

Bright orange fruits of Urophyllum griffithianum, as kindly ID-ed by Joe Lai previously~

My first time seeing the fruits of Clerodendrum villosum! Certainly looks quite pretty with its black berry on its recurved calyx.

Think this big black fruit belongs to another Urophyllum~

Velvety yellow fruits of Gironniera nervosa.

This red berries of Gynotroches axillaris looks delicious. Should have tried it just now =.=’’

An unknown bi-capsulated fruit.

Acorns anyone?

CK noticed this cute tiny caterpillar with pink dots.

And lastly, a mother macaque running to grab her baby away from us when we approached.

It was only when I was looking at this picture that I realised that the baby was badly mauled.

Elaeocarpus mass flowering and fruiting

It was just a sudden impulse that I decided to take a walk by myself to MacRitchie Reservoir. Perhaps it was because that it had been ages since I had gone out to learn more new plants.

I had heard that many plants have been flowering and fruiting for the past month, and luckily I was not too late to witness some of them before the season past.

The most spectacular was the Elaeocarpus petiolatus flowers, which bear droopy white inflorescences. Almost every tree was flowering!

A look from bottom up.

The flowering had passed for another Elaeocarpus species, E. mastersii, and many trees now bear its ovoid fruits.

And so was this common tree, Champereia manillana, along, er Champereia Trail.

Pretty red fruits of this Glochidion superbum.

Some of them are more pinkish.

Nice rounded fruits of Calophyllum lanigerum. However, some of them looked like they have been parasitised, with bored holes visible form the surface.

For those who are interested in flowers and fruits, now is a good time to go to our nature reserves for a walk!

Cat Tien National Park II

Following from my last post, the next morning, our guides took us on an easy forest ride on the back of a pickup.

Below are some of the interesting plants that we saw along the way.

An unknown legume climber with fruits.

This forest is full of these huge trees with flaky bark. They are called Bang Lang in Vietnamese and apparently, they are a kind of Lagerstroemia species. Pretty amazing to compare these giants with our the tiny roadside Lagerstroemia trees in Singapore.

Climbing all over the forest are this climber which looked like Thunbergia laurifolia. This is also a very commonly planted climber here.

One of the first giant trees we saw was this tree called Tung, or Tetrameles nudiflora.

They have all shaded their leaves and started flowering.

Some interesting climber was attached high up on the tree trunk.

And beneath, between the buttress roots, was another climber with pretty pink flowers.

Our guide told us that this is the sapling of Tung.

Some other flowers: Pink ones from a tree,

Mosiac red probably from Acanthaceae family,

and fruits and flowers of a Euphorbiaceae.

One of the most fascinating climbers was this woody thick liana with big thorns. It looked quite similar to Caesalpinia sumatrana which can also be found here.

And just above the climber was a mango tree, Mangifera species.

Just to get a feel of how big the buttress of the Tung tree can be, we took a picture with the buttress roots.

I loved climbers! This one reminded me of a belt.

And lastly, a tree trunk almost totally black in colour.

Vietnam is truly a wonderful place to visit for a plant lover, no matter in the city or forest. =) Will definitely come back again ^^

What bird is this?

I was on the phone in the living room just a moment ago when I saw this raptor landed on the roof of the HDB opposite to my flat.

Can anyone ID just based on this picture?

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.