see it in our own backyard

i know a friend who travelled all the way to india to see a tree which can be found in our own backyard - in our nature parks. he had gone with his wife on a conducted tour to india. the tourist guide took them to see this fascinating tree, which is quite a common tree in india. he had not known that such a tree could be found in singapore until he joined me for a walk at west coast park.

it is the cannonball tree which can be found in some of our nature parks. i have seen them at west coast park, fort canning park and the botanic gardens.

the flowers and the fruit, which is the size of a coconut without its husk, grow from the trunk of this evergreen tree.

it is hard to miss the cannonball tree. if the attractive flowers or the unusual fruits do not catch your attention, the aromatic smell, which the flowers exude, will surely draw you to the tree.

the orange, red and pink flowers give off a smell which is quite overpowering. however, it is not an unpleasant smell. in fact, it smells like some perfume.

on the other hand, the fruit, which usually cracks open upon falling to the ground, has a smell that puts people off. in other countries, some animals, including domestic animals, like chicken and pigs, have been seen eating the fruit.

the breadfruit - sukun

i have blogged about the breadfruit tree here. i am blogging about it again because when i was in kota kinabalu, at the open-air market, i realised that the fruit is quite popular in sabah. at least popular enough for it to be sold at the market. in singapore, you will not be able to find the sukun - the local name for it - at the supermarkets and most markets. if you are lucky, you may be able to get one from geylang serai market.



also, over in kota kinabalu, at the filipino market, they were selling breadfruit fritters which i managed to get, many years ago, at a stall in haiq road food centre. my friend and former colleague just informed me that the fritters are available at hajah maimunah in joo chiat. the fritter tastes a bit like tapioca (ubi kayu) but it is more fibrous.

i was told by another friend that the ripe breadfruit can be used as a substitute for potato. this means you can use the breadfruit to cook curry dishes in which the potato is used.

as i have mentioned in the earlier post, the breadfruit tree is not that uncommon in singapore. you can find it growing on its own in wasteland, by the roadside and in some private gardens. i think the breadfruit belongs to the same family as the jackfruit.

it is quite easy to identify a breadfruit tree by its large leaves. the breadfruit has unusual shaped leaves. they are more or less cut into 5 to 10pointed lobes. the leaves are glossy on top and have stiff hair on the underside.

ferns are among the easiest plants to identify

when i go for my walks at nature parks and forest reserves, i like to get acquainted with the flora and fauna. i have learned to appreciate the rich diversity of flora and fauna in our urban and rural gardens.

after having tasted the crunchy wild ferns (midin) in kuching, i am inclined to pay more attention to ferns these days when i go for my nature walks. i have come across a species which is similar to the 'midin' in sarawak.

most of the time after finding out the name of a certain plant, i tend to forget its name after a lapse of time. however, with ferns, i do not have this problem because the shape or outline of a fern usually gives a clue to its name. below are four common ferns found in our parks and reserves.

the giant sword ferns grows easily and so they can become quite invasive. i have seen them being grown in pots. they can even withstand strong sunlight. the name comes from its arching and trailing green fronds which resemble a broad sword. there is a whole row of giant sword ferns near the wallace education centre at dairy farm nature park.

the leaves of the staghorn fern are antler-like in appearance. staghorns are epiphytes - they 'grow on others'. however, they are not parasites as they do not draw any nutrition from their hosts. they are commonly found on trunks of trees. kent ridge park is one place where you can see lots of staghorn ferns.


tree ferns refer to any fern that grows with a trunk elevating the fronds above the ground level. i remember the huge ones found in fraser's hills in west malaysia and in the dandenong mountains in melbourne. tree ferns are quite common in our natural environment. i see quite a few along the trails at bukit batok nature park.

this is the most common fern in singapore. you do not have to go to nature parks or forest reserves to see the bird's nest fern. the tongue-shaped fronds of the bird's nest fern are borne from a central, funnel-shaped rosette of fuzzy, brown wool where the emerging fronds resemble bird's eggs, giving the plants its common name.

at the botanic gardens, there is a small section designated as the fernery. i had expected to see a greater variety of ferns here but was disappointed to find only a few species at the fernery.

