Gnetum gnemon - Melinjau

Gnetum gnemon is a small-to-medium tree, of Gnetaceae family, capable to grow up to 15m in height.  It is native to humid tropical forest of S.E.Asia and Pacific Ocean islands. 

In Malaysia, Gnetum gnemon is known as melinjau ( Malay ), and sabuok ( Iban ).

Melinjau is  dioecius, having male and female reproductive organs on separate plants, yet not completely so.  As a member of the gymnosperms, melinjau does not have flowers.  Instead, melinjau has strobili, which are an aggregation of sporangia-bearing structures.

Melinjau’s leaves are dark green, shiny, smooth, acute at both ends, opposite.  Leaf shape vary is shape, from elliptic, lanceolate to ovate oblong.  Leaf is 10-20cm long, and 4-7cm wide.

Fruits are yellow, turning purple-red or orange-red with maturity.   1-3.5cm in length.  A single large avoid or ellipsoid seed per fruit.

Melinjau prefers generally slightly acid to neutral soils ( pH 6.1 – 7.4 ) .   It tolerates infertile and shallow soils.  It can grow on soils high in clay or sand.   It requires freely drained soils,  tolerate several months of drought.  Grows in full sun, yet very tolerant of shade .

Melinjau seeds are eaten raw, boiled, fired, or roasted.  In Java, blinjo chips made from melinjau seeds.   In Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, the leaves and young inflorescence are eaten as greens.

Hearts of Palms

Umbut is the Malay word for heart-of-palm, which is a vegetable harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees.  It is costly because harvesting in the wild kills the tree.  It is therefore sometimes called the  ‘millionaire’s salad’.

A wide variety of palms are harvested for their heart, notably coconut ( Cocos nucifera ), Palmito Juçara ( Euterpe edulis ), Açaí palm ( Euterpe oleracea ), sabal ( Sabal spp ), pejibaye ( Bactris gasipaes ), oil palm ( Elaeis guinensis ) …

A stroll down the Sarikei’s Sunday market at Jalan Nyelong, one will be amazed with the variety of palm’s heart on sale…

This is sago's heart.  Metroxylon sagu also processed into sago pearl.

Mother said this is of nipah's, ( Nypa fruticans ),

which fruits are also harvested for its translucent, sweet kernel called atapzi in Hokkien. 

Sap collected from its inflorecence is made into alcoholic drink, vineger or atap sugar.

Young leaves are used for wraping tabacco for smoking.

This is umbut upeng, as the Iban lady said. 

Arenga sp. ?

This is hearts of Oncosperma tigillarium, a thorny palm.

This is supposedly rattan's shoots, locally known as selaris, laris, or moa.

Plectocomiopsis geminiflora 

Last, but not least, coconut's ...

Cocos nucifera

Artocarpus camansi - Breadnut

Breadnut ( Artocarpus camansi ) is native to New Guinea and possibly the Moluccas and the Phillipines.  In the late 1700s, the British and French spread breadnut throughout the tropics.  It is now widespread in the Caribbean, Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and parts of Africa.

Artocarpus camansi is grown for their large, nutritious seeds. Breadnut seeds are very high in protein and relatively low in fat.  They are boiled or roasted and are similar to chestnuts in texture and flavour.   Immature fruits and seeds are cooked as vegetables as well.




 

Breadnut is also known as castaña (Spanish), chataignier (French), kapiak (New Guinea), kamansi, dulugian, pakau, kolo, ugod (Philippines), kulur, kelur, kulor, kuror (Malaya, Java), mei kakano (Marquesas), pana de pepitas (Puerto Rico).



A breatnut tree is capable to grow up to 15m in height.   Breatnut’s leaves are alternate, large, 40-60cm long, moderately dissected with 4-6 pairs of lobes and sinuses cut halfway to the midrib.



Male and female flowers grow on same tree at the ends of branches, with the male inflorescence appearing first.  Male flowers are club-shaped, up to 3cm in diameter, and 25-35cm long.  Female inflorescens consist of 1500-2000 reduced flowers attached to a spongy core.



The fruit is a large fleshy syncarp, oval or ovoid, 13-20cm long, 7-12cm in diameter, weight approximately 800g.  The skin is dull green to green-yellow when ripe, with a spiny texture. The pulp is yellow-whitish when ripe with a sweet aroma and taste.  The fruit is not as solid or dense as breadfruit as the individual flowers are fused together only at their bases.



The fruit contains numerous seeds, from 12 to as many as 150, each weighing an average of 7-10g.  The seeds are rounded or flattened by compression and about 5cm long.  They have a thin, light-brown outer seed coat.  Seeds have little to no endosperm, no period of dormancy, and are unable to withstand disication.

Breatnut is genetically variable, diploid, and produces abundant fertile pollen.

