Nature Walk Series

Dairy Farm Nature Park

10 April 2010

Highlight:

The weather in the morning was a gloomy one when I dropped off along the bus stop at Bukit Timah Road. The plan was to take a walk around Dairy Farm Nature Park first before I proceed up the hill. This was my first visit to this park, located at the foot of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (BTNR). The last time I came by BTNR was in October last year. This trip had been long overdue.

It started drizzling within the first hour of my walk and the lighting condition was bad. The rain went on-and-off the whole time. At some occasions, I was holding an umbrella in one hand and while snapping away with my camera using the other hand. Fortunately, I was still able to take quite a bit of pictures.

At around 10:30 am, the dark cloud continued to loom over my head and I decided to call it a day. The hill tracking part will be deferred to another trip.

One of the most interesting finds was the flower bundle of Poikilospermum suaveolens, a woody climber with large simple leaves, on the wet forest floor. When I looked up, there was the anticipated climber high up on a tall tree. I did not take any shot of the climber as I did not want water to get into the lens of my camera.

So far, the only other place where I saw this plant was in the Zoo. There were at least 2 plants over there and they appeared to be growing well. This should be a native forest plant.

The next interesting encounter was Trema tomentosa (Rough Trema). I had seen its close relative, Trema cannabina (Lesser Trema) many times but not the rough version. The two species look rather similar. One differentiating factor is their ripen fruits --- orange for lesser trema and black for rough trema. From left to right below: (1) branches with leaves, (2) close-up view of immature fruits, (3) close-up view of a flower and some buds, and (4) dark brown to black fruits.

I came across at least two young Piper aduncum (Spiked Pepper) plants. Apparently, this introduced plant was indicated to be a threat to forest vegetation. There is a website devoted to this plant. Also, an article on the status of this plant in Singapore was published in 2008.

There were a number trees planted in front of the farm house. One of them was flowering and I took a few pictures. The plant was labelled as "Antidesma velutinosum". After looking up for the information on this tree in the Internet, I was uncertain whether this plant was indeed Antidesma velutinosum. The leaves of Antidesma velutinosum picture seen in the Internet did not resemble that seen on this plant (right picture). The likely name of this plant is Antidesma bunius (Bignay) and this name was adopted in my website for this plant.

New plants added to my website from this trip:

There were a total of 4 plants added. Two of them (Trema tomentosa and Antidesma bunius) had been mentioned above.

Vitex pinnata (Malayan Teak)

It took great effort for me to reach the flower stalks of this tree. When I saw the flowers, I suspected that it is a Vitex species because I had seen two other Vitex species and the features of their flower were quite similar to the flowers that appeared on this tree. True enough, it was indeed another Vitex species after I made the search later. It was supposed to be a common tree.

Suregada multiflora (Limau Hantu)

There were a number of these shrubs planted by NPark around one of the carparks. The plants were growing and fruiting well. The fruiting of the plant appeared to be non-synchronous as I did see new flower buds, flowers and mature fruits on the same branches.

Photo Gallery:

Below are selected photos from this trip arranged according to the sequence that they were taken. There is a text link under the photo that will direct you to more photos of the same species if they are available in my website.