Environment

Garden Colour

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Garden Colour

by Angela Hijjas

From The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 54 no. 2, 2000.

As I have often noted in this column, Malaysian species are not known for colour, unless you are fortunate enough to see the huge Rafflesia in full bloom on the forest floor, or Bauhinia kockiana (left) enveloping a tree canopy on the other side of a valley. Most are more discrete in their display and the naturalist gardener has to find satisfaction in other detail of form and habit.

However, in the attempt to convert as many as possible to the naturalist approach, it is worth noting that there are some remarkable coloured features that can be introduced to a garden that are also indigenous to the region.

Tall trees, like the perah, Elateriospermum tapos, have a wonderful red flush of new leaves that immediately identify it in the forest, as does the Pometia pinnata, or kasai, but few urban gardens have the space to plant such trees and to view this colour requires a separation of distance. Mertajam, Erioglossum rubiginosum, is a smaller tree that has ruby red berries that develop after the creamy pannicle of tiny blossoms. The leaf shafts of the so-called sealing wax palm, Cytostachus renda, create beautiful columns of scarlet and a strong vertical rhythm for a planting arrangement thus providing a double contrast.

A very successful and colourful climber is the Congea velutina (left), with its pink orchid-like sprays that provide a mass of colour which actually comes from the flower bract, as the flower itself is visually insignificant. Its scrambling habit requires something sturdy to climb on and should you be tempted to cut it back, it will not flower for another year until it has developed sufficient mass to cover a whole tree. I have sacrificed a Filicium decipiens to this creeper and fear that underneath, the poor tree has quietly died, discretely taking care of a non-indigenous whim planted in the early days! I have seen Congea flowering near a salt lick in the Ulu Muda forest reserve in Kedah, an experience I recall as I see the same plant in my garden. It makes an excellent cut flower, an added bonus when most tropical flowers rapidly wilt.

On a smaller scale, there seem to be many indigenous plants that provide purple to pink hues that can be combined to create a mixed planting to some effect. The smallest and easiest to grow must be the tiny ginger Kaempferia pulchra, which can be readily divided for a low ground cover and always has a fresh display of mauve flowers each morning. It does die back for a few months during the wet season, but it will come good again. This can be planted with the Persian shield, Strobilanthis dyeranus (pictured left, which I believe is indigenous to Burma), or combined with the silvery purple leaves of Hemigraphis alternata in dappled shade. A recent find is Pyllagathis rotundifolia, which I have seen growing by the waterfalls in Templer Park. The large round leaves are a feature in themselves, but there is a pretty cluster of tiny pink flowers that emerges at the centre. Cat’s whiskers, Orthosiphon stamineus, have a lilac form and it flowers well in fairly open positions. The common coconut orchid will grow in full sun and provides a constant supply of purple flowers if it is fed frequently with chicken dung, preferably composted so that it doesn’t smell.

The humble kantan, Etlingera elatior, makes a magnificent flower and splash of colour if left to open rather than cutting it for the laksa pot. There are many varieties ranging from the palest pink to scarlet and coral red. Other Zingibers, like the shell ginger, Alpinia latilabris, have short lived flowers but the orange fruit provides a more durable display.

Bananas come in a wide range of forms, many of which are very ornamental, pink, orange or purple, but not edible except by wildlife. The burgundy splattered leaves of Musa sumatrana provide an interesting foliage contrast. Musa bactris (below), a Sabahan, has a wonderful red flower whose ‘petals’ are edged in yellow, and another variety from Endau has white flowers and white fruits…. and there lies my problem, I get carried away with so many varieties and forget about colour, but white is a colour when you consider it against lush green foliage.

From the botanical point of view, the banana ‘flower’ that provides the coloured display, is once again the flower bract. As each one opens it first reveals the female or bisexual flowers that develop into the fruit. As more bracts fall away, rows of tiny male flowers are displayed well after the female flowers have developed into the fruit further back on the stem, so the plant cannot fertilize itself.

Other foliage contrast can be achieved using Pisonia alba, although I have had very mixed results planting this difficult species. It seems to like some protection and constant dampness. The yellow Pandanus also presents its share of problems but when established it provides a wonderful contrast, not just of colour but also of form.

Leafing through the tropical gardening books at the wonderful pictures of lush gardens and planting arrangements, obviously I am not alone in finding it difficult to get enough colour to contrast against the mass of tropical green. Visual interest for the photographer is provided by coloured walls, the sparkle of water, the incredible range of plant forms providing artistic compositions, the inclusion of interesting pots and fountains, paving stones and of course the ubiquitous bougainvillea or heliconias, those foreign devils that are so tempting with their colourful splash of the exotic.

But if all else fails, a discrete piece of coloured sculpture may do the trick.

A Tropical Fragrant Garden

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A Tropical Fragrant Garden

by Angela Hijjas

From The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 54 no. 1, 2000.

Perfumed plants should be included in a naturalist’s indigenous garden to make up for the lack of colour in Malaysian species. Fragrance adds a delightfully unique character to a tropical garden, but the plant’s utilitarian ‘objective’ for creating perfume is to attract pollinating insects, justifying the complex chemical process.

Fragrance advertises free nectar, a cheap commodity for the plant to produce, being just sugar syrup, and it is enough to attract insects, bats or birds. Often the plant is choosy about the pollinator and will release perfume only at certain times of the day or night when the desired visitor is around.

Fragrant plants include climbers, shrubs, trees and palms. Many have white or cream flowers that suggests that they are pollinated at night, and for most fragrance does seem more pervasive then than in the full heat of the day.

Jasminum sambac, the popular jasmine (pictured above), ‘bunga melor’ or ‘melati’, was brought from India, and is a restrained creeper that likes full sun and support for climbing. A recent perfume success in my garden is the very robust vine Chonemorpha macrophylla (left), just two plants would be enough to take care of a tennis court fence, so it needs lots of space and a strong support to climb on. Another popular and fragrant climber that is not so invasive is the drunken sailor or Rangoon creeper, Quisqualis indica, whose drooping fragrant flowers are red in bud, appearing white when first opened, before aging to pink and crimson.

The ‘chempaka’ tree (Michelia champaka) has ivory flowers (the orange variety is not so fragrant) that offer another exotic scent. This tree could be planted as a roadside tree or in a smaller garden, being a slower grower. Not so for the huge Dryobalanops aromatica, or ‘pokok kapor’. I planted a row nine years ago along the front fence, they are now 40 feet high with trunks about 6 inches in diameter. Fortunately the tree retains its lower branches as it grows, thus providing a good screen as well as allowing leaves to be picked and crushed, releasing the camphor fragrance that has made the tree an object of desire since the Arabs traded for it in the sixth century.

