Enw1se the NEWSLETTER of the SINGAPORE BOTANIC GARDENS VOLUME 31, JULY 2008 ISSN 0219- 1688 Gardenwise T""
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.~PARKS I enw1se THE NEWSLETTER OF THE SINGAPORE BOTANIC GARDENS VOLUME 31, JULY 2008 ISSN 0219- 1688 Gardenwise t""...... VOLUME 31, JU LY 2008 Message from the director Chin See Chung ARTICLES: 3 Meandering through pandan peat swamp forest Paul Leong Serena Lee 6 Iridescence in the Gardens Thereis Choo 8 The Rain Forest Boardwalk -towards conserving a living legacy BenjaminAw 11 N ew records of Sphagnum moss in the lowland tropics Benito C.Tan 13 Exploring plant biodiversity on the Philippine island of Camiguin Mark Hughes Benito C.Tan jana Skornickova 15 Deception and seduction: the secret life of orchids TimWingYam REGULAR FEATURES Around the Gardens 18 Screening of'An Inconvenient Truth' BenjaminAw 18 A dance musical BenjaminAw 19 First Asian Bryophyte Red List meeting held at SBG Benito C.Tan 20 A new volunteer t our Benjamin Aw 20 Volunteer tea reception BenjaminAw 21 Spices galore! Hassan Ibrahim New & Exciting 22 St inking Beauty: Amorphophal/us paeonifolius Mark H ughes AungThame Notes from the Economic Garden 23 Sweet, sour, and remarkably useful! Marc Frank Whats Blooming 24 The snake tree: Stereospermum (1mbriatum N ura Abdul Karim 25 T he buttercup tree: Cochlospermum religiosum N ura Abdul Karim 26 Calanthe rubens H ubert Kurzweil Ginger and its Allies 27 Scaphochlamys kunstleri - colours in the shade jana Skornickova From Education Outreach 28 Earth Day Special Programmes - a first time collaboration with W innie Wong the Green Volunteer Network Koh-Low N eok Chein 30 W hat is JBCG? Come and explore ... janice Yau Winnie Wong Dina Gallick From Taxonomy Corner 32 A specimen from Singapore returns Gust for a visit) George Staples From the Orchid Species Collection 34 Flickingeria (1mbriata Hubert Kurzweil Book Review 35 Lycaste, Ida and Anguloa -The Essent ial Guide H ubert Kurzweil Beyond the Gardens Cover: 36 Sealing new collaborations j ana Skornickova The Rain Forest Boardwalk Mark Hughes Photo by Benjamin Aw Inside back cover Editors Key visitors to the Gardens BenjaminAw Chin See Chung Serena Lee Mark Hughes Back cover Kho Soo Pei From the Archives Production Managers Spices and medicines Hassan Ibrahim Christina Soh Mak Sin Chang Singapore Botanic Gardens, I Cluny Road, Singapore 259569 Design Splash Productions Pte Ltd NATIO NAL PARKS BOARD nparks_sbg_visi tor_services@nparks .gov.sg www.sbg.org.sg www.nparks.gov.sg Gardenwise A one-way ring road going clockwise forms a human figure where plant displays w ill the perimeter of the National University be organized around ailments of various of Singapore's Bukit Timah campus, our parts of the body. The interpretation will immediate neighbour: The strip of land to be creative, educational and entertaining. the left of this road that reverted to the The stories that the plants can tell will aid Gardens was part of the Economic Garden in conveying the message that humans of the Botanic Gardens from 1879 to 1924 depend on plants. Even cultures and (see Gardenwise 30, pg 26-27). The land wars and the course of histories have currently includes six pre-war bungalows been dictated by plants. The garden w ill and Raffles Building , a former residential illustrate the importance of conservation college for students. The latter now houses and research and the importance of the operational and training divisions of species and diversity. It will be a rich ex-sit u the National Parks Board (NParks). It conservation collection of tropical plant s is physically linked to the rest of NParks w ith attributed healing properties. at the Visitor Centre premises rather inconveniently, via a short loop on a public This issue sees changes in the production road outside the Gardens. Obviously, team. Mark Hughes joins as editor while better connectivity at this entry precinct Christina Soh and Mak Sin Chang take with convenient pedestrian and vehicular over from Hassan Ibrahim as our new flow is needed. production managers. A new feature from our colleagues in education begins here. This extension to the Gardens offers We hope this will be a regular item for exciting possibilities for new plant displays children that w ill also be a useful guiding and landscapes. It must however be well tool for parents and teachers. integrated to the rest of the Gardens. There are plans for several new gardens This issue also has a slightly different look that will be implemented in phases. The and feel, and we hope our readers like first phase started in April 2008 and the design change. Gardenwise cont inues includes the redesign of the entry precinct. to attract good review, a testimony to It will be made more attractive and provide the continuing efforts of the production a better sense of entry to the Visitor team and the support