Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Bat Lily about to bloom

A morning walk in the Bukit Batok Nature Reserve on Monday brought on an unexpected find. Towards the end of my brisk walking as I was heading back to the car park, I spotted this Bat Lily bud about the size of a small fist by the side of a foot path. I have seen the flowers in full bloom a few times before on Bukit Timah Hill and at another part of this park and I have also posted an entry showing photos of the flower in an earlier entry. What attracted me to this particular plant initially were the glossy leaves that were larger than similar leaves that I have seen before. They were comparatively huge in size and the flower at this stage of blooming seemed almost inconspicuous.I was so busy photographing the bud from all angles that I failed to notice that there were actually more than one Bat Lily plant. It was only when I had walked away from the plant and turned around to see it one more time before leaving that I saw a whole lot of them - unusual, really so because they were usually seen in isolation. So the NPB has decided to put a whole lot of these rare plants together to provide a feast for the eyes when they bloom, hopefully, at the same time. I hope that people's curiosity will not extend beyond admiration to the unsavoury boundaries of destruction when they see these unique flowers.

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