Perhaps my favorite fragrant tree is the ‘tembusu’, Fagraea fragrans (above). It is a tall forest tree that provides not only fragrant flowers that attract insects but also a red fruit that feeds bats, birds and other mammals.

The ‘kenanga’, Canangium odoratum (pictured above), is not so handsome a tree. With its drooping branches and habit of constantly dropping leaves it looks a bit unkempt, but its fragrance is the epitome of the ‘exotic’ east. The flowers are greenish, but fully fragrant when more yellow, and although it is hard to reconcile the two perfumes, apparently ‘ylang ylang’, or ‘kenanga’ oil, is a principal ingredient of Chanel No. 5. There is a dwarf variety of the tree that is good for mixed hedging and in smaller gardens.

The most successful hedge plant for fragrance must be ‘kemuning’, Murraya paniculata, its only disadvantage being unpredictable flowering. Left alone it will form a small tree with branches arching out and up, but planted densely in a trench and then pruned to create a fence, it creates a beautiful dark wall of foliage that is periodically lit by panicles of star-like white flowers with the sweetest of perfumes.

Vallaris glabra, or ‘kesidang’ (left), is more ‘oriental’ in character, and perhaps a liking for it is acquired. Burkhill describes the smell as ‘mousy, but agreeable to the natives of the east who like it’! To me it has the perfume of cooked pandan, and certainly when in bloom (once again an inconspicuous panicle of small white flowers) visitors exclaim at the smell of pandan, planted just beneath as a perfume puzzle. An essential ingredient of the ‘bunga rampai’, the finely sliced pot-pourri of fragrant plants used for Malay weddings, ‘kesidang’ is now unfortunately replaced by cheap scent.

For a cut fragrant flower, nothing is quite as spectacular as the entire inflorescence of the common coconut, and it makes a beautiful sculpture laid on a table. This flower may well have been the original ‘bunga manggar’ (right), tied at the top of a bamboo pole and carried at the head of a bridal procession.

Herbs and spice plants also have strong concentrations of the essential oils that make perfume. Crushing leaves of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, or plucking the many varieties of basil whose perfumes range from lemon to aniseed, tearing citronella and lemon grass, turmeric and ‘kesum’, all make for a heady experience. After inhaling several it becomes increasingly difficult to identify anything, but having such plants adds as much to your life as to your garden. With plants like these, one should never need aroma therapy!

Gardens and perfume are about reinforcing a sense of place. A Balinese statue garlanded in jasmine recalls our common Hindu traditions and the many fragrant and useful plants that have been brought to Malaysia by migrants from all over Asia.

Common fragrant trees, such as frangipanni or Plumeria, are only rarely planted in Malay gardens because of their association with burial grounds, where they readily strike in exposed and open positions. This Mexican tree, brought by the Spanish, has been known in South East Asia since the seventeenth century when it was noted by the botanist Rumpf. Even I have accorded a place to this tree in my ‘indigenous’ garden, as its flowers dropped on the footpaths of PJ formed one of my early impressions of Malaysia when I barely knew one plant from another.

Certainly perfume can provide an intriguing trail through the plant kingdom, and a developed nose can analyze the characteristics of smell for yet another key to identifying plants that may otherwise be difficult to place. Specific species in the family of Zingiberaceae, the gingers that occur throughout the Malaysian forests, are particularly difficult to identify because they only occasionally flower, but the essential fragrant oils may provide a clue for taxonomic identification.

For anyone interested in fragrant plants, an indispensable reference is the Dictionary of Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula by Burkhill, who was Director of Gardens in the Straits Settlements between 1912 and 1925. With 2,400 pages its coverage is encyclopaedic, and includes information on perfume extraction. Priced at only $150 for both volumes it is matchless value. A limited number are available at the Malaysian Nature Society bookshop.

Neo-Colonisation

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Neo-Colonisation

by Angela Hijjas

From The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 53 no. 3.

For the naturalist gardener to transform a bare patch of ground to forest, one needs to simulate the natural processes of plant colonization. The inexperienced gardener who plants durian seedlings and expects the fruit exactly on cue seven or so years later invariably finds that the tree does poorly unless it has lots of company around to shade and protect it. For a forest species, an exposed site has too many extreme conditions of light and humidity, as well as being the most succulent thing around for the local munchers.

In the natural system of plant regeneration in Malaysia, lalang (Imperata cylindrica) and ferns are usually the first plants to colonize an exposed patch; wind delivered seeds and spores set quickly and cover the entire area, anchoring the soil and providing an acceptable environment for the next wave of colonists, like senduduk, or Melastoma (below), which will find a niche amongst the tough grass roots to emerge another foot or so higher than the lalang. Their seeds are dropped by birds like the yellow vented bulbul that frequent open spaces. Trees that can tolerate the hot extreme conditions, like Macarangga, Malotis and Pulai, are the next species on the scene with their energy concentrated on producing soft, light timber to gain a height advantage.

These colonists are not long livers but they attain maturity quickly and can flower and fruit within a short space of time, exploiting the window of oppor tunity as well as modifying the environment for the next succession of plants. In a way, the success of the colonizing individuals does not bode well for successive generations of the same species, as the parents change the habitat so that it is not so suitable for their offspring, a process not unlike pushing the young out of the nest. The successive waves of colonizing plants are constantly on the move, seeds transported by wind or animals, distributed widely to take advantage of any suitable forest opening.

Then come the herbaceous creepers, creating a net that encloses the planting that has emerged so far, providing soil litter, shade and higher humidity for the germination of seeds blown or brought in from surrounding forest.

Like every species the creepers exploit a competitive advantage over other plants, but can only achieve it within the timetable of regeneration. Before there is any height provided by the colonizing soft woods, their climbing habit provides no advantage, and once the canopy is too high they lack the structural strength to reach the sunlight. However, within that opening they are well nigh impossible to eradicate.

In the replanting programme of the Sabah Foundation’s reserves around the Danum Valley, saplings are not planted o ut for two decades after logging, as the foresters wait for the creepers to subside, a long time when considering the growing period required before harvesting, but an essential duration to restore the appropriate conditions for soil and micro-climate.

The common simpoh air, Dillenia sufruticosa, flowers and fruits prolifically soon after planting. As a garden species, it is pretty but can quickly squeeze out less aggressive competitors and form dense thickets.

