Roadside Trees of Italy : Hazel

The hazels, Corylus  are deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere.  Hazels are place in the Betulaceae, but some botanist spit them into a separate family Corylaceae.

The fruit of the hazel is the hazelnut.

Hazel have simple rounded leaves with double-serrated margins.  There flowers are produced early in spring before the leaves.  Flowers are monoeciuos.  Fruit surrounded by involucre, with a smooth shell.  

A hazel tree are coppiced every few years.  Regenerated shoots will bear more fruits.  Hazelnuts are harvested annually in mid-autumn.  The trees will drop their nuts as well as the leaves.  The nuts are swept off the ground and separated from debris.

Corylus has 14 – 18 species :

1. Corylus americana – American hazel

2. Corylus avellana – common hazel

3. Corylus heterophylla – Asian hazel

4. Corylus yunnanensis – Yunnan hazel

5. Corylus colchica – cochican filbert

6. Corylus cornuta – beaked hazel

7. Corylus maxima – filbert

8. Corylus sieboldiana – Asian beaked hazel

9. Corylus chinensis – Chinese hazel

10. Corylus colurna – Turkish hazel

11. Corylus fargesii – Farges’ hazel

12. Corylus jacquemontii – Jacquemont’s hazel

13. Corylus wangii – Wang’s hazel

14. Corylus ferox – Himalayan hazel

15. † Corylus johnsonii

Several hybrids exist, and many more cultivars were grown.

The common hazelnut, Corylus avellana, is the most extensively grown hazel for its nuts.  Nut are also harvested from other species, but apart from the filbert, none is of significant commercial importance.

Apart from the edible seed, hazel is also a traditional material used for making wattle, withy fencing, baskets, and the frames of coracle boats.  A number of cultivars are grown as ornamental plants.

Hazelnuts are used in confectionary to make pralines, chocolate truffles and a wide range of hazelnut paste products : Austrian tortes, Ukrainian Kyiv cake ; French dacquoise ; Italian frangelico, Bicerin di Gianduiotto gianduja ; Georgian churchkhela and satsivi, etc.

The most famous Italian hazelnut products is none other than Ferrero Rocher.   Ferrero’s others famous hazelnut-based products includes : Nutella and Kinder Bueno.  Ferrero is based in Alba, a town in region of Piedmont, Italy.

Roadside Trees of Italy : Olive

 Olive, Olea europaea, which means ‘oil from/of Europe’, is an evergreen tree native to the Mediterranean region.   It is easily recognized by its silvery green oblong leaves.  Flowers are small white.  The fruit is a small drupe.

There are six natural subspecies of Olea europaea distributed over a wide range :

1. Olea europaea subsp. europaea ( Mediterranean Basin )

2. Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata ( from South Africa throughout East Africa, Arabia to South West China )

3. Olea europaea subsp. guanchica ( Canaries )

4. Olea europaea subsp. cerasiformis ( Madeira ) ( tetraploid )

5. Olea europaea subsp. maroccana ( Morocco ) ( hexaploid )

6. Olea europaea subsp. laperrinei ( Algeria, Sudan, Niger )

Though, there are thousands of cultivars of the Olea europaea.

Olive tree is very hardy.  They are drought-, disease-, and fire-resistant.  The root system is capable to regenerate even if the above-ground structure is destroyed.  It is therefore many olive trees are said to be hundred of years old.  A few were claimed to be over one or two thousand years old.

The olive tree are cultivated for olive oil, fine wood, olive leaf and the olive fruit.     Olive oil is produced by grinding olives and extracting the oil mechanically or chemically.  Italy alone, produced over 15% of world’s olive oil.   Olive leaves are used for its medicinal properties. 

Interestingly, olives are harvested by shaking the bough or the whole tree.  Net are wrap around the trunk to catch the fallen fruits.  Table olive are hand-picked.  Bruised fruits tend to be inferior quality.

Fresh olives are not palatable as they contain oleuropein, which make them bitter ; and phenolic compounds  They are cured with lye, brine or fresh water to make them more palatable.   Oleuropein is removed by soaking in fresh water or brine.  Most olives will be allowed to ferment before being packed in brine solution.  Olives can be flavoured by soaking in a marinade or pitted and stuffed.

Langkawi Geopark

Langkawi comprises a group of 99 tropical islands laying of the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia.   With a geological history dating back 550 million years, the islands contain unique rock formations, which earn itself UNESCO’s Global Geopark status on June 1^st, 2007.

