Are there more rarey mangrove trees at Kranji Nature Trail?
This afternoon, I joined Hui Ping and Desmond of the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve to have a quick look at a patch that is rather tricky to reach.
Hui Ping found a good way to reach this centre part of the back mangroves that is surrounded by streams and soft mud. Here, we saw many common mangrove trees such as
Api-api putih (
Avicennia alba), as well as many large
Api-api bulu (
Avicennia rhumpiana) and
Api-api ludat (
Avicennia officinalis).
Some of the trees were huge! Desmond measures the girth (circumference of the tree trunks) of the big ones. And some exceeded 1m! As elsewhere at the Trail, there were magnificent
Nyireh bunga (
Xylocarpus granatum) and they were flowering! There were many
Bakau putih (
Bruguiera cylindrica), some nice
Tumu (
Bruguiera gymnorrhiza), tall
Perepat (
Sonneratia alba) and large
Bakau (
Rhizophora sp.) trees.
Toward the back mangroves there were lots of
Buta-buta trees (
Excoecaria agallocha) with their twisty roots.
And a large patch of
Dungun air (
Brownlowia tersa)! This plant is listed as 'Endangered' and it's nice to see so much of it here in the Trail.
The Dungun air were flowering and fruiting! We also saw some
Teruntum putih (
Lumnitzera racemosa) which is listed as 'Endangered' and is quite common all over the Trail.
I was excited to see more of the rare and 'Critically Endangered'
Beccari's seagrass (
Halophila beccarii) in this part of the Trail! This is the first time I've spotted it at the back mangroves here.
Last month, I saw long stretches of this seagrass along the seaward side of the Trail.
There were patches of the seagrass here and there in this part of the mangroves.
As we headed back, I noticed MORE of the seagrass in the streams leading to the bridge at the Trail! Wow!
We had a quick look at the
Bakau mata buaya (
Bruguiera hainesii) and it was still flowering! Hui Ping found one propagule! Hurray! We had a look at the
Gedabu (
Sonneratia ovata) here. Desmond found two more!
Along the trail, Desmond shows us more interesting plants. Including this climber which I saw a few days
earlier at Labrador and which Siyang kindly identified as
Oxyceros longiflorus.
I had a quick look at the fish tank at the Visitor Centre before we started. There's usually all manner of interesting fish in here.
Among them, what seems to be a stargazer! I don't know why it was at the water surface, but the reflection nicely shows the upper side of the fish! While I was there, a father and his son were comparing the photos of the fishes they took at the Reserve with those in the tank. The tank sure is useful in giving a closer look at our fishes!
More about
Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and the
Kranji Nature Trail.
