Monday, December 27, 2004

The Bloom of a Lifetime

Above photo by Wong Len Poh.

The Talipot, Corypha Umbraculifera, an Asian palm, blooms only once in its lifetime of 30 - 80 years. The inflorescence each weighs more than half a tonne (500 kgs), 6 meters tall and may bear over 20 millions fragrant tiny flowers. "Umbraculifera" means "bears an umbrella," an appropriate name for this ornamental palm. The Talipot palm's flower clusters are the largest in the plant kingdom. The plant itself can easily grow trunks up to 80 feet in height and 3 feet in diameter and leaf blades up to 16 feet in diameter. Enthusiasts can check out the ones in bloom now at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.Len Poh chanced on a rare sight while taking a retired professor from his University out on a visit to the Singapore Botanic Gardens on 22 Dec. Two 79-year old Talipot Palms in the Gardens flowered for the first and last time during this Christmas. It is such a rare occasion that the Botanic Gardens put up special signs to direct visitors to the palms.
Talipot Inflorescence
Photo by Wong Len Poh 

From across the vast expanse of green lawn, you can see that something special and significant is going on. Your eyes are caught by the sight of the bright flower cluster, fountaining up, out and above the massive base of stout green palm fronds. Tiny insects hover in a cloud around the inflorescence. Are they pollinating the blossoms or just admiring them?
Tiny Talipot flowers 
Photo by Wong Len Poh 

Some of the small, pale palm flowers, which are only about a fourth of an inch in diameter, gently rain down on you as you look up, and they lightly carpet the ground below.
Sad thing is that the palm will die after the enormous effort of flowering and fruiting, for the first and last time in its life.

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Yahoo! Mail now gives 250mb!

Yesterday I noticed that Yahoo! allows 250mb space. Hooray and thank you! But I don't know why Hotmail still gives me a miserly 2mb.

Another delightful feature of Yahoo! is the to: / cc: addressing feature. Just type the first alphabet and the entire list offers itself to be picked.