MERRY X'MAS EVERYONE!!

The person at Sentosa's really nice! Either that, or they're selling their soul to get exhibitors. They'll be providing me with almost everything I need, hahahaha. Just at the point of asking if they can supply cash too. Right. Decided on the list of display plants:

Nepenthes ampullaria
N. fusca
N. x ventrata
N. alata (2)
N. x Rokko - awaiting shipment from Cameron highlands
N. rafflesiana
N. gracilis

Sarracenia rubra ssp. alabamensis (shhh... )
S. purpurea
S. leucophylla "red tube"
S. flava var. cuprea
S. x Mardi Gras
S. x excellens
About 10 other various Sarracenia hybrids

Drosera filiformis ssp. filiformis, Florida locality
D. intermedia, Carolina locality
D. intermedia, Munich locality
D. petiolaris "all red"
D. burmanii, Hong Kong locality

Utricularia gibba
U. reniformis
Brocchinea reducta
Cephalotus follicularis

Dionaea muscipula "Typical"
D.muscipula "Pink Venus"
D.muscipula "Royal Red"

Quite a good representation? Ended up spraying the Sarracenia and flytraps with gibberellic acid GA3 to forcibly break their dormancy. Total shittiness. The Munich form of D.intermedia is just about to go into dormancy too, but anyway if it does, so be it. Was hoping to obtain some Utricularia aurea to display, but alas ... sad story. People - DO NOT INTRODUCE ALIEN PLANT SPECIES INTO THE WILD!! The only known locality of U.aurea in Singapore (that I know of, at least) is now entirely overtaken by some silly ornamental aquarium plant, and there was not a single U.aurea in sight when I visited the pond today. This is extremely upsetting. I'm not sure if I should re-introduce the plant from my own. And NPB had the CHEEK to plant lilies in that pond!! If only they knew what they were killing. SHAME ON THEM.

Just a few more things to settle before I start getting bogged down by more ... correct enterprises (i.e. school). Collecting a huge bag of dried sphagnum moss sometime next week, and going to collect some pieces of fallen wood as decoration. Gah. There's actually quite a hell lot to do. Misting device, artificial bog, display border, print and laminate pictures .. I can't do this.

Anyway, mom was great sport to day! I had to collect N.ampullaria and N.rafflesiana seedlings from c.k., and she had to wait an hour in the car for me after she got bored of seeing very strange Bulbophyllum orchids (c.k.'s specialty) with 1-mm long flowers. Mom was later rewarded with an ornamental banana plant and a Platycerium ridleyi. =) Yeah the banana was nice. The fruits are hot pink, and the fruiting stalk, instead of hanging downwards like edible bananas do, projects upwards like a phallus pumped with Levitra. Spent a gruelling hour in the rain today tilling the soil in the garden for it. And mom's got taste .. she liked the Platycerium ridleyi! This fern was once endemic to Singapore and is now extinct here. Hung it up in the garden for her. She also bought a couple more aquatic plants .. which is odd. I do not have a pond, nor the space for one. She ended up using this spitoon-looking porcelain pot.

Right .. got to go to bed, waking up early tomorrow to pack. Yes, yes .. the last minute me.

Edit: Ooh, finally ID'd the banana. It's Musa velutina, and surprise, surprise - it's edible. Full of seeds though (real seeds) and apparently it's one of only 6 banana species in which the fruits dehisce and split upon ripening. Here's a pic! The inflorescence actually projects upwards, and the bananas are rather pretty.