Sunday, February 14, 2021

A Binomial Nomenclaturely Correct Review of Singaporean Fungi and more

We've been jungling again.
If you look closer, there is creepy.
Aaah, the twisteraty life-crushing vine has encased someone's human hand! The horror! There continue to be many dangers. I'm afraid that reading today's blog may pose the danger of boredom, however...
Your feedback is important to us. Laura in Singapore responds in fleeting ways to feedback. You wanted betters speciesidentification. Let's start with a picture of a Senna alata, above, commonly called the Christmas-candle flower, where some formicidae are feeding. Below is a Mimosa pudica, or sensitive plant which will shut up its leaves if you express your frustration or weight. Its fluffer puffball (ok, sic.) flowers are less touchy.
We saw our first ever wild pea flower. But my mother and the Internet, who agree with Raed on the species thing, kindly confirmed that this cannot be called a butterfly pea flower, as it's a lighter blue. So suck it! It is still named Clitoria ternatea, named after the human part of a similar name, whose full structure was not known until 2005. Shocking? I think not.
Speaking of human body parts, I had discarded this monsoon-logged photo until the glories of Basidomycota nomenclature were revealed to me. Below is a Phallus indusiatus, Bamboo Fungus, or the Basket variety of Stinkhorn. Did you now that Stinkhorns have a veil? The cap exudes a smelly, sticky, sweet liquid that attracts insects which then unwittingly spread the spores. You know, like a boring-ass flower, except the bugs get get athlete's foot.
Here, a cluster of Cookeina speciosa jelly fungi teach us about the Temuans people of Penninsular Malaysia, who reportedly used some genus as food and fishing bait. Don't be eating them, as my genus expertise is limited, and so is yours.
The push-button mushrooms below are called Lentinus sajor-caju. The real issue in cultivator-mycology, you know, is the persistent misapplication of the name Pleurutus sajor-caju, even in scientific texts! I dedicate this part of the blog to Raed, who told me to look up the names o'stuff.
Let's spend some time with the gandoderma. Above, the Ganoderma tropicum (Junghuhn) Bresadola (which I would have called the shiny shoeshroom), and below, the Ganoderma sp. 6, which gets a lamer name given its lack of sparkle. In case you were trying, you can differentiate Ganoderma from other polypores due to their double-walled basidiospore, which should be obvious.
The Favolus Roseus Lloyd was discovered in 1922, and were fantastically boring thereafter. According to Wikipedia, the fruit bodies of Favolus fungi are annual, and have a stipe that is situated laterally to substipitate or almost sessile. The shape of the cap is spatulate (with a broad, rounded end), reniform (kidney shaped) to dimidiate (divided into two equal parts). So there's that.
Here, we have something less obvious in the Clavulina genus, perhaps Clavulina cristata, but who really cares?
Let's continue this nonsense with a beautiful specimen of the, oh my god, I have no idea. Raed, my blog creation has gone from 1 hour to many just in fungaldentification! I haven't even moved onto preferred kingdoms such as, say, animals or plants!
On that note, I hope that you had an exceptional level of fun with this kingdom of Fungi learning. Perhaps you'd like to try the rest on your own? Let's start off with a super-cool multilegged, bug-killing waddler.
For this one, I'll give you a clue, it's in the Tricholomataceae family, I think.
And for a final challenge, perhaps some crusty bark itchers ?
#nomorefungiforme #laurainsingapore.

Saturday, February 6, 2021

Fuzzy, Porcine, Fungal and Fruity!

In case anyone didn't get closure, both rescue cats are living their best lives. Harvey, above, has new energy, new health, and a rotating cat boss chair. Moose, below, is 50% bigger post-street hungers and is rocking his new healthier fur look. They both have amazing homes full of love.
We went to spot wilder animals in the jungle. It's hard to portray how tall, lush, and dense our rainforest can be, but we had some success here.
Today we made a good sighting in the camouflage!
Well hello, wild boar butt.
We got so close to Boarly that we could hear him (and it was a him) crunching!
Terrible boar butt selfie for perspective.
There are other animals to spot, but the common long-tailed macaque is less novel for us, now.
However, my photographic miss of the day was when this lovely lady slid down the power pole, firefighter-style. (Singapore has very few power poles, so a more rare sighting).
I'm still into my fungal shots; I call these push-button mushrooms.

It may be time for us to learn more about the botanies, to stop making up names, but here's a Singapore Golden Star flower in time for Chinese New Year.
And here's a Prickly Nugget Pouch.
Even outside of the forest, we found some more plants of interest. This is a Lesser Leaf Street Papaya plant.
This is a wee-nana tree. We've spoken about these tasty snacks before.
Now Corey told me you're supposed to use a banana for scale on everything. I am challenged by this here, so here's my finger: normal-sized index variety.

Monday, January 25, 2021

Jungles, Twirls, and Tiger Tails

I've been taking pictures of the jungles, both urban and, well, also urban.We had some special weekend clouds, so that helped.
You can never capture the height and breadth of the jungle, so I focused on the gnarl.
They look fantastical, but these twirly vines didn't lead me to Jack (of the beanstalk) or George (of the jungle), which is good, because neither are strong social distancers.
Similarly, a strangler fig has encompassed a bovine-sized rock.
Which reduces the risk to us, I guess.


We found more cliffs. Before this year, I was aware of zero local cliffs, now we've found 3. Next, we will look for the portal to Narnia.
Barry said "Oh look, it's a huge fish". He doesn't get out much.
This is Little Guilin. Now I just checked, and Big/Normal Sized Guilin is a mountain range. So I might have gone with Very Wee Gui, or maybe just Teeny Tiny Linny.
Please have some zen:
Speaking of not getting out much, the marketing team made some bad decisions with a surprising and poorly-placed tiger graphic. We all want to retire while we can still tiger tail, I guess.
Speaking of bovine (we were above, your attention span is just too short to remember), we're coming up to Chinese New Year, and the year of the Ox/Cow/Bovine is gender neutral. Decorations and contagion restrictions are going up, stay tuned!

Sunday, January 17, 2021

Exploring the Frontiers

We've been mostly people of the interior, so it's time we explored the frontiers! Above is mystery sea fruit, below is the western lighthouse.
Behind it is the bridge to Malaysia, with a single vehicle on it.
Now I'm not good at boats, but this one intrigued me. Comes with its own garden, swing, little giant step stool and land transportation!
Most people chose more traditional boating methods. I learnt for the first time that there are different sails, depending on the angle of your picture taking!
See? Just as Barry splained it and I much listened.
Once again, we spotted Malaysia.
Over on the East, you can see the Kelongs, which are suprisingly old-fashioned looking fish farms. (You can tour them, if you're not prone to the boatsicks...)
And onto to the South, which I like best at night, when the ships' lights create an unphotographable mystery world, so here we go by day.
Including the Old Man's Swimming club, seen here.