Jardinerong Sunog (the Burnt Gardener)

This is the expedition that led to the description of Nepenthes aenigma . May 22, 2015- I have been to this same mountain before, April 8, 2012, upon the bidding of Herman Nuytemans, who first found these plants on this mountain in April of 2002. Herman was supposed to join me on that first trip of mine, but had to rest it out due to an accident that happened shortly before his arrival to the Philippines. And so for the 2015 ascent, Herman finally had the opportunity to once again see his discovery made from a little over 13 years ago. And for this hike, we were joined by two of his original companions from 2002, Mael and Mulo; both were with me when I re-found the plants in 2012 and we knew exactly where the plants were located. Immediately after setting up camp, we headed straight to the Nepenthes . If you haven't yet seen the protologue of this species, please proceed here:  https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/dbbb/2bb9f2f290d5f141d53c4a3bf0b3be0a4edc.pdf This populatio...

I and my Swedish stepbrother Simon recently had the pleasure to be a part of a fishing expedition with two friends in a remote location along the Agos River in the province of Quezon. Pitching our tents in a sandy riverbank, we set up our nets and began exploring our surroundings. Justin, an American who has been living in the Philippines, crossed the other side of the river where he found populations of the bladderwort Utricularia striatula , a species that is found from Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao but with very patchy and highly localized distribution. I have observed this species in two ultramafic sites in Zambales a few years ago, but this species can also occur in soils with underlying mafic rocks. Later that afternoon, Justin, Simon, and I set off to botanize the length of the riverbank from where we erected our tents and, unsurprisingly, we found more of these tiny carnivores living amongst sparse grasses, mosses, and some emersed vegetation. They were rooted on...