Nature Walk Series

Mandai Area

24 March 2012

Highlight:

The plan for this outing was to explore the Central Catchment Park Connector located around Mandai area. As usual, I did a detour when I came across a tempting trail before reaching the start point. The unplanned route led me to an open area or wasteland where the common weeds were readily available.

While I was exploring some weeds on the ground, something jumped off beside me. It took me a while to locate the creature as its body merged rather well with the surrounding area. This was a rather unique toad with a thin white line that runs across the body.

Toad is not new to me but one with a distinct white line on the body is new. The finding of this mid-size toad had made my day. [Update: Field Frog / Rice Frog (Fejervarya limnocharis)]

The only new plant found during the detour was the Tiger Grass (Thysanolaena latifolia). Its elongated and large leaves when dried are used as wrapper for rice dumpling.

The white flowers were from a shrub called Christmas Bush (Chromolaena odorata). This was the first time that I saw it in Singapore. My previous sighting was in Malaysia. A more common and similar-looking plant is the Mile-a-minute Weed (Mikania micrantha) though it is a climber.

After around 90 minutes of roaming in the wilderness, I finally got to the start point of the Park Connector. A small tree that bore a lot of these tempting False Olives (Champereia manillana) was seen by the side of the track. The last time that I came across these fruits were some years back at another location but their conditions were not as good as the ones seen today.

Whenever I saw this cylinderical pinkish tubular flowering mass on the ground, it naturally hinted to me on its parent climber (Poikilospermum suaveolens) that habour on tree tops. This climber is one of my favourite plants and it is more common than I had originally thought.

How was the snail related to the mushrooms? A lot of these light brown oyster mushrooms were flourishing on a decaying log. Below the log was this land snail (Hemiplecta humphreysiana) that feast on mushrooms. I had seen the feeding in a previous occasion.

After reaching the end of the Park Connector, I ventured into some other trails, which happened to be far more interesting than the former. Here were a few of the not-so-common encounters during the short venture: (from left to right) Thunbergia alata (Black-eyed Susan Vine), Decaspermum fruticosum, Macaranga trichocarpa, Garcinia griffithii, Sycanus collaris (Assassin Bug) and Jamides elpis pseudelpis (Glistening Caerulean)

On my way out to the main road, I spotted this unknown tree that had started to flower. [Update: Lepisanthes rubiginosa]

I was rather exhausted at the end of the trip probably due to the hot noon sun and the battling with the mosquitos along some parts of the Park Connector.

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.