Formation

Langkawi was born in the Cambrian era as a broad sedimentary mound, as part of the Gondwanaland supercontinent,  at the bottom of a turbulent sea just north of the equator.  Tectonic plate movements carried the mound south to the cold Antarctic regions.  The frozen glacier crushed the limestone, sandstone and siltstone into a base of hard granite and marble.  Then, over 400 million years, it was covered by deposits of various material from sea life skeletons to glacial droppings.

During the Permian period, the plate broke away and moved northward back to the equator.  In a series of cataclysmic event accompanied by exploding volcanoes and hot lava, the plate crashed up against the East Malaysia/Indochina block, which pushed the whole block all the way to the surface to form the Malay Peninsular.  The cataclysmic events also pushed the Himalayas to the roof of the world.

Large mound of rock and limestone then form small group of islands off the coast of the Malay Peninsular.   One mount of hot magma eventually squirmed up some 800 meters to form the Gunung Raya.  At about the same time, an ancient limestone mountain rose from the sea to form Gunung Machinchang.

During the Jurassic period, the land is further carved by the erosions, chemical reactions and a series of uplifting eruptions.

Later during the last Ice Age, sea levels were pushed up and down drastically as a result of glacial melting and global cooling, forming caves full of fossils.

Langkawi Geopark

Langkawi Geopark comprises of Machinchang Cambrian Geoforest Park ( 4,274 ha ), Kilim Karst Geoforest Park (8,261 ha ), and Dayang Bunting Marble Geoforest Park ( 4,354 ha ). 

The Machinchang Cambrian Geoforest Park

Machinchang Cambrian Geoforest Park hosts the oldest geological formation in Malaysia known as the Machinchang Formation ; oldest grains of sand at Teluk Datai ; oldest fossil on Pulau Jemuruk. ; and Tanjung Sabung where limestone succeeds sandstone. 

Other attractions within the park include : Telaga Tujuh waterfall,  beautiful beaches in Teluk Datai and Pantai Kok.

Kilim Karst Geoforest Park

Kilim Karst Geoforst Park features magnificent landscape of limestone pinnacles of various shape and sizes.  The northeastern region encompassing three river basins of Kilim, Air Hangat and Kisap too host magnificent landscape of mudflats, beaches, mangroves and caves.  The name ‘Langkawi’ is said to have been derived from the Brahminy Kite eagle, which is the dominant faunal species of the area.

The Dayang Bunting Marble Geoforest Park

The Dayang Bunting Marble Geoforest Park is made of Permian marble overthrusted by older Setul Formation limestone.    One of the most unique features of the park is the fresh water lake of Tasik Dayang Bunting, formerly a dry doline resulted from the collapse of a very large underground limestone cave.

Other geological marvels

An alien granite dropstone that is 1 billionyears old can be founding sandstone and mudstone at Pulau Tepor.  These dropstones once drifted by a glacier before it was dropped in Langkawi which was still submerge underwater.

An ancient seabed also can be found in Pulau Ular.

A cater known as Mahsuri Ring is said to be the result of the impact of a meteor .  The crater lay in the alluvium paddy field, is visible from Gunung Raya.

Momordica dioica - Kakrol

Kakrol is most probably the fruit of Momordica dioica, a liana of the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae.   Kankrol is also known as spiny gourd, teasle gourd.  

In South Asia, where kakrol is widely cultivated for consumption, it is known in many names : karela (Hindi), katwal (Gujarati), erimapasel (Malayalam), karkotaki (Sanskrit), palu-pakal (Tamil), advikakara (Telugu), bhat korola (Bengali),  etc.

A kakrol fruit is oblong, about 6cm in length and 3cm in diameter, turned yellow upon ripening, with surface covered in many small soft blunt pines. 

Kakrol fruits is bitter in taste.  They are usually peeled before cooking.  They are usually cook with curry, or hollowed, stuffed with spices and steamed, or made into pickle, etc.  

Salvinia minima - Common Salvinia

Salvinia minima is a species of aquatic, floating fern of Salviniaceae family native to South America. 

The leaves of S. minima are small and oval, ranging from 0.4 to 2.0 cm in length.  The leaves grow in sets of three, with two leaves floating on the surface and one leaf dissected, hanging underneath.  Fine white hair grow uniformly on the leaf surface.  Brown hairs present on the underside of leaves.  S. minima is rootless.