akin to durian

i have walked the prunus-petai trail at macritchie reservoir park so many times that i have lost count but today was the first time i saw the beans dangling from the petai tree. i have seen fresh petai sold at the market many years ago. it was in the days when the old kandang market extended onto the road. there was this malay man who would sell the petai from his 'bicycle stall'. he would usually be stationed in the middle of the road, nearer to campbell lane.

whenever i walk at bukit batok nature park and when i am near the disused quarry pond, i will be gazing at three of the trees, hoping to see the strings of beans. i have not seen any up to this day.

today, you can get the shiny petai seeds, sold in packet at sheng siong supermarket. each pack of about 50 seeds cost $2.80.

petai bears long, almost flat edible beans with green seeds the size and shape of almonds. the beans have a peculiar smell, which some people find offensive.

i have been told by my friend that eating petai is an acquired taste, just like eating durian - you either like it or hate it. sometimes it is very difficult not to use the race label when discussing food. i ask a number of singaporean chinese and none of them like the 'stinky bean' but from my malay friends, it is a different response. all of them seem to love eating sambal petai udang or sambal petai ikan bilis.


here's a link to a petai recipe.

candlenut tree (buah keras)

the other day i went with my walking kaki to malcolm park to look for the candlenut tree. the small park next to the s'pore chinese girls' school was once designated a spice garden and my kaki was very sure that this tree existed in the garden. we looked at all the trees but could not identify the candlenut tree.

today, we went to the eco garden at botanic gardens to take photographs of two candlenut trees which are flowering. we did not see any fruit on either of the trees.




the candlenut is often used cooked in indonesian and malaysian cuisine, where it is called kemiri in indonesian or buah keras in malay.

each nut contains one or two waxy white kernels, and after suitable preparation, are widely used as a flavouring ingredient in indonesian and malaysian households.

the usual practice is to roast the nuts, crack them open and saute the kernels. these are then crushed with other ingredients like shallots, garlic and chilli to produce a mixture used in savoury dishes.

the nuts contain a toxin which make them unsuitable to eat raw; but, during cooking, the toxin disappears.

the nut is very oily and it has been used in the past to make candles and hence its name - candlenut.





the candlenut looks very much like the macadamia nut (above picture). both candlenut and macadamia go rancid easily. outside of this region, macadamia nuts are sometimes substituted for candlenuts. the flavour, however, is not quite the same, as the candlenut is much more bitter.

the candlenuts are sold in packs of 100g, 200g and 1000g at sheng siong supermarket. the smallest pack retails for 70 or 80 cents, depending on the brand.

tie a yellow ribbon round the old, old tree

did tony orlando get his idea or inspiration for the title of his song 'tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree' from what he had seen during his travels to india or some south-east asian country?

in this part of the world, it is not uncommon to see a large yellow or orange sash wrapped around the trunk of the banyan tree and sometimes, around the bodhi tree.

why do buddhists and hindus tie a ribbon or sash around the banyan tree and its cousin, the bodhi tree?

to the hindus, the banyan represents immortality. the banyan is viewed by hindus as the male plant to the closely related peepul or bodhi tree. i have blogged about the mystique of the banyan tree here.

the bodhi tree is revered by the buddhists because gautama buddha attained his enlightenment while seated under a bodhi tree. one of the heritage trees in singapore is the bodhi tree at pearl's hill city park. the tree is about 18m tall and it has a 6.2m girth.

there is also the belief that some spirits reside in these trees. it is regarded as a sin to destroy either of these trees.

now, what is the significance when a bodhi tree, like the one above, is tied with a red and white construction tape? if you are familiar with the national parks' practice, you will know that the tree is marked for execution.

like this clump of raintrees along upper bukit timah road, just before cashew road and across the canal from the espa condominium, they are all condemned to be cut down because they are in the way of the downtown line 2.

nutmeg and mace

today i learn something new. today, i was at lim chu kang when i saw some quite ripe nutmeg fruit on a few trees. there are some people, like my blogger friend, icemoon - whom i have yet to meet in person - who have no idea how a nutmeg tree looks like. maybe that was why he could not find the nutmeg tree in the istana.

using my walking stick, i managed to hit and knock a few fruit down. at home, when i cut open the fruit, i was surprised to see a red membrance encasing the seed. i found out that this red lacy stuff is called the mace. another thing that i learnt is that the spice that is called nutmeg is actually enclosed in the seed. the spice nutmeg is not the fleshy part of the fruit. when the fruit is ripe, it actually split open to reveal the mace within. the mace turns crimson only when the fruit is ripe.

