Kicking off your dancing shoe...

I was looking out of my 12th storey window and saw something hang on this palm tree - my first impression was clothing, shoe or something fallen from the laundry many storey up.
Click image to view detail.

pulai flowers and leaf

The pulai tree downstair flowered. First the canopy's top gone 'pink' and the terminal clusters appeared. I thought it might developed into some thing big but never expect it start sheding tiny flowers a few days ago. I recalled the faint fragrance lingered in the still wet nights.

X10 close-up of tiny green flowers - corolla-tubed with fine hairs outside,
5 petals
dia. 6 to 7 mm
picked up from directly under the tree.
Nikon Cool-light SL-1 white LEDs illuminator

Vein ~ 2 1/2 to 3 mm, typical leaf length 13 -16 cm

Good Friday

Sky looked gloomy. I took a walk in the nearby park. Fallen petals from a yellow flame ( Peltophorun pterocarpum) carpeted the pavement. Walking further down I saw ripe figs still can be found on one of trees and my presence had startled the noisy birds feasting on the fruits.Red-eye Philippine Glossy Starling nibbling on the ripe(red) fig.

Directly underneath the branches, pavements were littered with squashed figs with spilled-out tiny seeds. Overnight rain and the cool shady morning sent mushrooms surfacing in the nearby. I decided to take a closer look. Its the tiny detail of one that caught my eye.

The smaller mushroom pushes its way up
while a visible annulus fragment attached to the rim of the larger mushroom
at 4 o'clock position


A closer look above

Trio Mushroom - Even the tiny fly mimic the chocolate-brown of the mushrooms.
Meanwhile a distance away, a puffball(?) fungus (above) emerged on an old tree stump. Nearby I saw this 'hairy' fig deposited by bird. The wasps were long gone but the 'carriers' left the fungus pores inside the figs.

Fungi sending out thread-like growth from a discarded ficus benjamina fig fruit.

Cat's Whisker

This morning I opened the front gate and saw this perfect bloom from our cat's whisker plant. An idea came to me and minutes later I was scouring the void deck looking for cats. Three candidates were found : one was extremely friendly but wont want to face my camera, the other was too frail and sick. So I settled on one well-fed Tom cat. Took a while to gain his confidence and took the shot 3 ' away. Notice his slightly flattened ears - he was just too tensed up. When I attempted to move a bit closer....he took off.Cat's Whisker - Orthosiphon stamineus - compare with the real whisker below.

See what I picked up ..valves from Honduras Mahogany

Ancient pair of strapless lady's sandals
Have a guess .
Did you get it?... Answer - see below


Outer valve of Honduras Mahogany fruit, Swietenia Macrophylla
I saw the much thinner inner valves (1-2mm) on the overhead bridge. At first I thought it must be the outer peels of some unfamilar fruits. I finally decided to pick it up and have a closer look. Not far away I also found the much thicker (5-7mm) outer valves. I have a foto of the whole fruit some years ago. ( B/w sketch courtesy of J.Lolan)

A familiar 'fern'

I was walking across this open field near Causeway Point - apart from the normal carpet grasses, touch-me-nots and some isolated pockets of unknown weed, I found patches of nodding clubmoss striving in the yellow soil. Note the modified scary leaves.

Nodding clubmoss
Lycopodium cernuum

Witches' Broom

Above : A branch of Syzygium sp showing the growth of Witches' Broom
Below : The Witches ' Broom can growth so large that it altered the general look of the plant.