With each successive stage of colonization, there is a gradual increase in two important factors: the number of species present in the area, and the height above ground of the vegetation, representing the slow but inexorable progress back to forest status. However, this makes the assumption, not often fulfilled in the real world, that there is a source of seeds within a reasonable distance so that new species can be reintroduced when the time is appropriate.

In Malaysia, we are led to believe that we inhabit a green nation because we have a such a large proportion of country side covered by plants, but these figures include mono-cultural plantations that are mocked by the diversity of a true forest. If we are concerned about conserving natural habitats, the rule of thumb is that the height of the canopy will determine the conservation potential or the richness of species and habitat diversity present on a given site. This is the information that should be mapped, not a mere swathe of plantations, to give a true indication of how green is our country.

As a gardener, my life span cannot be measured along side the forest and I am impatient to see results sooner rather than later; short cuts are in order. I weed away the creepers and hope that lavish spreadings of cocopeat will simulate a natural environment for soil formation and water retention; I plant bananas as a ‘nurse species’ around the durian seedlings but I suspect this is not enough and that before too long I will have to relent and interplant with some ‘temporary’ shade trees.

All this leads to a ‘garden’ that could not be further from the DBKL landscape, in fact many would not even consider it to be a garden but an illogical mass of impossible mix. I plant densely in full knowledge that perhaps only a handful will ultimately flourish and carefully protect anything that somehow finds its way into the garden without me having to introduce it. So far my only prize in this category is the lembah, a small herb with palm-like pleated leaves; its fruit is eaten by the Orang Asli to stimulate the taste for sweetness.

Unfortunately my kampong is too far from any remaining forest to benefit from the natural progression of colonizing plants, so I manually introduce everything from all stages of the colonization spectrum, including the forest hardwoods that are so slow to grow as they concentrate their energy in producing the hardest timber for long term structural strength and leaves with complex chemicals that prevent insect attack. A belian tree in Rimba Ilmu that is a quarter century old is barely 30 feet high with a trunk of only 6″ diameter; its leaves are not attacked at all, but it offers a critical clue to the time span necessary to reach fruiting maturity.

My efforts are trying to short cut the natural progression of the colonizing species, even though I know it is illogical and that I am trying to control nature by eliminating even the first process of lalang: cow grass demands more nutrients than lalang and can be a major drain on the soil placing other plants at a disadvantage, so then one must clear around the saplings and ensure that there is some nutrient substitution. Gardening is all about controlling nature, but on the grand spectrum I see my process being a little closer to nature than the clipped minutiae of DBKL, my version of neo-colonization.

The round of the naturalist gardener becomes a routine one, but the rewards are immense: to enjoy the shade of a tree planted just a few years earlier, to watch birds feed on its fruit, even to begrudgingly admire the tenacity of the squirrels as they penetrate the durians or coconuts to reach the succulent flesh, provides the greatest satisfaction.

Palms

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Palms
Licuala spinosa, the mangrove fan palm, known in Malay as palas, is common in open coastal areas.

by Angela Hijjas

From The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 53 no. 1.

Of all tropical plants, palms are the most mysterious. Their appearance indicates a primeval history that predates the usual trees and flowering shrubs that comprise the bulk of most garden planting. Their form and structure are exotic and offer the focal point or essential contrast that gives a garden character. Palms make excellent avenues or solitary specimen plants, and the smaller clumping varieties can be combined with others for contrast.

One of their great advantages is that growth habits and dimensions are entirely predictable; a species can be chosen with a particular requirement in mind, and assuming growth conditions are satisfactory, it will behave exactly as expected.

Malaysia is blessed with an unmatched variety of palm species that have inevitably caught the imagination of landscape designers and gardeners. Different varieties can fulfill all roles for plant mass or shape, texture and contrast, but like all plants they must be used in an appropriate fashion.

Johannesteijsmannia magnifica, the most beautiful palm in Malaysia’s forests, has leaves up to 3 meters long and a silvery, or glaucous, back to the leaves.

The palms I remem ber from my Melbourne childhood filled me with an unpromising distaste for the plant: huge, bulky varieties of Phoenix (date) palms that completely filled a suburban front garden and permanently blocked any welcome sun, but in that climate I suppose the owner regarded this as an achievement rather than a liability.

The first thing I planted in my garden was a roadside avenue of the red clumping palm, Cytostachus renda, a plant I had long admired. It was possibly the delight they provided that persuaded me to restrict my plant choice to indigenous species, although some irregularities have crept into my palm collection, often from faulty identification when the plants were young.

A second avenue that was to have been a variety of Corypha, seeds suppose dly collected in the forests of Pangkor, turned out to be a central American Sabal instead, and of course there were the Latanias I put in when I was tempted to gerrymander my geographic boundaries to include the Indian Ocean. The rhinoceros beetles resolved the indiscretion by rendering them so unsightly that it wasn’t hard to give them a final nudge.

It was not so easy with another blunder. My architect husband loves colour and form, and one of the few plants he can recognise is the Travellers ‘palm’. Closer to a banana and certainly not a palm, its leaves create a generous gesture of welcome or farewell, so they now occupy the main entrance avenue, to my continued annoyance. However, one gets one’s way eventually: They are now getting so leggy and ragged, few having suckered, that it may be possible to eliminate them, one by one, and he will never notice.

Right at the front gate are three Corypha elata that will flower just once before they die. The inflorescence is the largest of any flowering plant in the world, made up of millions of bisexual flowers in a single crowning pannicle towering about 7 meters above the top of the palm, not unlike a huge regal umbrella; these flowers could well be the original prototype for the bunga mawar, used to escort the bridal couple at a Malay wedding.

The inflorescence of the common coconut Cocos nucifera is a spectacular and fragrant cut flower.

The flowers of most palms are spectacular but not readily seen. The humble coconut has the sweetest fragrance and the whole inflorescence makes a spectacular cut flower. Most palms have separate male and female flowers on the same plant (monoecious) but others have male and female on separate plants (dioecious). Where both sexes exist in the one flower they are known as hermaphrodite. Borassus flabillifer, the lontar plam, is an example of a dioecious palm, so for fertile fruit (used for making drinks and kueh) one needs several plants as the sex cannot be determined before it flowers. The flower stalk, or inflorescence, can be bound tightly, bruised and cut while still on the tree to yield a sweet juice (up to 20 litres a day for months) that can be fermented into toddy or reduced for gula melaka (jaggery). Otherwise, they are a great food source for insects and birds.

The usual species for making sugar in Malaysia is Arenga pinnata, the huge kabong that looks spectacular as a gothic avenue but less attractive as it fruits and thins. Perhaps one of the most beautiful palms amongst the Arengas is the clumping A. undulatifolia, with its lustrous blue-green fronds (silver underneath) that have wavy margins, a spectacular addition to any garden.

