Monthly Archives: October 2008

Hoya Article in the Home Concepts Magazine (Oct 08 Issue)

Posted on October 10, 2008 | 1 Comment

The October issue of the Home Concepts magazine is out now and in this issue, the magazine took on a new look which appeared rather minimalistic to me.

This month, Lily, a fellow member and moderator from the Green Culture Singapore discussion forum and I helped to co-author an article for the Garden Treats section where we wrote about the growing of hoyas.

In this article, Lily introduced a selection of hoyas that can be found on sale in our local nurseries for readers of the magazine to choose from to grow at home. There is a wide range of hoyas for everyone as  many hoyas have been introduced into the market in recent times.

 

They are rather easy-to-grow plants and suited for growing by busy urbanites. They are fairly drought-tolerant and will grow healthily and bloom generously if they are grown in a location with good air circulation and filtered sunshine. 

As I read through the article, two botanical names were printed wrongly. “Hoya luconose” should be correctly read as “Hoya lacunosa” on page 152 while the hoya pictured on page 154 should be labelled as Hoya nummularioides.

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Posted in Contributed Articles, Flowering plants, Tropical ornamentals

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Bauhinia galpinii in Bloom in HortPark!

Posted on October 8, 2008 | Leave a comment

Another floral show has began in HortPark. I have been informed by Cheow Kheng from the National Parks Board (NParks) that several Bauhinia galpinii plants planted in HortPark’s Car Park Garden are flowering now. First and foremost, many thanks to NParks for giving me the permission to reproduce their pictures of Bauhinia galpinii on this blog post.

Commonly known as “Pride of the Cape”, B. galpinii is native to South Africa and is a relatively drought-resistant and undemanding plant. Like many ornamental Bauhinia species grown locally, it is a woody, scandent shrub that requires some form of support to grow on. It is a very versatile plant that can be trained onto a strong trellis or grow over a pergola.

Bauhinia galpinii is relatively free flowering under Singapore’s climate and hence one can expect to enjoy the beautiful flowers almost all year round. Like many other Bauhinia species, B. galpinii needs to be grown in a well-drained location where it can receive as much direct sunshine as possible. It is only for outdoor gardens due to the size of the plant as well as its great need for direct sunshine. 

Remember to place mulch on the plant’s root zone as bauhinas usually like their feet cool and moist at all times. Try not to prune plants too often as they produce flower buds on new growth.

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Posted in Flowering plants, Tropical ornamentals

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Lady McNeice’s Aristolochia brasiliensis at Alexandra Hospital

Posted on October 6, 2008 | Leave a comment

Alexandra Hospital’s Madame Butterfly, Rosalind Tan, shared with me the good news that a rare flower has bloomed for her. The plant has been tentatively identified by Mdm Ohn Set from the Singapore Botanic Gardens as Aristolochia brasiliensis. The plant was a generous gift that was given as a sapling to Rosalind by Lady Yuen-Peng Neice. Rosalind planted the young sapling near her office where it grew and flowered recently for the first time. There are a total of six flowers on the plant now.

Lady Yuen-Peng McNeice with a flower of Aristolochia brasiliensis.

Lady Yuen-Peng McNeice is a very important person in Singapore. A recipient of the Singapore Green Plan 2012 Award and the Public Service Medal in 2004 and 2005, respectively, Lady McNeice has contributed greatly to Singapore’s education, nature conservation and biodiversity. Numerous scholarships, plant and animal species have been named after her. Lady McNeice was the person who introduced the colourful and exotic bromeliads to Singapore’s National Orchid Garden’s Yuen-Peng Neice’s Bromeliad Collection after buying over the Shelldance Nursery’s entire collection.

Front view of the Aristolochia brasiliensis flower.

As the specific name suggests, Aristolochia brasiliensis originated from Brazil. It is an evergreen climber that can grow up to 9 m. The leaves are heart-shaped and apple-green in colour. The flowers are large and exhibit an elaborate mottled pattern of white and reddish brown patches and veins.

Aristolochia flowers have an unique flower morphology as they do not have petals (corolla) like many other flowers we are familiar with. Each flower has an inflated base which is joined to a long perianth tube that opens up and spreads out to reveal a lobe-like structure. An Aristolochia flower looks somewhat like a pitcher when viewed from its side.

As such, Aristolochia flowers have a specialized pollination mechanism. The flowers of many species omit a strong odour to attract its insect pollinators. As an insect crawls through the perianth tube, it makes it way into the bulbous base which acts a chamber where it gets trapped overnight. The numerous hairs that line the tube’s interior point in an opposite direction prevent its escape. If the insect has pollen from another Aristolochia flower, the pollen can get transferred to the flower it is now trapped in.

