Yellow flowered Impatiens mirabilis aff

This is one of the several caudiciform Impatiens I have right now - it may be Impatiens mirabilis or something closely related to it. The inflorescence is sequentially flowering and the caudex fist size and corky. I am not sure how large it can grow but a true I. mirabilis is of tree-like proportion. Many new caudiciform Impatiens are being discovered in this part the world as I speak and this could well be one of the new discoveries - I am including more pics here with the hope of someone suggesting an ID one day.

Generally caudiciform Impatiens are difficult - some of them just die without rhyme or reason. This species seems easier than others, it even produced a crop of viable seedlings for me !

Trinket from Tanimbar

An unknown lemony yellow Aeschynanthus (lipstick vine) collected by a friend from Tanimbar Islands, one of the spice islands off the south coast of New Guinea. If you have any suggestions about its ID, please let me know.

The Tale of 2 Begonia brevirimosa

Begonia brevirimosa ssp "Exotica" Begonia brevirimosa ssp "Brevirimosa".

The image of the Begonia "exotica" was implanted in my memory 10 plus years ago while reading Alfred B. Graf's book "Tropica" borrowed from library. In fact, I probably borrowed the book more than ten times - it was a stress reliever and I literally hugged the heavy book to sleep. Anyway, this strange new species tentatively named Begonia "exotica" from the mysterious island of New Guinea, was so different from any Begonias I knew, psychedelically coloured leaves and all, that I set my sight to hunt it down at all cost, even to the dark depths of New Guinea ...

Luckily, I did not have to go that far. When I eventually saw it on the rack of a private collector a few years later, my heart was thumping.

I remembered he said, almost apologetically, that it would be a bit expensive as it was a rare plant

So how much ? I asked

8 dollars, he replied.

I grabbed it immediately and thanked him profusely. Nowadays, you can probably see them on sale in quite a few on-line sites but in those days it was indeed rare.

As it turned out, what I had was not exactly "exotica" but the subspecies Begonia brevirimosa brevirimosa (by the way, subspecies is a taxonomic term meaning naturally occuring variants of ths same species). In 2005, Mark Tebbitt formally described "exotica" to be a subspecies, rather than another new species, after considering the flowers and fruits characteristics. I acquired the real "exotica" only last year and finally had a chance to compare the two. Both of them are quite similar but not really the same - the dominating bright pink streaks for "exotica" really stood out.

Given some shade from full sun, warmth and high humidity, the plants thrived at my plot - but do not seem to flower freely. Unfortunately, snails and slugs cannot leave them alone and they cannot adapt to the drier balcony environment when I tried to bring them indoors.

Watery hunter

I chanced upon a Malayan brown snake Xenelaphis hexagonotus while out hiking at night. This non venonmous creature was in the forest stream noisily foraging for snacks, most likely young frogs. Suddenly, a young water monitor dashed out from nowhere and pursued it until both disappeared into the darkness....it happened so quickly I had no time to shoot.

Hoya micrantha

This is the large leaf form of Hoya micrantha, which is found from IndoChina down to northern part of Peninsula Malaysia. It is a relatively cool grower usually found in higher elevation but I have a specimen that has proven a reliable bloomer although it does not become too weedy.
The nice patterning on the tiny bloom can only be appreciated after magnification. This Hoya is placed in Section Eu-Hoya (Miquel), where most of the Hoyas belong, including H. verticiliata, H. revoluta and waymaniae.