Licuala is another popular landscaping genus with many species, all with large fan shaped leaves. Licuala saribus has a solitary trunk with impressive undivided and pleated leaves, while Licuala spinosa, common in more exposed areas on the east coast, has divided leaves in a clumping form.

One of Malaysia’s most familiar palm fruits is known as pinang, although it belongs to the Areca genus. The Pinanga genus applies to a completely different group of palms. In the early days of taxonomy, the genus of Areca was apparently a “dumping ground for many palms which are now placed in other genera” so the result is that a particular palm’s local name now applies to another genera. In fact the name Arecaceae (or Palmae) applies to the entire palm family, just to make it more confusing.

Pinanga disticha, one of the most common understorey palms in the forest.

The members of the Pinanga genus are mostly understory forest palms that need complete shade and high humidity. The leaves are sometimes mottled in different shades of green, giving them landscaping potential for very shaded areas. By contrast Areca catechu (Malay name pinang) is the tall slender palm that provides the slightly narcotic fruit for chewing, and many other varieties in the same genus provide useful medicines in kampongs throughout Southeast Asia.

Collecting and learning about palms is a fascinating hobby if one has space to plant them. Otherwise, the best public collection can be seen at Rimba Ilmu, the botanic garden in the grounds of Universiti Malaya, where most of the plants are labeled. I constantly refer to a publication by the Smithsonian Institution Press, Palms of the World, by David L. Jones, and look forward to MNS producing a definitive guide to the palms of Malaysia.

Tropical Water

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Tropical Water
Nelumbo nucifera, the sacred lotus, makes a spectacular display when flowering.

by Angela Hijjas

From The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 52 no. 4.

Water and its lack or excess has become a much debated topic in KL, where floods alternate with droughts, and taps droop to a drip when rains miss the catchment and fall in the city heat sink instead. I am responsible for the supply of and demand for water over my 14 acres and have taken a deliberate role in retaining and modifying runoff so that it does not become a problem for others downstream.

My objective is to create a garden and landscape that is sustainable and can tolerate periodic dry periods or deluges. The basic pre-requisites for a tropical garden are plenty of both sunlight and water, combined to create the natural hot house. The strength of the sunlight is modified by shady trees that shape the landscape and give an important dimension of height as well as retaining humidity, but the appearance of water is the next most important element in fashioning a sense of landscape.

Two ponds, dredged along a natural stream and dammed at one end, contain a fair amount of flood surplus and retain enough in the dry season to maintain a lotus garden. In other areas of the garden, water is directed to long ‘soak aways’, sand and rubble drains buried in the ground that encourage water to soak into the ground rather than run off too quickly.

Salvinia, the floating fern that soaks up nutrients but can easily choke a water garden.

Not only am I trying to reduce runoff, but also to contain the loss of nutrients that can be dissolved and lost in just one heavy storm. An interesting lesson about the retention of nutrients came from my unwitting introduction of a floating fern, a variety of Salvinia, a pretty thing, thought I, that innocently came along with a water lily from a nursery.

I let it float off into the sunset, never imagining that it could propagate so rapidly that in a few months my pools were completely choked. Other plants that depend on sunlight were destined to die if we did nothing, so we started to scoop it out by the boat load and were surprised to find that the water underneath was crystal clear. The reduced sunlight had restricted algae and the plants had taken up much of the dissolved nutrients washed into the water from chicken dung fertilizer. Of course it grew back again, but it seems to be seasonal and at the moment is in remission.

The lesson learned was to make use of the scoopings for compost and mulch, thus harvesting the nutrients from the water rather than have it wash away. I would imagine water hyacinth would perform the same role. The collecting is labour intensive, but as in all gardening there is something very satisfying in making the most of what is available in the garden to improve it in some way, rather than merely buying a solution.

The main water feature is in front of the house where a raised reflective pond uses water from the dam to create a more formal pool. An architectural cascade draws water through a coral filter, installed ages ago more for fish rearing than planting. As the coral dissolves it makes the water too alkaline for plants. Water lilies and other plants will not thrive in alkaline water although it suits fish well enough. By contrast, the two natural pools had acidic water so now we mix the two. Submersible electric pumps draw water from the dam to the reflective pond, compensating for evaporative loss and balancing the pH of the water, maintaining more acidic than alkaline levels. The circulating and mixing also reduces the problems of stagnation, maximizing the effect of the reed beds around the dam to clean the water.

Water lilies, Nymphaea sp., come in many forms, that are either day or night flowerers.

We made planting beds in the reflective pool, using laterite for the planting medium as water plants prefer a high iron content. Planting holes were enriched with compost and muslin bags of chicken dung provide slow release nutrients beside each plant. The water depth for plants is about 30cm, but if you want to rear fish the water should be about a meter deep to ensure that the water does not get too hot from exposure to the sun. As the temperature increases the amount of oxygen available to fish is reduced, causing distress or death.

In keeping with my indigenous theme I have tried to limit myself to indigenous plants and fish, but with the inevitable invasion of tillapia that objective has been foregone. One of the most important lessons I learned, albeit too late, was never allow anyone, no matter how well meaning , to introduce this dreaded scourge into your pond; they breed prolifically from a young age and are near impossible to eradicate. The only way to control them is not to feed the fish and hope that a natural balance will be restored. Introducing a predator such as haruan or toman into the pool may help, and take heart in the assurance that some will be taken by kingfishers.

I restrict garden watering to a handheld hose, and then only in the vegetable garden and for the ferns around the house. Everything else has to survive on rainfall. Too much watering will encourage surface rooting amongst plants that would normally dig deeper and tap into more reliable ground water supplies. Mulching is critical to retain moisture, so don’t burn off leaves: either compost them or pile around a tree or shrubs that can do with the protection. Don’t, however, heap mulch close to tree bark as it encourages fungal attack; make sure there is breathing space around it. New plantings need water, of course, so try to plant in the wet season, or if in the dry dig your planting hole and fill it with water. Wait until it soaks away and then plant; at least the surrounding ground will not draw from the plant. And don’t forget to mulch; when it rots away do it again, and again! Not only will the soil develop a higher content of organic matter, it will retain moisture better and provide a perfect environment for micro organisms that work in soil to release nutrients for the plants.

