Plant walk @ Bukit Brown

Had missed out too many plant walks by NSS as a lot of the former trips are held on Sat mornings when I had to work. Therefore, I was glad that there was one on a Sunday, and it was at a place I have yet to explore: Bukit Brown cemetery.

Dr Shawn Lum and Angie were the guides for the day, and he quickly start off with the news about the development of a 4-lane road that will cut through the main trail of the cemetery. Read the news and map here. Gone will be the plants that they showed us during the walk, together with some tombs, and a lot of wildlife that reside here or flew over occasionally from the Central Catchment Nature Reserve nearby.

Shawn pointed out this twenty men tree, Ixonanthes icosandra. Apparently, from KY, I come to know that the common name arise from someone with a poor sense of humour, as ‘twenty men’ refers to the twenty stamens of its flowers. Get it? =.=’’

We also saw some tall Terentang, Campnosperma auriculata.

HL and I also investigated the tonnes of epiphytes clustering on the rain trees.

Some other nice attractions of the cemetery: pretty girls in tights on horses,

pretty butterflies (This one is called Chestnut Bob),

magnificent tombs,

with stern Sikh guards.

The Asia Paranormal Investigators made all these tags to allow people exploring the area to learn about the origins of the tombs.

The weather was unbearably hot as we trekked through the forest…

To see perhaps the most famous tomb here: Lee Hoon Leong, the grandfather of Lee Kuan Yew.

Flora of Pulau Semakau

Finally published! This latest Nature in Singapore article compiles a checklist all the flora found in the original Semakau (excluding seagrasses), 168 species in all. Also inside are descriptions of the habitats, past and present records, exotic and rare species.

You may download it by clicking on the picture (file size: 0.99Mb).

I realised that I had over-sharpened my photographs of the plants. Ugh…

Of Kites and green spaces

Where can you find a giant squid and a cow together? At a grass patch in Sengkang!

It has ages since I last flown a kite so I decided to organise an outing with some friends.

We have all kinds of kites, like this giant panda.

Even a giant stingray!

Another sotong, though it looked rather emo.

While none of us successful got a kite up high into the sky because of the lack of wind, we still had a blast of time. While I do advocate wild and spontaneous vegetation for state land to support more biodiversity, I also have to admit that well manicured green spaces like this are important for other purposes.