Back view of the Aristolochia brasiliensis flower.

Overnight, the Aristolochia flower releases its pollen which falls on the poor insect. The hairs on the perianth tube then shrivel away, permitting the escape of the pollen-covered insect so that it can fly away to visit and pollinate another flower.

Aristolochia species make very exotic ornamental flowering vines for gardens where they must be given a trellis to climb on.  Note that some species, such as A. tagala, are food plants for butterfly caterpillars. They make very good plant candidates for an eco-garden where children and adults can get to learn more about the unique flower morphology and pollination mechanism of Aristolochia flowers. However, one needs to be aware that Aristolochia species are also poisonous and no part of the plant is to be ingested.

Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to Rosalind for letting me know about the flowering of this uncommon Aristolochia species, as well as, to Lady Yuen-Peng McNeice too, for granting me the permission to publish her photograph on this blog post.

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Posted in Flowering plants, Gardening People in Singapore, Tropical ornamentals

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Calathea nodosa flowered at last!

Posted on October 3, 2008 | Leave a comment

Calathea nodosa is a member of the prayer plant family, Marantaceae. It is a plant that looks very much similar like another Calathea species, C. lutea. The latter species is now a common landscape plant in Singapore where everyone grows it for its large paddle-shaped leaves with silvery undersides. It also produces brown cigar-like inflorescences.

On the other hand, C. nodosa is a much rarer plant. It was a plant given to me by a friend who actually grew it from seed. C. nodosa also produces the similar large paddle-shaped leaves except that they are devoid of the silvery powdery coat on the leaf undersides. In addition, the leaves of C. nodosa have dark red petioles which are quite showy to some extent.

Recently, the C. nodosa I have in the garden flowered for the first time. Before it bloomed, the only pictures that are available on the Internet are those that have been put up on Carla Black’s website. The inflorescences pictured in Black’s website are darker brown in colour whereas those seen in my plant are golden yellow in colour. I wonder whether this is caused by the age of the bracts or due to natural variation and genetic differences between plants.

Little is known about this plant and there is hardly any information written on it.  Carla Black’s website mentioned that C. nodosa is a plant that is often seen growing around the area in Panama where the beautiful and still rare, furry and yellow-flowered Heliconia xanthovillosa.

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Posted in Flowering plants, Tropical ornamentals

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Beautiful Yam Bean Flowers

Posted on October 1, 2008 | 2 Comments

The “popiah” or the spring roll is a popular food item that most Singaporeans should not not familiar with. The filling that is used to make this dish is commonly called via its Hokkien name “Bang Kuang” which essentially the cooked tuber shreds of the yam bean tuber.

Those of us who have been to the local wet market or supermarket would have seen the elliptical shaped yam bean tuber on sale in the vegetable section but I reckon most of us may not have seen the actual plant. Some months back, one of my community gardeners, Mrs Yap planted some seeds of the yam bean which have grown into several vines climbing up and tying themselves around the bamboo supports that had been put up.

Botanically known as Pachyrhizus erosus, the yam bean is a member of the bean family, Fabaceae and is native to Central America. Unlike the vegetable beans we are familiar with, the edible portion of the yam bean is its swollen tap root which is prepared by first peeling away the fibrous brown skin. The white flesh that is revealed can be eaten cooked or raw and has a crispy and moist texture.

This is one of the first times I have seen the real yam bean plant. The seeds can be quite hard to obtain and locally in Singapore, only one seed supplier sells them. The plant produces the familiar trifoliate leaves we often encounter with other legume vines. Instead of being roughly oval in shape, the leaves of the yam bean are lobed with several pointed edges. They are also velvety to touch!

The yam bean plant surprisingly produces rather attractive lilac-coloured flowers. They are borne on a tall and erect inflorescence. As such, I find yam bean flowers are more ornamental than those of the winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus) because they are more conspicuous and do not get hidden by the plant’s foliage.

Like the winged bean plant, the yam bean plant behaves somewhat like a perennial in the garden. It takes about half a year from seed to harvest a sizeable tuber and while waiting, one can actually admire the beautiful flowers that are produced.  

After the flowers fade, velvety bean pods are produced and do remember that they are not suitable for consumption! So do not harvest any for the cooking pot! They are not edible due to the numerous hairs on the young pods which can cause irritation. The rest of the plant is highly toxic and the seeds are well known to contain rotenone, a widely used chemical to kill fish and insects. It is a component in some pesticides used in organic gardening.

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Posted in Vegetables

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