Combined with the intense sunlight of Malaysia, an ill-conceived water garden can soon become an eyesore of algae and mosquitoes, with pumps clogged and filtration overwhelmed. I have been playing around with pumps and stuff for some time, and although my water garden is not yet the show piece I hope for, I am still learning. Playing with water is such fun, as my 3 year old grandson will attest, and to nurture damsel and dragon flies, lotuses and water lilies, and to see the flash of an occasional fish, must be the ultimate gardening reward.

The World’s Largest Garden Gnome

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The World’s Largest Garden Gnome
The fibreglass tree-stump fountain erected on Jalan Parlimen by Kuala Lumpur City Hall.

by Angela Hijjas

for The Malaysian Naturalist vol. 52 no. 3

For gardeners (and this is the MNS gardening column), the tropical rain forest presents an ideal of wild perfection whose luxuriant growth we try to emulate on our small plots. It provides the inspiration for the landscapes of our imagination, but without having seen a forest, how could we understand the potential of the material we work with? The height of towering trees, their natural spacing and the effect of irregular features like rocks and rivers feed the well spring of illumination for artists and poets trying to recreate something of this natural wonder in their own idiom. Where do we go for inspiration when the forests cease to exist? To the saw mill, it seems.

The erection of this appalling monument (ab0ve) commemorating the destruction of forests is cause for as much anguish as the actual cutting. As a nation, we seem yet to see reason for reflection or shame at the desolation we have wrought in the name of economic growth. The survival and prospering of our own species has become sacrosanct and the rights of non humans, either plant or animal, have obviously never been considered.

The location of the monument, at the very heart of our capital city, where we revere national traditions and history with great formality, fills me with despair. I have learned to overlook the periodic concrete stump that welcomes me to small towns on the edges of recently leveled forests, but I was naïve enough to think that city people were a bit different and never imagined that such alarming ethnocentric chauvinism would mushroom on the Padang. Just as KL was reaching city greatness with the hosting of world events, the concert hall and philharmonic orchestra, a growing network of public transport and walkable foot paths, we tripped ourselves up again. How can we possibly believe that a destroyed tree is something to celebrate?

Economic development must be financed by using resources, and forests are an important source of materials and revenue, but we must acknowledge that this is a necessary compromise, an unfortunate step that has to be taken because we have no other alternative. This monolith illustrates that we have forgotten that inherent compromise. The forest is something we should use and re-use over time, but instead its best fate in the minds of Malaysians is the sawmill. This enormous concrete tree commemorates conquest over a destroyed enemy, rather than a monument to a beloved friend who died, quite unnecessarily, in action.

The belief that we have the right to destroy and then commemorate harks back to a colonial mentality where conquest was all and the rights of the native amounted to nothing. The innate sense of superiority of the Englishman over the native was not questioned until writers like George Orwell in his book “Burmese Days” placed these constructs of colonialism in a different light. What right did a white man have to determine the lives of other races? Dickens broke the same ground in the previous century by questioning the class system that denied all rights to much of English society. Surely by now we should be questioning the rights that humanity has assumed with regard to its power over other species.

We will not diminish ourselves by realizing that we are a smaller part in the scheme of things than we previously imagined. In fact our human potential would be enhanced by adopting broader goals to allow society to sustain itself within its natural environment. Dickens and Orwell foresaw as untenable a society dependent on the conquest of the minority over the majority, so must we acknowledge that our human role must integrate the natural world and ensure its survival as intrinsic to our own.

Thus the news that Belum, one of our last great forests, was to be logged stirred great discomfort. Belum, in northern Perak, was isolated by the communist Emergency for decades and was first explored by the Malaysian Nature Society expeditions only in 1993. A beautiful book published by MNS records the research, but photographs can never convey the powerful presence of old forest growth. Hopefully the book may not be all that remains in a few years time. Signs have been posted in Sungei Halong, where the first MNS expedition surveyed the forest and found many new plant and insect species. It seemed that an area of possibly 2,000 hectares was to be logged, but now the State government of Perak has responded that it was only for a stock survey and that there is a chance that Belum will be turned into a State park. This will indeed be cause for commemoration.

Obviously every government has to make use of its forest resources, and it is hoped that they become more sensitive in their policies and enforcement. We are unsure how much of Belum will be reserved, and I am concerned that logging, if it has to take place in some other area, should aim to sustain the forest for future use. Timber could be extracted by helicopter, as has already been done in Sarawak in areas that even the earth movers could not access. It can be done and it is financially feasible. Do we merely hope that the state governments will ensure that forests will be allowed to regenerate without the damaging incursion of miles of erosion prone roads with impenetrably compacted soils? Or should we express our fears and hopes to the authorities?

We do not know whether it was the timely notification of the Kedah MNS branch who first found the logging notices in Sungai Halong and the subsequent letter campaign that erupted in just a week, that changed the course of events. Perhaps the government was already acting in the interests of conservation, and I salute the change in approach.

We must acknowledge the forest as a creation of the greatest power, and recognize that it is defenseless in the face of economic development, just as our currency was defenceless in the face of speculators. Rather than pose for photographs in front of fountains, write a letter to the Mentri Besar of Perak to thank him for the promise he made in the preface to the book on Belum for sustainable forest development and for his acting on that initiative. If we applaud his efforts maybe there will be less support for garden gnomes and more appreciation for the real thing.

Tan Sri Dato Seri Ramli bin Ngah Talib,
Mentri Besar,
Jabatan Mentri Besar,
Ipoh
30000 Perak

The Interactive Garden

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The Interactive Garden

by Angela Hijjas

From The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 52 no. 2.

Gardening is essentially a manipulation of the natural environment. We elect to save or eliminate, plant and nourish or neglect, and the result is a man made garden. For the naturalist, there is the added objective of nurturing as much of nature as possible, and this includes species other than plants. I have managed to educate the rest of the family that one does not have to kill snakes, bats or lizards; they do more good than harm, but at the same time I keep a close eye on the new puppy to make sure she isn’t taken by the biawak, the large monitor lizard that lives near the pond.

A large biawak, or water monitor, on the steps by the pond.

Birds win people over much more easily and do not evoke the same primal fear as reptiles. The brilliant flashes of colour as they swoop through the garden and fill another dimension with song ringing back and forth arouse a reaction in all humans, whether interested in the natural world or not.

I have perhaps thirty varieties of birds in my garden and they provide me with the greatest delight. The largest is probably the crested serpent-eagle, although the fish owl would be a close second. The eagles regularly launch themselves on the heat generated from a large paved area by the house, whistling to each other as they glide the thermals. The fish owl’s tawny beige is noticeable in low light and can sometimes be seen perching on the house beams over the fish pond or in the top of a flowering durian waiting for bats. Much more common are the white breasted waterhens who inhabit the pools and drains and are fascinating to watch as they hide their coal black young in bushy cover while both parents hunt for food. They breed prolifically, but numbers never seem to increase so the monitor lizards must be harvesting their share. These interactions between species make the life of a garden so interesting and reminiscent of our own lost habitat that we must unknowingly miss.

