Jardinerong Sunog (the Burnt Gardener)

We just finished breakfast at the ranch of our friends from Nueva Vizcaya, Pete and Marlyn McKee, when I caught glimpse of tiny pink flowers sprouting from diminutive plants around a row of cassava. Closer inspection revealed these to be leguminous plants from the family Fabaceae , and promptly took photos for a later attempt on identification. The plants were lilliputian in size- one plant fits easily on a tablespoon. The pods were minuscule, each bearing a single seed. A colony of the mystery legumes. When we got back home, I searched the Co's Digital Flora of the Philippines website for answers but came out empty handed. A asked Pieter Pelser, who manages the website, if he knows what this could be, but his reply was in the negative. Some genera on the list were not represented with photos and it may be that the plant we have here belongs to one of the more obscure Philippine representatives; I regret that I know so little about legumes. If any of you can give...

When I and my family was presented with the opportunity to Nueva Vizcaya to visit some friends, I had my mind set on finding Ceropegia ( Brachystelma )  merrillii  (family Apocynaceae ) and  Iphigenia indica  (family Colchiaceae ) which are rare plants recorded from grasslands. On the second day of our stay, I found habitat which I thought to be suitable for both plants and accordingly set off the following morning. The effort was uneventful (which is another way of saying that it was a failure), but I did find a small colony of Osbeckia chinensis , the sole representative of this genus in the Philippines. The gracile plants were scrambling among the coarse grasses, with the leaves confined only on the upper portions of the stems; the leaves were mostly suffused with anthocyanin pigments. Osbeckia belongs to family Melastomataceae , which contains the very popular Medinilla and the ubiquitous Melastoma. A widespread species, O. chinensis  occur...

Irony of ironies: this is the very first Philippine  Ceropegia species I have seen and yet it's the one I haven't created a post for, until now. This is a plant I have been calling Ceropegia sp. 1 and was first detected by a German friend, Ravan Schneider, who used to reside in Mindoro. Ravan found it in shady, quite damp forests at an altitude of about 300 m, of course growing as a vine, but can also creep on the forest floor, where they develop much larger leaves, possibly as an adaptation to catch more sunlight. Of the three Philippine Ceropegia species that I maintain (plus one variant), this is the most attractive and unusual. The blooms of Ceropegia sp. 1 are cream-colored with reddish-brown, irregularly-shaped spots distributed from about the upper half of the corolla tube. The inner margins of the corolla tube are green suffused with brown, and the apices are blackish-brown, tipped with fine, silky trichomes. These trichomes are unknown in an...

It's that time of the year again for this plant to display its fireworks, though I must warn you not to come too close or you might find the odor quite offensive! I have seen ants and flies visit the individual blooms, but never butterflies, which are known to be attracted to more pleasant scents.  Cirrhopetalum surigaense* , despite its species name, is quite a widespread orchid, having been found in some southern Luzon provinces, as well as the islands of Mindoro and Leyte, and of course, Surigao del Norte. These plants flower only once a year, and those in my collection do so from late January to early February. Compared to many other cirrhopetalums, this species is easily distinguishable even when not in flower by way of its dark green, very rigid leaves . These are oblong to oblong-elliptic in shape and are up to 7.5 cm. long with a width of 2.8 cm. The stoutly spindle-shaped ribbed, yellowish pseudobulbs are up to 3.5 cm. high by 1 cm. in diameter and are separated...

In a remote village in the province of Quezon, I chanced upon the common weed Stachytarpeta jamaicensis , but with variegated leaves- it certainly stood out amongst ferns and another rapacious weed, Sphagneticola trilobata .  Stachytarpeta is a weed that originally came from tropical America but has now firmly established in many warmer parts of the world. If there is a disturbed area, there must be a Stachytarpeta somewhere. Weed as it may be, this plant is of value to butterfly watchers as the flowers are very attractive to, well, butterflies. Young leaves look more or less normal, but in reality, the variegation is almost the same color as the rest of the leaves then intensify to white as they age- or at least that is what I have observed. Rabid collectors of variegated plants may find this specimen very interesting; I will show you the location if the price is right 😜