Thursday, June 25, 2009

Some Seedling Stories

I am overhauling my mom's garden. I had to giveaway most of my native tree seedlings as most of them are already becoming big. Since they are after all trees, they would not be growing to their fullest in pots in our roof garden. So I asked a few friends to adopt some of my seedlings. Luckily there are a lot who were willing. But before handing them over I documented them all with photos. Here are some of them.

I got this seedling from Prof. Roberto Coronel in Los Banos, Laguna. This is galo or what might be Anacolosa frutescens. The galo, as stated in the Filipino Heritage book, is one of our native fruit trees with an 'agreeable' taste. I have not tasted the galo fruit nor have seen an actual fruit. But the full grown tree in Prof Coronel's farm is very attractive, probably suitable both as orchard tree or even just a simple garden specimen.

I grew this seedling from seeds collected from the UP Arboretum. Mr. Emil Sotalbo said that the tree we got it from is Sterculia cordata var. montana. I saw it in bloom. It has very nice cream pendant flowers. I only collected 3 seeds and only one germinated.

In early 2008, I collected beautiful shiny seeds from the lone supa (Sindora supa) tree behind the UP Alumni Center. I planted them into small pots but nothing immediately germinated . After more than a year of no activity, seedlings started popping out in my garden, even in pots I don't remember planting seeds in. Supa probably has a long gestation period.

I was surprised to learn that Cerbera manghas was growing wild in Ronald Achacoso's family property in Zambales. Ronald gave me a few seeds. The seeds are big and they take a very long time to germinate, much like the supa.

I collected a handful of bani, or Pongamia pinnata, seeds in front of St. Andrew's church in Bel Air, Makati. I only got to germinate one. Like the supa, it took many, many months before that sole seedling appeared.

3 comments:

Doc Broks said...

Hi Patrick! The Sea Mango (Cerbera) is a very poisonous plant! i hope you warned your buddies.

I need your help in identifying a tree on our lot. I took some pictures. It's endemic in the Philippines (I think) so I'm pretty sure you could help me on it. You could see it on http://greenpollex.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-is-this-tree.html

Would really appreciate your help. I hope I'm not stealing your time. God bless you.

metscaper said...

hi. yup, it is. i have a post on it being a suicide tree in India. I think I posted it in my multiply blog though.

Doc Broks said...

thank you for visiting my blog, and for the plant inputs. as for the tree in my what-is-this-tree post, i still don't know it. posted it in wHAT-IS-THIS-PLANT mega group in flickr as well. thanks.