My early garden planting failed to consider other life groups so much, keen as I was to plant a forest of dipterocarps, the tallest fo rest giants. Unfortunately, most of these huge trees take years to mature and the seasons of flowering and fruiting are so irregular and unpredictable that they cannot be relied upon by wildlife for a regular source for food. Perhaps the plants that encourage birds most would be from the Ficus family, they fruit early and constantly and are sought by bats, mammals and birds. Unfortunately most planted by landscapers tend to be hybridized varieties that don’t fruit, wasting a great opportunity. Feeding animals can make a mess, but if they are well established they can also help with insect and pest control. With more predators to keep down the pests, plants and people suffer less from insect damage than they would otherwise.

Swifts and bats alternate between day and night harvesting flying insects, and the change of guard at dusk is remarkably precise: one never sees swifts in the sky with bats, nor is there a moment when there is nothing flying and swooping.

A reticulated python, in the well at Rimbun Dahan. Pythons help control the rat population.

The naturalist’s garden has to develop on the awareness that we share our space with other creatures. I may own the land, but other residents predate my claim so allowances have to be made. All species are an asset in one way or another, even the weeds in the vegetable garden can camouflage tender species. Snakes keep down the rat population and birds harvest insects and fruit, spreading seeds and fertilizing as they go as well as providing an important dynamic aesthetic. The final result may seem a bit chaotic but a growing understanding of the interactions greatly broadens the definition of ‘gardening.’

The birds are definitely the star performers. A huge colony of yellow vented bulbuls nests happily in a grove of red sealing wax palms and sends squadrons out each morning. A more individual character is the pied triller chooses to call from under a roof where its voice is effectively amplified, as it (presumably male!) competes with its own kind for dominance. The black-naped orioles offer flashes of brilliant yellow as they carol and swoop through the trees, and the white-throated kingfisher provides the contrasting blue, accompanied by its typical raucous shriek. A seasonal visitor is the tiny blue-eared kingfisher, arriving in pairs and identifying itself by its whistle but difficult to see. Only once have I seen the stork-billed kingfisher. Two varieties of woodpeckers and bee eaters, owls, swifts, spider hunters and sunbirds add to the population.

There are many shy small varieties that we occasionally glimpse but can rarely identify, and they tend to be eclipsed by the louder more spectacular species. Seeing a pair of racket tailed drongos cavorting around an old durian tree as their tails wove patterns in the air is an indelible memory. We also have a family of hill mynas, only visitors before but now resident, whose calls whistle and echo throughout. I occasionally see malkohas and the greater coucal, the former very discrete, the latter lumbering through the foliage in a rather ungainly manner. Often we get swooping formations of long tailed parakeets, shrieking loudly, and reminiscent of my ‘great parrot homeland,’ as David Attenborough called Australia.

Recently I visited Endau Rompin and was overwhelmed by the vegetation in the forest, especially seeing trees that I have as saplings and being able to identify the mature specimens. Bird life, though, was not visible although very much in evidence from the morning calls; the forest was too dense for a good view. A well established garden can be very rewarding for bird watching, especially if it is close to forested areas. Recently a sighting of a vigorous patch of brilliant red feathers sent me scrambling for the bird book; I fear I saw a trogon, an inhabitant of primary forest, and I can only surmise why it was in my garden. I have not seen it since and fear for its welfare, but I guess I must focus on what I can provide and keep planting as much as possible.

So many ills of living in a developed society seem to stem from losing touch with natural surroundings in terms of sharing one’s habitat with other species. Whether it is the occasional whiff of perfume from a flowering tree, the sight of a biawak catching the morning sun on a coconut trunk, the texture of a leaf or the flash of a bird swooping past, the experience tends to place one’ s sense of being into primal mode; another part of the brain takes over when recognition takes place.

The solely urban habitat does not seem varied enough for healthy populations of birds or humans. To belong to a place that i s sufficiently diverse and to interact with our environment seems to be intrinsic to the healthy ‘lifestyle’. How I hate that word, but perhaps it reflects the loss of our own habitat, to be replaced by a mere style, a loss that takes its toll on us as much as it does on the rest of creation.

Naturalist Gardening Tips: I have had trouble establishing a Cassia fistula for its wonderful cascades of golden flowers. Every time a new show of leaves sprout, white moths appear and lay eggs. Within days the leaves are destroyed by caterpillars. For some reason the garden birds have shown no interest in grooming the tree or catching the butterflies, but a recent innovation at organic pest control was to introduce a nest of kerengga, the large red ants that inhabit fruit trees. The ants attack the caterpillars and although there is still some damage, the trees are doing much better.

To move a kerengga nest requires determination, as they bite. Our method is to pull it off the tree with a fruit harvesting hook, and tie it in a plastic bag (as quickly as possible!) Hang the bag in the caterpillar infested tree and then break it open. The ants will quickly establish their territory. Should you wish to remove the ants, the nest can be burned by tying oils oaked rags on a bamboo pole, and setting it alight under the nest.

Birds are just as useful, but they cannot depend on a few plant species as food supply is too cyclical. A good variety of birds requires a wide variety of plants. The booklet produced by WWF Malaysia, ‘Bring Back the Birds’, is an excellent guide on what species will attract birds, either because they provide nesting materials, fruit or insects on which the birds can feed.

Plant Indigenous

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Plant Indigenous

by Angela Hijjas

With the accelerated loss of forest habitats gardeners can try to make a difference to the survival of birds and other small creatures by selecting indigenous species to enrich urban habitats. Most Malaysians only have small gardens or make do with a few pots on a balcony, so making the planting choice is critical, plants should be an appropriate size and be ‘interesting’ to human and animal alike.

The joy of gardening is not merely ‘growing’ plants and savoring their flowers. Living with plants is about seeing the wider world as birds catch pollinating insects and collect fruit, or butterflies and moths feed on nectar, as well as the shade, perfume, colour and texture of plants that we particularly enjoy. Sharing a garden with other species gives us a real sense of our place on earth.

Malaysia has some of the greatest biodiversity of species known anywhere in the world, but we are in danger of losing much of it before we even know about it. The easiest way to learn something of this richness is to live with some of these plants, read about them and observe. Enriching the soil with kitchen waste and watering when necessary give us an active role, but humanity is part of a much larger scheme that we appreciate better as we share our space with other species.

