Begonia foxworthyi

I found this rather plain looking plant clinging on steep limestone faces at Pahang, Peninsula Malaysia. The male flowers have 2 white tepals while the female flowers have pinkish placenta. The closest match I can think of is Begonia foxworthyi.
Unlike many Begonias, the variation in leaf appearance for this plant is minimal - I have yet to see a variegated form, even on young plants, which would be more horticulturally pleasing.

Begonia foxworthyi is an endemic species found in central to North-eastern part of Peninsula Malaysia. It is not a well known plant due to its plain apperance and finicky habit. It is said to be found on limestone as well as granite slopes.

A walk in the rain

Fed by the heavy downpour, the gentle little stream running down the mountain had turned into a raging beast. I watched in amazement as this small frog made a suicidal dive into the furious brown depth with a trailing cry of Goodbye cruel world . Pelted by rain and deafened by the roaring torrent, I was an alien in this dark world of snaking roots ....
and angry waters ....
and pervasive wetness ....
.... fern-like orchids Podochilus microphyllus and an Appendicula draped the trunks
and boulders....
....the rather uncommon Hoya coriacea dangled from a tree ....

....the torch of a forest ginger, probably Globba patens, lit up the rocky bank....

....out of the blue, a black giant squirrel (Ratufa bicolor) bolted from the canopy, followed soon after by its cream coloured cousin Ratufa affinis scrambling up the tree.
Taken by surprise, I only managed some blury shots. These are amongst the largest squirrels in the world - and to see them side by side in the wild really made my day - even if it was a wet, gloomy one.

.... by the way, the suicidal amphibian is a torrent frog, Amolops larutensis - which as its name suggests, relishes opportunities like this.

Seeking SWF

I had a rendevous with lunch, she was a single white free-meal ....
....burrrrp......

Spelaeanthus chinii

This is the only species in the genus - found on limestone slopes in peninsula Malaysia. It appears to have a rather limited distribution and hence vulnerble to any habitat disturbances. It has filmsy hairy leaves and has white widely opening flowers borned on a branched panicle.
I found this plant perched on a damp dark limestone wall in Pahang. This appears to be too dark for most competing plants.

Not far from it is a carpet of the curious giant one-leaf Gesneriad, Monophyllea horsfieldii.

Water banana

Typhonodorum lindleyanum, sometimes known as a water banana, growing on a water lily pond at Singapore Botanical Garden.

Lunch break

A rodent with slim oesophagus
feared choking on bits and pieces.
So he dined in reverse
Irregardness of manners
but fell and broke his incisors.

Slender squirrel Sundasciurus tenuis