Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Interesting Fruiting Natives in U.P.

Quickpost: I forgot to post this last month. Cel Tungol and I had lunch with the treeman of MSI (U.P. Marine Science Institute), Prof. Ed Gomez. He is the frontrunner in native plant advocacy in the university and the metro. As we made our way to ROC in Bahay ng Alumni, we passed by the main library area and found a few exciting natives in fruit, the endemic baguilumbang (Reutealis trisperma), balitbitan (Cynometra ramiflora) and dungon (Heritiera sylvatica). In true hardcore tree advocate fashion, both Cel and the professor dirtied their hands in picking up the ripe seeds and sprouting seedlings, to be planted as propagation material. A few more tree hopefuls saved from the blades of the U.P. grass cutters.

3 comments:

indioman said...

indeed Very interesting!I've been reading all ur entries everytime... Patrick, do you have any idea if there is such a bauhinia tree specie that is native to the Philippines. What about palo maria, is it also native here. Thanks a lot!
I'm Jay by the way, working in forbes park and we've met before if u can remember. I was the one wth Ms. Sarmiento Schmid, the lady who asked for your help re Phil native trees to be planted in the village... Thanks & Morepower 2 ur blog.

metscaper said...

Hello. Yes I remember you. Palo maria is same as bitaog. It is native. Wrote about it an early post.

I only know of 2 Bauhinia tree natives, Bauhinias malabarica and binnata. But there are more native Bauhinias but most are vines.

butterflywatcher said...

I had personally gathered about 2,000 wildlings of the Balitbitan around UP. I missed hundreds when I delayed picking them up - the ground maintenance staff leveled all that appear more than an inch high from the ground. It was good that the one assigned at the Law Bldg. swept all the seeds under the tree and where a mound of thousands of B. wildlings grew later. They are now in Cavinti, Laguna waiting to be planted when the rainy season starts. :D It is good shade tree, has lots of leaf litters to restore the top soil + all life activated when the leaf crumbles.