Chirita micromusa

This transient beauty lives, flowers and dies in a matter of weeks.

A Thai gesneriad (African violet family) that produces just 1 large leaf, sometimes followed by a couple of small terminal leaves. Like all Dicotyledons, it started life with 2 small leaves from seeds, but environmental factors (notably gravity) favours one of the leaves which enlarged and droop down wet steep slopes in its habitat. In cultivation, the large leaf will rot from the bottom tip if it touches a wet surface so this growth pattern may be to prevent this - the leaf that faces the steep slope will likely touch the substrate.

The Assasin

As the world is jolted by the assasination attempt in East Timor, a Reduviid bug(Hemioptera) from Sarawak plots its own mini-assasination atop a Begonia leaf.

Commonly named Assasin bug, this insect has a voracious appetite for body fluids of other bugs which is obtained by punching its rostrum (probosis) through the thick cuticle of the target and releasing paralysing and tissue dissolving salivia and sucking them out through ths same channel. The Begonia xiphiodes provides a launch pad for its forays. B. xiphioides is found in many sandstone and open forests in Sarawak. Like many Begonias, the attractively coloured young leaves turned plain glossy green upon maturity, although with its red hairy petiole, its not unpretty. This particular one is growing at about 900m altitude near Kalimantan border at an open area beside a footpath. Shortly after taking this photo, we made a good 7 hours hike back to the nearest road passable to vehicles. That nearly killed me ....

Note: It took me a while to realise what this bug was, initially I thought it made those beetle bite marks on the leaves...

Aglaonema (?) from deep shade

Actually I am not so sure if its an Aglaonema species (a relative of the Chinese Evergreen) - perhaps its a variety of the more common species here... but its certainly a lover of deep shade from West Malaysian forest.
The leaf pattern is very striking in the dark leaf litter. Identification welcome !

Lost

We came a long way to visit this legendary tree supposedly harbouring close to a hundred clumps of Platycerium ridleyii but found it was hacked down, most likely for timber. The ferns were already cooked by the sun. Platycerium ridleyii is rarer and more slow growing than P. coronarium and each of these clumps (some more than 50cm in diameter, basal fronds only) would have fetched a very good price. If alive. This tree also appeared to be of extraordinary size, although the main trunk had been taken away.