The plant offered for sale to raise funds for MNS on World Environment Day ‘98 is Murraya paniculata (above), kemuning or Mock Orange. This single example provides lessons in Malaysia’s culture, history and the diversity of life. It is a shrub or small tree, of the same family as the curry leaf plant, that is occasionally seen wild in the drier parts of the north and on the east coast, or on limestone hills. Because of the fragrance of its flowers it is often planted in kampong gardens. The dense erect leaves resemble citrus, and the yellow root wood is favoured for making kris handles because of its beautiful figuring. The name apparently is derived from this yellow colouring, kemuning from kuning or yellow.

Kemuning has medicinal uses as well. An infusion of the leaves is included in a tonic for ‘young women’s irregularities’, or a decoction of the leaves may be used for toothache. The flowers used to be sold in the markets to perfume women’s hair, much as jasmine is sold today. Their fragrance, particularly in the evening, is magnificent and attracts pollinating insects. The red berries are relished by birds and bats.

As a garden species, kemuning makes an excellent single or hedged specimen for screening that can be heavily pruned with no ill effects. It quickly generates new growth and a flush of flowers if there is generous watering and composting after the cut-back. It is not attacked by munching insects, never needs chemical intervention and possibly protects tender species planted nearby.

By learning about Malaysia’s own plants we learn to recognise the individuals and families that make up the primary and secondary forests. Unique plants help us develop a sense of place which will be all important in the coming age of globalisation when standardisation will diminish the particular for the sake of world wide uniformity. To understand our own place in the universe means to appreciate the uniqueness of this particular land and have a strong sense of belonging here.

It is mainly an awareness of plants and landscape that ensure this continuity. The hillside kampongs shaded by tall fruit trees interspersed by riverine padi fields, much of which is already lost, the miles of rubber and oil palm estates and the forested hills as a backdrop, are a landscape made of the geography of plants. Place names in Malaysia are generally named after plants or characteristic geographic features. Street names follow this tradition, but rarely today is the named tree included in the landscaping. With the rush for foreign/exotic species such as traveler’s palms (from Madagascar), and heliconia (from central America) it is easy to forget the plants and landscape that have shaped Malaysia’s culture and traditions. When we learn how to name the trees we will know who and where we are, an important rediscovery with globalisation upon us.

For a wealth of information on all things related to Malaysia’s indigenous species, two excellent reference books on the importance of Malaysia’s plants should be included in every home library. Professor E.J.H. Corner’s Wayside Trees of Malaya and I.H. Burkill’s Dictionary of the Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula have been reprinted by the Malaysian Nature Society and the Government Printer respectively and give rare insight into forests, plants and Malaysian economic history.

Join the Malaysian Nature Society and take advantage of members’ discounts to buy these heritage titles.

Gardening’s Current Affairs

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Gardening’s Current Affairs

by Angela Hijjas

from The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 52 no. 1, March 1998

After six years, parts of my garden are beginning to fulfill imagined promises: a wider variety of birds and insects come part and parcel with more species of plants and the growing trees stretch the canopy to greater heights, enlarging the mass and volume of the garden enormously. Fourteen acres of stunted orchard is evolving into the forest I imagine, but it will remain the human domain as long as I continue to plant and transplant, nurture and prune, select and reject; the process of gardening is very much a current affair. Shown’s article in the last issue about pruning and ‘surgery’ highlighted this role of the interventionist gardener, but so much, at least for me, is more a matter of chance rather than choice.

Pruning can have dramatic effects on tropical plants that are otherwise only affected by subtle climatic change that human minders do not detect. In anticipation of the festive season, we pruned our kemuning (Murraya panniculata) hedge at the beginning of puasa, the fasting month, hoping to revitalise its formal shape while giving it time for more leaf growth to conceal any exposed woody stems, but a fortnight later (combined with a lot of rain) the hedge flowered profusely and also sprouted new growth. Next year the time to prune would appear to be in the middle of the fasting month, so that the magnificent fragrance can be a feature of our open house; but then again the season will be a few weeks earlier and the rhythm may be different.

Part of the chance element of gardening can be reduced if one keeps records. It is essential to observe carefully a plant’s habits, how it performs in different conditions. Otherwise it is so easy to forget. This was my New Year’s resolution; keep records and update them diligently.

A plan of the garden has to be made before the records can mean much, especially if you intend to plant vegetables and follow a proper rotation of ‘crops’. The PC can be an invaluable tool in updating and referring to old records. When was the bed composted last? What was planted before? What’s the record of pests and problems? A rain gauge is a good idea, and daily records can be graphed and compared in the PC; and in no time you will have a full-time hobby, perfect for the economic downturn!

Observing, recording and remembering have developed our gardening and agricultural expertise over the millennia, but in the tropics where there are few seasonal variations, it is critical to continue recording and interpreting, especially as so little is really known about our unique conditions. Temperate gardens with their seasonal changes and preparations are more predictable, daffodils flower in spring and roses in summer and autumn is the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’.

Perhaps Malay folk lore could give valuable insight into the habits of plants, but much traditional knowledge has already been lost with the changes in the kampung environment. It is barely viable to maintain the family plot when the younger generation is working in the factories that have sprung up all over the peninsula while the older generation looks after the children. A cash economy has replaced the need to depend on the products of small-scale agricultural labour, but the present crisis may re-introduce many of us to the rewards and delights of growing our won produce as we are being urged by politicians and the media.

Hydroponics seems a popular solution, possibly because of the marketing angle involved in selling all the paraphernalia that is required to get a simple crop of kangkung, but I am more concerned about the requirement for unnecessary chemical additives when most of what is needed is just outside the back door or on a piece of neighbouring wasteland that can be co-opted for vegetables. Instead of buying packaged additives for hydroponics, start a compost heap and get some exercise with the cangkul.

A single family generates a lot of vegetable refuse that can be recycled. You can use a large covered garbage bin with holes melted in the sides for ventilation. It will not be smelly as long as no animal products are thrown in, and a few shovels of soil to cover anything you suspect may attract flies will keep down the vermin. Cover the pile to prevent tropical rain from leaching out nutrients, but ensure it is just damp enough to allow the enrichment of rot. When the heap is finished, keep it for a few weeks and turn it to aerate and ensure it all decomposes evenly. Pile, cover and keep again until it is a rich black organic mass that bears no resemblance to the original material. Additives like dry chicken dung will greatly enrich the brew.