along certain stretches of the roads in lim chu kang, national environment agency (nea) has planted nutmeg and other fruit trees. i have blogged about the soursop fruit trees at lim chu kang here. what i have not mentioned before is that you are allowed to pick the fruit. during the fruiting season, especially of langsat and mangosteen, a lot of people do that. unfortunately, there are no roadside durian trees. however, in lim chu kang, you can find them in the forested areas and some are quite close to the road.

a nutmeg tree is the only tree that produces two types of spices - nutmeg and mace. when i first visited penang about 30 years ago, i remember being asked to buy back a few bottles of the nutmeg oil. the nutmeg tree is widely grown on the island.

when i was young, i used to eat the shredded bits of fleshy part the nutmeg fruit. sometimes the pulp is sliced into crescent-shaped bits. not everyone takes to this titbits because of the peculiar taste. the strips of nutmeg which are taken as a snack are soaked in some sugar solution and after that sprinkled with sugar dust.

in penang cuisine, nutmeg is made into pickles and these pickles are even shredded as toppings on the uniquely penang ais kacang. nutmeg is also blended (creating a fresh, green, tangy taste and white colour juice) or boiled (resulting in a much sweeter and brown juice) to make iced nutmeg juice or as it is called in penang hokkien, "lau hau peng". (from wikipedia)

a bit of history to spice up this bit about nutmeg and mace.

the dutch waged a bloody war, including the massacre and enslavement of the inhabitants of the island of banda, just to control nutmeg production in the east indies. in 1760, the price of nutmeg in london was 85 to 90 shillings per pound, a price kept artificially high by the dutch voluntarily burning full warehouses of nutmegs in amsterdam. the dutch held control of the spice islands until world war ii. (wikipedia).

in the 19th century, there were nutmeg plantations in certain parts of singapore. a legacy of this is a road named nutmeg road. where is nutmeg road?

roadside persimmon-like fruit tree

the other day, while walking from the railway mall to the bukit timah nature reserve, i came across this persimmon look-alike fruit by the roadside, just before the former bukit timah fire station. two of the ripe fruits had fallen to the ground. the fruit was not as big as the normal persimmon sold at fruit stalls or the supermarket. the tree seems like a young tree, not taller than 4 metres. the smell of the ripe fruit is similar to that of the persimmon although it appears to be seedless. it may be the seedless variety, just like the sharon persimmon from israel.

surfing the internet, i found out that the climatic conditions suitable for growing persimmon is the mediterranean or sub-tropical type of climate. what that means is that it could still survive in our tropical type of climate, though it might not thrive. in asia, china, japan, korea and vietnam grow a lot of persimmons.

in the past, we used to eat the soft and fibrous type (the one directly above) which is very sweet. these days, we can get two types of fresh persimmons - the soft and the crunchy types. the crunchy type of persimmon comes to us from south korea. the cost is about the same, between forty and sixty cents a fruit. bigger fruit may cost more.

i do not think that the fruit i found belongs to the persimmon family because if you look at the persimmons, there are 4 or 6 sepals that form the calyx at the top of the fruit. in the case of the chinese persimmon, there are six sepals. the korean persimmon - the crunchy type - has four sepals. the look-alike has 6 sepals but they are not symmetrically arranged.




persimmons can be eaten fresh or dried. when i was a boy, i enjoyed eating the dried persimmon. it is like a candy. if i am not mistaken, dried persimmons were cheaper than fresh persimmons. (today, this is not necessary the case; a pack of four dried (white type) persimmon sells for $2.75 at cold storage supermarket). we used to get ours from the kampong provision shop. they were also sold in the chinese medical shop. these days, you may still be able to buy them from some supermarkets, some medical halls or some of the older shops in chinatown. surprisingly, i could not find the dried persimmons in sheng siong and ntuc but i found them being sold at cold storage supermarket.

some dried persimmons have a thin layer of white coating. the white comes from sugar in the fruit that has crystallised. you could tell that someone had been eating dried persimmon as his lips would all be smeared with the white powder. the same evidence could also be found on his fingers and sometimes on the clothes.

this dried persimmon (above) does not have the white coating. a packet of 7 pieces is being sold for between $1.50 and $2.00. my friend who visited guilin in china saw strings of them being hung out to dry outside the houses of the villagers.

