The Differences between Temperate and Tropical Flowers

Temperate flowers are distinctive, numerous and colourful. They depend a lot on the seeds to be dormant during the cold seasons and propagate rapidly  during spring to summer. Flowers and seeds serve this useful purpose.

Tropical flowers grow throughout the year. They can propagate easily by just cutting a branch and push into the soil. They don't depend too much on the flowers and seeds. The flowers are therefore small, indistinct and often in exotic forms.

Copper Leaf Plant

One of the most colourful plants in my garden is Copper Leaf. It has a wide range of colours, all depending on the exposure to the sun. Those under the sun will produce bright reddish copper while those under the shade will give dull bronze colour. But too much heat under the sun will twist the leaves.
The leaves are generally large while the flowers are small, hardly noticeable. Anyway, it does not need the flowers to propagate, just a cutting will grow into full plant.

Black and Yellow Bumpy Bee

"I see you! I see you! But, what are you doing?"

The bee moved very fast from one Bauhinia purpurea flower to another, less than five seconds. I had a hard time taking the photographs of this fat bee.

Is it really getting the honey from the flower or just flirting/surveying round?

Nangka (Jack Fruit)

It grew up from nowhere at my back garden into a ten-foot tree five years back. I did not know what was that tree and I did not like the tree because it dropped so many leaves on the garden floor every day. So I cut the tree down at the base three years ago, getting rid of it.

It grew up again with two trunks, this time even faster. Before I paid attention to the regenerated tree, I saw the fruits growing on the tree last year. Only then I realised that it was a jack fruit tree. 

This jack fruit tree is of different variety compared to that found in my farm. But the fruits did not grow until ripen. The fruit flies drilled through the thick skin and soon the fruits were gone.

Now, the fruits came out again, with more numbers. But I saw a few had been colonised by fruit flies.So, I use the plastic bags to seal off a few big ones. Let see whether I will be able to eat some this year.

Water Apple

The old tree in my garden is fruiting again, attracting so many birds and noises. But they are too high up, I can only look and let the birds happily having feasts.
Don't ask me to climb up, the tree is full of red ants.

Perhaps, I have to get a electric shaker and put a large net down there, SHAKE and let the fruits drop on the net!
Any such Tree Shaker product?

Brownish yellow Dragonfly

What are you sucking? There isn't much juice for you to suck from the lonely stem.
Oh! Look like this beauty is having a passionate kiss on the stem! Hei, You should go for your same kind, not the cold wood!
Is dragonfly warm blooded?

Celosia spicata

Obviously, there are not many exotic flowers of this plant to brag about. I saw the same plant not far from my house near the road side, not only tall at about 1.2m height, but also fully blooms with the reddish pink flowers, probably a few hundreds. How does the plant grow so well, I wonder. 
It seems that nobody knows the origin of this exotic plant.

Clown Flowers

With so many clowns dancing around in the garden, it does make the garden lively.

Pinkish Periwinkle Flowers

It would be more attractive if the flowers can split out individually rather than group together, why could not they evolve in such away to make them more appealing?

Snow White Jasmine Flower

Just look at that pure white, I am sure you will like this flower. Only one plant is now left in my garden. I have not seen it flowering for a long time.

I like its smell, not too strong like those small 7 mile or 9 mile jasmine flowers, but sufficient for you to feel nice, very nice.

Trapping and Killing Mosquitoes

With additional photos, you probably guess what I was doing with those dustbins and Electric pan. 

To trap and kill mosquitoes.  

Mosquitoes are probably one of the most dangerous vectors in helping to spread a number of diseases in tropical countries: (a) Malaria (b) dengue fever (c) chikungunya (d) yellow fever (e) filariasis (f) Japanese encephalitis (g) recently, the zika fever.

In our country, dengue fever is the most common diseases. There were almost 70,000 cases during the first seven months in 2015, an alarming figure. Japanese encephalitis is another fearful one. I have a young education agent who helped my son to apply to study in UK. He got this disease a few years back. He lost his memory from high school onward. He could not remember his wife, his children, his degree and his work.He had to quit his job and figured out everything again.

Zika fever is a recent spread, scaring all pregnant ladies out of the wit.

Many methods had been tried by Authorities to get rid of mosquitoes, especially the Aedes mosquiotoes, but seemed to be of not much help. Insecticide sprays/fogging, getting rid of stagnant water, educating/fining the people (but most people thought that would not happen to them) and introducing genetically modified mosquitoes, but the numbers seem to be not dropping drastically. You may be able to get rid of the mosquitoes within your house compounds but you cannot get rid off outside the house, the poorly maintained water stagnant drains/ unevenly settled drains, the ground depressions, the unwanted tyres/bottles/containers, the swamps nearby, etc, all becoming the breeding grounds of the mosquitoes. You just cannot get rid off the mosquitoes in the farms or forest. Every time I was in the farm, there were at a hundred mosquitoes following me.The "ngie-ngie noise was just irritating. Of course, I made sure that my skin was fully covered except the face.

