Take The Path Less Ordinary

“Stink like hell, but tastes like heaven”. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Botany certainly didn’t mince words when it comes to describing Bombacaceae durio zibethinus.
The Malaysian Agriculture Department is perhaps more specific. In their list, codes like D2, D24, D99 and D158 depict each sub-species and a hefty 190 clones have been recorded since [...]

Sightseeing comes in various speed. Some like cars, some cycle, but let’s agree hiking is best to pick up little gems that make the world interesting.
Trotting under shadowy canopy of riverbank forest recently, we found a strange plant snug under the damp bamboo grove. On first look, it looked like orchid. But knowing rain forest [...]

Think of Rafflesia as bohemian.
It possesses nothing, yet contrives to exist on that nothing at the expense of its host’s generosity. It has no root, stem, branch or leaf. Botanists are not sure whether to call it a plant or not. Though it shy away from view mostly, it is guided by ambition of “making [...]

Amorphophallus - The plant gets its name from the Greek words “amorphos” + “phallos” meaning shapeless penis. The botanist fraternity certainly has a way with names, don’t they?
The variety of plants in the Malaysian jungle is staggering - and weird too.
No matter how often one humps into the woods, finding something new, rare and unusual [...]

Mangrove trees grow where no tree has grown before. They are able to survive inundation by salt water twice a day, and in “soil” which is unstable and poor in oxygen (anaerobic). They also have to deal with swollen rivers carrying silt during the wet season, as well as violent storms that hit the coasts.
Staying [...]

The name Zingiber (pronouced as “zing-ee-ber”) stemmed from a Sanskrit word meaning shaped like a horn. The Zingiberales family has approximately 50 genera and over 1,000 species. Gingers are found throughout the tropics, but are especially abundant in Southeast Asia.
Below are our photo collection of Malaysian rainforest gingers. Serious hobbyists collect ginger plants [...]

It took us 5 years of combing Kinta valley’s vast wetland before finally locating a wild and thriving Papilionanthe Hookeriana colony.
It’s like finding lost love. The feeling was exhilarating.

This colony is snugged in a large patch of board-leaf semi-aquatic plant. On first trip, our intrepid photographer had to wade for hours in murky swamp that’s [...]

Avid orchidists call it Pigeon Orchid, but we prefer to call it Dove Orchid because that’s what the locals call it - for obvious reason.
Dendrobium crumenatum is endemic to Malaysia, especially in the region of Perak, our home state, and grows wild on tree trunks in open countryside, wetland but almost never in the [...]