of all our colleagues. Centre. An internal connection to Raffles While changes to design and content are Building will be built and garden walkways ongoing, we will ensure that it remains will provide pedestrians with safe, shaded relevant in communicating horticulture, and convenient access to both areas. botany, conservation and garden related t opics to general readers. It is a useful A healing garden in the extension behind medium for brief records of major changes Raffles Building is also part of the first that take place in the 149-year-old Gardens, phase. As its name implies, the garden and is a means for all in the Gardens and will be therapeutic and restful. Principles NParks to express and share their int erest of universal design in landscapes will be in hort iculture and plants. adopted and the garden will be friendly to all. To further create interest and identit y; its physical layout will take the form of Chin See Chung ~~ I 0 Meandering through pandan peat swamp forest It was everywhere! Rising four metres We were the first guests to grace the above and one suspects, extending anot her spanking new field station, which was two to three metres below the dark, t ea delightfully nestled amongst the wilderness, coloured water, it flanked the waterway away from the maddening crowd.The well that we coursed through on a motorized deliberated facilities include 3 bedrooms, boat. Occasionally, the passageway could an attic, kitchen, dinning area and even be so narrow that we had to duck to avoid commercial septic tanks. An unexpected being brushed against the serrated leaf luxury in the middle of nowhere! margins.The problem was the ubiquitous pandan, Pandanus andersonii. It is the Knowing that peat swamp water is mildly dominant plant species that characterizes acidic, thus unlikely to have leeches, we the peat swamp forests along the had gleefully chucked out our leech socks tributaries of River Kemena that lead to during packing. Once our bags were set the field station where we stayed. down in the field station, we were all raring to go and explore, as this was going Our journey began when we flew into to be a very different experience from Bintulu on the 23rd March 2008. By the limestone areas we had previously early next morning, we had made our traversed in Sarawak. way to the Binyo-Penyilam area, a peat swamp forest that took us two hours to The morning air was crisp and the ground reach on board an 'Ekspress boat' along wet w ith dew when we set off each River Kemena followed by a 45 minute morning. Lunch was mostly eaten on the motorized long-boat ride meandering boat after a morning's collection, mainly through the pandan along the river's botanizing from the boat, stopping when tributaries (Sungai Penyilam). The one spotted plants of interest. Once purpose of the trip was to survey the though, we alighted the boat to trek Flora of the Binyo-Penyilam peat swamp landward, wading at times through chest forest through an MOU with Grand high black-tea coloured water and 'feeling' Perfect Sdn. Bhd. our partner for this our footing on non-visible bundled up tree occasion who provided the logistics for t run ks, which at low water level, would the trip. A lso with us on this trip were serve as a walkway but on this occasion, people from the Sarawak Herbarium. had submerged way below the water level An occasional loud splash followed by an expletive would indicate that someone had lost his balance and fell into the dark water. 3 ARTICLE Gardenwise The flora is rich in epiphytes, especially orchids, some of which were even epiphytic on the Pandanus andersonii. due to recent high rainfall. An occasional other tree species include those belonging will also send us a set of their collection loud splash followed by an expletive would to the genera Artocarpus, Gonystylus, duplicates, so both institutions will have a indicate that someone had lost his balance Memecylon, Barringtonia, Ficus, Syzygium reference set of specimens to help us fully and fell into the dark water. Mercifully, we and Dacrydium. Palm species were found understand the plant biodiversit y of this were too focused on the flora to ever mainly on the landward side which include rich forest. wonder what lurked beneath. We would rattans, Pinanga spp., Cyrtostachys renda and get back to the station at about 3pm Eugeissona uti/is; climber s and epiphytes We'd very much like to thank our hosts to photograph and press the plants till other than orchids include Aeschynanthus from Grand Perfect; Azizan for rushing the about 6pm, then took our bath and got spp., Medinilla spp., Myrmecodia sp ., construction of the field station for us and ready for dinner. The amazing Sarawakians Flagellaria indica, Uncaria sp., Ampelocissus for his kecap chilli appetizer which we all were multi-talented; multi-tasking as tree sp., Dischidia spp., Hoya spp., Huperzia sp.