cat's whiskers (misai kuching)

when my friend told me that the cat's whiskers plant was very easy to propagate, i had my doubts because i had tried it once and it did not prove successful. anyway, each of us cut a stem and took it home to soak in water. we were told to leave it in the water till tiny roots appeared before planting it in a pot. last week, i checked with the other two friends and both assured me that their plants were growing very well. only the doubting thomas' plant did not make it. to cut a long story short, i finally managed to grow one in a pot ( picture above).

many people in this region, especially in malaysia and indonesia believe that taking the 'java tea', made by boiling the leaves of this plant, has a cleansing effect on the body. i have been taking the light golden tea, on and off for sometime, but i have yet to realise its effect.

with a tradition of use in thailand, malaysia and indonesia for several centuries, we can learn how to use one of our beautiful native plants. cat's whiskers is an esteemed tea for kidney diseases, disorders causing wasting disease, dysuria, and for the treatment of kidney and urinary stones or discharge.

recent research in south east asia with trials over 1-6 months, showed that patients taking it as a tea made with 4g dried leaf to 750 ml of boiling water, released urinary stones 0.5cm in size for 40% of the patients, and another 20% of the patients found that all pain was gone after the treatment.

leaves can be used fresh, or dried as an infusion or decoction. the crushed, dried leaves may be encapsulated; the active ingredient retaining its properties for several years when stored in cool, dry conditions. the herb is also used for gallstones. use 15-20 fresh leaves, a 'finger knob' of fresh turmeric, 7 cloves of garlic, and 1 litre of water, simmer 10- 15 minutes, strain. half the decoction is drunk in the morning and half in the afternoon.

for rheumatic pains and coughs, a cup of tea is made with 15-20 leaves, drinking 1-2 cups a day.




i photographed this at car park b of the dairy farm nature park. cat's whiskers come in two colours - white and purple. but the purple flowers that you see in the above picture do not belong to the cat's whiskers.

the pink torch ginger

two plants of the ginger family that i often come across in my nature walks are the torch ginger and the african spiral flag.

the bud of the torch ginger is used by the rojak seller to spice up his salad. some penang laksa sellers also used the shredded bud in their laksa.

the torch ginger plant can be found growing in the wild. it is quite easy to identify as the plants are taller and the leaves are larger than other ginger species.

the torch ginger blooms all the year round. its inflorescence comes in three colours - pink, red and white. i have not seen the white variety. i think it is the rarest among the three. the pink variety produces the most flowers. maybe, that is why we always see the rojak seller using the pink bud.

the tembusu tree (fagraea fragrans)

tembusu tree at macritchie park along the lornie trail

talking about the use of the unripe fruit of the 'buah cheri' tree as ammunition for our toy guns, chun see mentioned two postings by his friend chuck; one was on lastik and the other on toy gun. i am very impressed by the trouble that chuck went through to present photographic illustrations on how to make the lastik (malay word for catapult) and the toy gun.

i agree with chuck that the fork branch from the tembusu tree makes the best catapult. if properly treated, it can withstand any amount of tension exerted on it by the user. in fact, during my kampong days, we did not know of any other tree which could provide that kind of wood with such resilience and strength.

i remember i used to visit the jewish cemetery nearby which had a few tembusu trees. i would climb the tree to look for a branch of the right shape and size so that i could fashion a lastik out of it. as i was not very skilful at using the lastik, i did not use it very much.

why i am talking about the tembusu tree? because you cannot fail to notice the tembusu trees at this time of the year. they are in full bloom. when i drive along sungei kadut avenue, we i go to macritchie reservoir park (for my nature walks) and even when i visit the marsiling housing estate, i am greeted by the sight of the small, light yellow flowers on these trees.

even when i went to jalan bahar to find out the answer to an interesting quiz question posed by this chap, i could not fail to notice the tembusu trees in bloom at the muslim cemetery of lim chu kang.

the tembusu tree is one of the easiest to identify. apart from the light yellow flowers - which appear twice a year - the distinctive cracked bark is a giveaway. it bears small red berries which attract a lot of birds. as its botanic name suggests, the flowers have a certain fragrance. the smell is strongest in the evening.

one of the most iconic trees in singapore is the tembusu tree. it is found at lawn e of the botanic gardens. it should be more than 150 years. it has been featured on the singapore $5 note and on postage stamps.