Monday, October 20, 2008

Seasonal tropical fruits

Many local fruits are in season at the moment, durian, rambutan, mangosteen and less known, exotic fruits such as Engkalak . Thought I'd share some pictures with everyone.
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Litsea garciae or Engkalak is a mid-sized fruit tree found Borneo (there are reports that it's found in West Malaysia too). The seasonal fruits have a rich and creamy taste (think Avocado). It's sometimes referred to as Butter fruit. Like Avocado, it's an acquired taste!



We have three large trees and two are bearing lots of fruit. Birds visit the trees everyday to feast on the ripening fruits, then crap all over my large Coelogyne leaves! I won't be surprised if fruit bats feast on them at night too.

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Mangosteen, Garcinia mangostana is another popular seasonal fruit.


It's one of my favorite local fruits after langsat (Lansium domesticum) (not in season sadly).


The fruits above are not really ripe but are old enough to be harvested and left to ripen at home. The ripe fruits are black or dark purple in color.

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Rambutan, Nephelium lappaceum is another highly popular fruit and usually comes into season the same time as durian.


Several varieties are planted and each kind differs slightly in fruit shape, taste, texture and coloration.


There's also canned rambutan in heavy syrup and usually stuffed with pineapple.


Unripe rambutan.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Phalaenopsis gigantea x bellina "Blue" flask

January 2010 update: The seedlings are not doing well! (click here for an update).

I received this flask of Phalaenopsis gigantea x P. bellina "Blue" from an orchid friend today via courier. However, our national courier, Pos Laju apparently do not care for "Fragile" nor "This Way Up!" signs. They deliver in one day but I'd never use them again for flasks!



The bottom of the flask:


Had no choice but to deflask and pot the seedlings right away. I got about 20 good-sized plantlets and two tightly growing "balls" of single leaf protocorms. Hope they grow well as I think this is quite a nice cross.




I found this similar cross here (click).

Very pretty! Can't wait to see the results!

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