Kent Ridge mini surprises

Siyang and I went to this piece of adinandra belukar secondary forest in campus this afternoon for just less than an hour. Adinandra belukar is defined as a species-poor, anthropogenic heath forest dominated by tiup tiup. These tiup tiup are quite distinct with their pole-like trunks. Another key adinandra belukar species will be Simpoh air. Sorry I didnt take a photo of both, because they are quite common, or you can say everywhere.


Siyang stopped to take a look at this beetle. I usually wont see detailed things, so really need people to guide me to see.


Nice find... the Raffles' pitcher plant (Nepenthes rafflesiana). These charismatic species have been poached to near extinction at all accessible sites in S'pore. This is unfortunate as they do not grow well when cultivated...eventually die soon. So please don't take them away from the wild.


From the hand that is holding the leaf, you can see an extension of the leaf tip that leads to the pitcher itself for the pitcher is a specialized leaf so as to capture crawling insects.


Tembusu (Fagarea fragans) is the tree that you see behind your $5 note. It can grow up to 30m tall and during season, you can smell their fragrant flower scent. This is a key adinandra belukar species.


lots of ants..... imagine them on your face


This is the mini surprise! Look at the size of these pitches. The rounded scale is 50cents coin. Only someone that is super duper observant can find it. Siyang knew about it as his TA shared with him... I wondered who found them in the first place. They just look like grass from far.


Nice, but I don't know the id... :P


I didn't know Smilax can have heart shape leaves...Yucks! These species are very fierce and will kill others. And Dr Wang recently saw it in Bukit Timah nature reserve..hope it doesn't invade into our primary rainforest.