Making compost is much more satisfying that buying a produce to do the same thing, and there is nothing quite as pretty as a garden bed of vegetables rather than growing them in a plastic container. Perhaps my main complaint about hydroponics is influenced by its aesthetics just as much as by the commercialisation of something that can be a totally natural experience.

For anyone interested in growing vegetables organically, I can recommend an invaluable booklet that has been prepared by Siew of Cetdem, the Centre for the Environment, Technology and Development in Malaysia; send $5 and a stamped, self-addressed A4 envelope, for an excellent guide to growing vegetables organically in Malaysia. Siew previously ran an organic farm in Sungai Buloh and will be conducting courses in my garden later this year. In the meantime, study the leaflet, start the compost, set aside some garden space for produce and enjoy the results, which you will, of course, observe, record, assess and quantify. Good luck.

Cetdem’s address is P.O. Box 382, 46740 Petaling Jaya.

A Sense of Place in the Landscape

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A Sense of Place in the Landscape

by Angela Hijjas

from The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 51 no. 3&4
The new Visitors' Centre of Kuala Selangor Nature Park
The new Visitors’ Centre of Kuala Selangor Nature Park

The new facilities at Kuala Selangor Nature Park were opened with some fanfare last month, complete with the attendance of the Minister for Housing and Local Government, Dato Dr. Ting Chew Peh. The function also served to launch Hari Landskep, and a selection of native trees were duly planted. Hopefully this choice of indigenous plants heralds a new approach by the National Landscape Department. A 1997 booklet distributed on the occasion illustrates the projects they commended in fulfilling “the Government’s vision to transform Malaysia into a garden nation by the year 2005.” Judging by the photos of severely clipped multi coloured plantings, neat edges and exotic species, we are to effect a transformation from the natural to the wholly artificial.

Landscaping competitions organised by the department covered all categories, from condo to kampong, and the winners all presented versions of the potted and de/formed interpretation of a for ceful control over nature. The towering grandeur of our natural landscape has provided no inspiration to the designers, despite the fact that we have inherited a country with the greatest biodiversity of plant material in the world. By choosing to ignore this wealth in favour of the imported and exotic, the designers are definitely experiencing the throes of some post colonial “cultural cringe.”

To develop a national concept for landscaping is more complex than merely taking elements of what designers have seen overseas and recreating it here. To recognise what is unique and beautiful in our own landscape is the beginning of the process and you build on that, assuming that the landscape one creates is intended to reinforce Malaysia’s unique sense of place, because we do have nationalistic objectives at stake.

The beautiful Saracca, definitely a candidate for the national flower.
The beautiful Saracca, definitely a candidate for the national flower.

Unfortunately, we have used foreign symbols in the past and no one has questioned those choices and in the process we have lost opportunities to present Malaysia as unique. Nationalism should be b ased on a solid understanding of where and who we are, and the place we occupy should be our source of inspiration for the symbols and images that represent us. Two examples of inappropriate and unimaginative choices should suffice.

Firstly, the hibiscus, the honored Bunga Raya, is not indigenous to Malaysia, but to southern China. When we have in our forests such magnificent botanical wonders as Rafflesia (although the name may not be politically correct) why would we select for our national flower s omething that is so pan-tropic it evokes no sense of place at all?

The flag may have got it wrong, but the crest didn't.
The flag may have got it wrong, but the crest didn’t.

My second example definitely locates our sense of place in the wider world. The new crescent moon in Malaysia is a slightly skewed smile on the horizon as it sets in the west immediately after sunset at the beginning of each new lunar month. Why, then, does Malaysia’s flag tilt the moon as if it were being viewed from Saudi Arabia? Being Australian, I can relate to this dilemma, as the British Union Jack still graces the top left corner of that flag, but hopefully not for much longer. I accept that the crescent moon is the symbol of Islam; I acknowledge that Mecca should be venerated but I see no reason why the angle of the moon should not be on the flag as we see it in Malaysia, slipping over the horizon every month, reminding us all of the passage of time and exactly where we are. And what a great gesture it would be to salute all Malaysians by realigning the sabit bulan, in acknowledgment of that special place we all occupy.

Malaysia is a tropical country, Kuala Lumpur is just three degrees north of the equator. Our sense of belonging is reflected in how we recognise where we are. To me, trees are the first indicator of location. Australia is perfumed by eucalyptus, Malaysia by durian when you are lucky and motorbike fumes when you are not, but identifying the trees that belong to this place alone confers a precise sense of place and belonging, something that our national landscaping policy should certainly address. With the relent less pressure to globalise, we surely wish to retain some uniqueness that other places do not have and landscaping with native species must enhance this.

Indigenous people have always identified location with the prevailing flora, by naming the places after the plants. Ipoh is a tree with toxic bark, used to tip hunting arrows. The Pinang palm provides the mildly narcotic fruit that has been used for centuries in South East Asia for a multitude of medicinal purposes. The feathery Melaka tree is believed to have provided the place name for river and town. The name is from Sanskrit, possibly given by visitors from the subcontinent centuries ago. Just as names keep our language and history alive, so does a knowledge of our own unique plants.

A very significant book has just been reprinted by the Malaysian Nature Society that will provide hours of fascinating browsing for anyone interested in indigenous species and their relevance on a daily and historic basis. Professor E.J.H. Corner compiled a remarkable survey of Malaya’s trees that was first printed in 1940, ‘The Wayside Trees of Malaya’, in two volumes. Its importance has not diminished over half a century and there has never been anything else close to replacing it. The contents cover a broad selection of plants encountered in the peninsula, illustrated by old but excellent photographs and line drawings that make identification easy for the amateur. Precise botanical information is mixed with interesting anecdote and opinion, and one can easily dip in and out of its masses of information. The sections on the characteristics of each of the plant families provide an easy introduction to botany, and simple keys help in identification. Particular trees are noted with an ironic eye, like this Sindora wallichii: “The tall tree at Changi that, as a feature on pre-war charts for over a century, marked the eastern approach to the Straits of Johore was felled early in 1942 to prevent Japanese forces ranging on the useless guns of the fortress of Singapore. Sic transit gloria mundi.” Corner’s immense knowledge and forthright opinions should be included on every Malaysian book shelf.

Trees and the natural surroundings mark the uniqueness of place and deserve to be noted in our man-made landscapes as they bear witness to our history and who we are. By learning about local plants and recognising them we become more aware of ourselves and our singular identity. Malaysia is unique and the propagandists would do well to draw our nationalist symbols (and our landscaping styles) from those elements that make this place so special.

 

The Malaysian Naturalist
vol. 51 no. 3&4