A Perfect Daily Ritual - Earth Day

Peeping through the window of my concrete wall

Where the sunlight creeps through the gap of the solid wall

Watching the greeneries and the daily perfect ritual for me

Would be greeting the trees of life that stand tall in front of me

These big trees may be our awe and admiration

However, even a small and shy plant like this also desires our attention

Do you think that we are the only ones that perform the perfect ritual?

Go see how a happy bird greets the day by flapping its wing to do its perfect ritual  

Standing amidst the rainforest,

It is a gentle reminder for us that no matter how big and smart we think we are, 

In fact, what a tiny wee speck of creatures crawling on Earth we are...

Do you think life is full of waste?

Yes, sometimes because we are the ones that produced that whole lot of waste

Go watch a dung beetle

Isn't it delightful to see it happily rolls the shit 

and helps to keep the surrounding neat?

Do you think our life is complex?

Yes, at times. 

Go stare and wonder at the web of life 

That interconnects with the entire network of our Earth's living force

Which one is more complex?

From this moment and till the day I die
I want to savour all these moments
Even if my spirit is soaring high in the sky
I still want to savour all these moments

HAPPY EARTH DAY today and everyday to my fellow readers and blog followers!

I love this bit taken from James Cameron's Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide written by Maria Wilhelm and Dirk Mathison:

"The armies of greed lay waste to the Earth and all its creatures. In our hunger for energy-for more and more-we've devastated our planet. We're neck-deep in festering industrial muck, in a trash heap of ever-expanding waste and decay. Overpopulation, overdevelopment, nuclear terrorism, environmental warfare, radiation leakage from power plants and waste dumps, toxic runoff, air pollution, deforestation, global warming, ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity through extinction... our once blue-green and beauteous Earth is now a terminal cesspool - an oozing wound cut deep into the face of the universe. Dollar for dollor (Ringgit for Ringgit), we've bought our extinction." - Avatar, An Activist Survival Guide book

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Love By All Beings

Being a city person in those earlier years of my life, I had never encounter a tree that bears such addictive sweet juicy fruits that look like cherries until I began my worklife on an island known as Tuba in Langkawi. 

My first response to that first taste - hmm... yummm! And so I was introduced to this tree in Malay language call "Pokok Ceri" (Cherry Tree) by my ex-colleague. I had tasted cherries before but those were the ones that I usually took them off the birthday cakes and straight into my mouth when no one is looking. Those birthday cakes cherries look big and very red but their taste are nothing as compared to those "Pokok Ceri".

Who else likes them?

Your may say this to me - "What? Where have you been in your childhood years? These trees are so common that they are found growing in gardens, in front of houses and beside the roads in urban areas." Yes, I was a typical city person and very much oblivious to plants around me in those years.

This is how the entire Jamaica Cherry Tree (Muntingia calabura) looks like. Shrubby, messy and boring. However, this tree is an excellent shade provider. To me, this is a 2-in-1 tree. It acts as an "umbrella", when someone needs a shelter from the hot scorching sun  and a "snack" corner (when it is fruiting).

The petals of the flowers are plain white with yellow stamens.

Immature flower

The comtemporary love partners ...

The Pollinators

A stingless bee visitation

From flower to young fruit...

Immature cherry

to my "competitors"...

                             

 A male Brown-Throated Sunbird (Anthreptes malacensis) sneaking behind the leaves

His "partner", the female Brown-Throated sunbird was also spotted sneaking behind those leaves

This male Brown Throated sunbird poking on a cherry

                      A "punctured" cherry made by the bird and left aside. What a waste!

Male Orange-bellied flowerpecker (Dicaeum trigonostigma) watching

According to Verheij 1991, the Jamaica cherry is indigneous to South-Central America and the Caribbean. It is believe that the Portuguese were the distributors of this fruit, which was probably first carried to Thailand or Vietnam and then subsequently spread to Malaysia.

A foreign fruit tree which is easy to plant, grows quickly and love by the locals here including the birds.

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She is Old Yet Classic

I found her sitting on the dusty area together with the "oldies". It wasn't easy to find her among the hundreds that were sitting silently and staring back at you. She is slim and old looking yet young at heart. When I allowed her to open up, I witnessed her underlining words were treated importantly and no secrets hidden. Everything about a simple thing that needed to be explained at that time was laid out. And yes, I found her. Though she is old as she was born in the year 1964 and yet she is classic. And she will be one that will widen my knowledge. She is...

...my new old book that I found in a bookstore that is selling used books. This book, "PLANTS AT WORK" was written by Dr F.C Steward. Best of all, though it was published in year 1964, I would say the condition inside was still good eventhough some pages are coming off and traces of termites' bite marks. This book was probably used as a text book then.

The shop is located on 3rd floor of Amcorp Mall, Petaling Jaya. Funny thing is that this shop is next to a brand new bookshop "BookXcess". I can't recall if this shop has a signboard or not. All I can recall is the look of the shop from the outside is messy, narrow walkway, disorganised, and overloaded with novel books. To find the one you want, would take lots of patience and time.

A little diversion, BookXcess also sells reasonable priced books. Much cheaper than Kinokuniya and MPH. However, choices may be limited. And also, there's a shop that sells lowered price past issues magazines from RM9.90. I got February 09 - April 09 issues of National Geographic, Discovery and Wildlife magazines with the priced of RM9.90! They are having promotion for 3 National Geographic mag for RM24.90 but limited choices for Nat Geo. This shop, ReIssued Magazines is located on the 2nd floor of Amcorp Mall.

"Plants at Work" is a serious technical book for plant lovers and a good source of information for a non-botanist-and-hope-to-be like me. Hope that I will understand the chemistry.

She just need some binding, a little touch up and she will be good as new.

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Do we need soil ...?

Fascinating discovery! About 30 seedlings I collected were sitting in the plastic bag half-filled with tap water and placed in the bucket. They were sitting in there for more than a week. I was about to change the water in the plastic bag and Wow! Roots! They were so cool.

Ingredients to allow roots to grow without any soil:
water, plastic bag (seedlings must be in the water at upright position)

Strange but true. I have no idea why. To get the roots out, the seedlings must be in the upright position. I have put seedlings in a huge bucket half-filled with water and the seedlings were horizontal position for 2-3 weeks; no roots.

Rhizophora apiculata sp. (bakau minyak) with their roots.


From left: Rhizophora mucronata sp (Bakau kurap); Center: Rhizophora apiculata sp (Bakau minyak); Right most: 15-cm ruler. Compare the length of these two different species but same family.


Average length of the root after more than a week is about 1cm.

In future posting, I will show you where the shoot of the young seedlings come from.
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