The Making of Sago Pearl

Sago is a starch extracted from the pith of sago palm stem, Metroxylon sagu. It is a once a major staple food for the Melanaus of Sarawak.

The sago palm grows in the swamps of Sarawak. It can grow up to 30 meters in height, at 1.5m/year. The palm will only reproduce once before dying. They are harvested at the age of 7 – 15 years, just before flowering, when the stems are full of starch stored for use in reproduction. 1 palm is estimated to yield 150 to 300 kg of starch.

Sago flour contains almost pure carbohydrate. It has very little protein, vitamins, or minerals. 100G of dry sago contains 355 calories, some 94g of carbohydrate, 0.2g of protein, 0.5g of dietary fiber, 10mg of calcium, 1.2 mg of iron, and negligible amounts of fat, carotene, thiamine, and ascorbic acid.

The Melanaus uses the sago flour to make tebaloi cracker. The pearl-sago are consume directly together with peanuts, grilled prawns , or umai.

Process of making sago-pearl

1. first, the sago palm is felled

2. the pith is crushed and kneaded to release the starch

3. the crushed pith is wash and strained to extracted the starch

4. the raw starch suspension is allowed to settle

5. then, the starch is flipped repeated to form a pearl-like sphere of about 0.5cm
( how does flipped starch become pearl-balls ? Its just like rolling a snowball. When the starch is flipped, it accumulate and gather mass. )

6. a sieve is used to separate the pearl form the flour, flipping is continued to produce more pearls
7. finally, the pearl sago is heated over fire to dry it up.

CNY Decorative Plants : Pussy Willow 银柳

银柳 ( pronounced yin liu in Mandarin ) is Pussy Willow, a shrub of  Salix family.  Salix is a big family of around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, distributed all over northern hemisphere.  Most Salix are known as willow, some narrow-leaved shrubs are called osier.

The Salix used for decoration during CNY could be S. gracilistyla, a shrub native to Japan, Korea and China.   However, any Salix with furry flower buds along a long straight branch is qualify as decorative cutting during the spring festival.  Thus the list could extend to S. caprea, S. discolor,  S. cinerea etc

The furry flower buds are actually male flowers.  The buds appear early spring, before the leaves emerge, after the long cold winter.

Pussy willow ( yin liu ) in Mandarin sounds like “money” ( yin liang ), thus having the pussy willow around symbolizes abundant luck and prosperity.

CNY Decorative Plants : Ribbon Dracaena 万年青

The ‘Lucky Bamboo’ is actually not a bamboo.  It is Dracaena sanderiana, a small shrub of the family Ruscaceae from the tropical region of west Africa.

The Chinese called it 观音竹(Buddha’s bamboo)，万年青 (Evergreen).  Others called it Ribbon Dracaena, Belgian Evergreen … 

Its name after Henry Frederick Conrad Sander (1847-1920), a German-English gardener.  Dracaena means "female dragon" in ancient Greek.

The Ribbon Dracaena is germinated from short cuttings, arranged into multiple tiers; or trained into spiral-shaped ; or shaped to resemble a pineapple.   

SecretGarden @ Penang

A trip to the northern island of Penang, Malaysia usually ends up in heritage sightseeing or food hunting.  There are actually other Penang’s best that not many are aware of. 

Penang Botanic Gardens, established in 1884, the first botanic gardens in Malaysia, is a place not to be missed.  So are the Penang Hill, Penang National Park, Spice Garden, Tropical Fruit Farm, Butterfly Farm etc.

It was very unfortunate for me as I didn’t had the chance to visit Penang Hill.  The funicular train was not yet operational.   However I managed to ride the road tram at Penang Botanic Gardens, briefly though, no thanks to the unpredictable tropical rain.   I visited the Butterfly Farm at Teluk Bahang too, but in a hasten manner.   

Yet, I did encountered some plants at places least expected.

At Fort Cornwallis, Captain Sir Francis Light’s statue stood high by a Areca catechu, locally known as pokok pinang, the betel nut palm, of which the island gets its name.  

Also at Fort Cornwallis, a tiny purple peanut-like legume shyly grows at a corner.  I had yet learn its real name.
( Ongzi 2014 :  oh ! it''s Desmondium triflorum )

On a wooden crossing, a Ficus religosa quietly encroaching its roots.  

Then, at the Clan Jetties, I spotted a pot of malnutrition Catharanthus roseus.   Yet, the greens still capable of portraying a great contrast to the grayish wooden plank.

The locals selling nutmeg oil fronting their homes, also displaying some Myristica fragrans’ seeds.





Finally, at Penang Botanic Gardens, before it rains, I snapped a few photos of the infamous cannonball trees, Couroupita guianensis.  They were still in flowering stage, no cannonball-fruit sighted.