I came out with this cheap method of reducing mosquitoes, five baskets placing along the cool/dark corners of the corridor/terrace outside my house proper. Every morning about 7.30am, I would put a Chinese made electric Bat(look like a tennis racket) into the basket, shake the basket and there I heard “park-park-park”, I knew I got the mosquitoes who would explode into atoms by the high voltage.

They are easy preys because of their life cycle characteristics. When mosquitoes just emerge from the water, they need a few hours or more to grow bigger, get the wings solid and to adjust.They need a place to stay.A cool and dark corner with black plastic will be nice place to rest.

Baskets with some rubbish/dusts/leaves tend to attract more mosquitoes, and with this method I had been able to kill at least 30-60 per day. The first round in the early morning would yield the most numbers but by later afternoon, there would be hardly any.

Don't under-estimate that average 45 numbers per day, it means 16,000 per year if you are disciplined. The greatest numbers in reduction is you prevent them to reproduce perhaps 300 eggs each time per female mosquito. Of course, if there are one million people doing that, sixteen billions of mosquitoes will be wiped off from earth’s surface.

It only costs (4nos x RM8 + 1no x RM18) = RM50 (US$12) per household.

The Wild Devil Plant in my Farm

It looks like this wild devil plant belongs to the same family of Caladium and the Colocasia. The leaves and the flower buds have similar shapes and forms. But I don't like the ugly stems with tattooed surfaces. The fruits are attractive and look delicious, but are they poisonous? 

High Up In the Sky

At 12km above the ground, you see this "snowy land" beneath your foot. 

At low Earth Orbit (180-2,000km above ground), you see scientific satellites zooming past you at very fast velocities.

At mid Earth Orbit (2,000-35,780km above ground), you see navigation and speciality satellites passing by at a slower speed.

At high Earth Orbit (above 35,780km), you see communication and weather satellites flying round even slower speed.

Ahh? Where are the military satellites which all enemies want to shoot down?

At 384,400km above, what is that round thing flying around?

Quiz: 
Guess why I put up many black dustbins at my house corridor?

Hint: To reduce the risk of contacting certain tropical diseases.

The Darkness's Screams

While the cocks call you up in the early morning, the black crows warn you the night and devils are coming! Go back, and go to sleep!

Large Red Hibiscus

Brighten up Flower! Why you look so crumbled down and unlovely? You are suppose to represent tropical flower! 
Oh, It can only last for one morning.
How to prolong its beauty for a month so as to give good impression to visitors and tourists? 

Upright Flowers

Don't say tropical lands do not produce nice upright flowers, Turk Cap flowers are one of the species, except you have to magnify them up.

Compared to the temperate Tulip flower, they are like miniatures.

Caladium Flower Bud

This was the first time I saw a flower bud coming out of the Caladium Plant in my farm. 

It looks like Colocasia esculenta flower bud except that the base bulb colour, slightly greenish for this plant but violet for colocasia. 

The top part is slightly yellowish and longish. 

Unseen Activity in the Ceiling

The roof cover is 3m above the ground and yet somebody has been living comfortably inside above the ceiling.
Who are the inhabitants bringing in such a huge junk of dry grass? The birds or the mice?

The Cry of Baby Mouse

It must be born not too long ago, the eyes are still close and the whole body is dark and pink.

"Mother,mother, where are you? Help me, help me! I am alone, where have every body gone?"

Such is the first reaction of disasters, earthquakes, collapses, floods, etc. I am sure animals also behave like that.

But there is no tear, as the eyes are still close. 

Lizard Eggs

I did not know that the lizard eggs come in pairs, until I dug the store the other day. It appears two eggs permanently stick to each other. Are they connected or just stuck together superficially when the temperature was too high during the birth?

Ugly Lizard

This lizard does not have a pleasing look, it looks like a Komodo dragon of smaller scale, about 125mm. It was also found in this dark store.

Obvious differences are:
(a) The skin appears rough with more white spots, like having skin disease, leprosy,
(b) the eyes are covered up. Is it blind? Anyway, in the darkness it does not need the eyes,
(c) there seems to be some spikes at the lower limbs,
(d)  it does not need to spread its suction feet to hang on to the ceiling.

Large House Gecko

Most house lizards in my house are small and about 75mm in length. But there is an isolated store where most of the time it is closed and dark, the lizards can go up to 150mm. Look at how their suction feet hang on to the ceiling and wall. Actually these are inverted photos.
All have five fingers like humans, why five?

Calliandra Haemotocephala

Calliandra Haemotocephala flowers can be very red too if you watch closely or using "microscope". I have decided to plant a few hundred of these plants in my farm to seen the effect when the flowers blossom, perhaps an inspiration from the Perth Botanical Garden which have thousands of similar plants.
My Garden now produces thousands of seedlings underneath the trees and I am now slowly taken out and replanted into pots to be transferred to my farm. 
I like these flowers.