Salvinia minima is classified as an invasive species on the Global Invasive Species Database.  It can be a nuisance to recreational watercraft, have adverse affects on fish farming, rice farming, and poses a serious threat to native species and biodiversity.

  

Salvinia minima grows on the surface of still freshwater.  Although it is sterile, S. minima can reproduce quickly very quickly asexually through fragmentation.  Buds and rhizome fragments can also remain dormant for long period of time when growth is less favorable.

S. minima undergoes 3 stages of growth.  In the primary stage, the leaves will lie flat on the water surface.  In the secondary stage, the leaves multiply and curl upward.  In the tertiary stage, the leaves become more dense and almost vertical due of crowding.

S. minima can easily out-compete and inhibit the growth of native water plants.  Mats of S. minima can block sunlight from entering the water.  S. minima, which has no nutritional value, is not favoured by fish or bird species as a food source.

In order to protect native ecosystems, numerous effort have been taken to control or eradicate the growth of Salvinia minima.   Herbicides that have been used with best success include : fluridone, imazamoz, and penoxsulam.  Successful biological control agent includes Crytobagous salviniae,  the salvinia weevil native to South America ; and Samea multiplicalis, the salvinia stem-borer moth native to southern US.

FRIM Map

The Star : Rare finds on outcrops

Tuesday July 16, 2013

BY TAN CHENG LI

Lush hills: Soaring limestone outcrops, such as Gua Panjang, tower over the landscape of Kampung Merapoh, Pahang. Botanists say each hill is dominated by different flora. – Photo by LAILA BASIR

Botanists uncover a flora treasure trove in Merapoh hills.

THE drive along Federal Route 8, or the Gua Musang Highway, in Pahang, is a rather scenic one. Towering over the expanse of oil palm estates, which are broken up in parts by rural kampung and lush forests, are majestic-looking limestone outcrops.

Some 20 limestone karsts – some people say it is at least 30, as not all are shown on maps – are scattered along the road stretching from Chegar Perah to Merapoh in the district of Lipis before the land inches into Kelantan territory.

The karsts are highly visible as one makes the drive but surprisingly, they are completely unknown from a botanical viewpoint.

“We looked for data and found no record of the plants there. None of the limestone hills have been botanically explored before. For us, it’s a botanical blank on the map of flora,” says Dr Ruth Kiew, a plant taxonomist at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM).

And so, when her team converged on the hills around Merapoh, there were plenty of interesting discoveries – there were rare, endemic plants, and even an undescribed one.

At Gua Gunting, the hill which will be quarried, they recorded over 200 plant species in just two days. This is hardly surprising as limestone hills are known for their rich plant diversity.

Peninsular Malaysia’s limestone hills cover only 0.3% of the land area but are home to 14% of her plant species. Unfortunately, none of the limestone hills in Merapoh are protected, and hence, are at risk from wanton development. The FRIM team made two trips this year, where they surveyed five hills.

“From what we have found so far, it’s a unique place as the flora on each hill is so different. This is unique from my experience of working in Malaysia,” says Dr Kiew, a leading authority on limestone flora. “I expected the flora to be an extension of limestones from Gua Musang (in Kelantan), so I was surprised that the hills are so different and we’re picking up unexpected things.”

One such instance is the discovery of Pararuellia sumatrana (below) var. ridleyi which is previously known only from Batu Caves, Selangor.

Pararuellia sumatrana var. ridleyi was thought to grow only in Batu Caves, Selangor, but was recently found in Merapoh.

Another important find is that of a balsam, Rhynchoglossum obliqua, previously known only from Gunung Tupus (at Chegar Perah, south of Merapoh) and another undisclosed site. FRIM scientists failed to locate the plant at Gunung Tupus, now surrounded by oil palms, and believe it has become extinct there.

“This is just one indication of what can happen. If limestone hills are surrounded by oil palms and there is burning to clear the land, that will destroy the flora. If the hills are not protected with a buffer, then it is easy for species to become extinct.”

The Merapoh hills also harbour species of fern, begonia and balsam that grow only on limestone. The scientist also found the Pandanus irregularis which is endemic to Peninsular Malaysia and grows only on the summits of limestone hills.

Some other finds:

> Spelaeanthus chinii – Endemic to Pahang, it was previously known only from Taman Negara and another hill in Lipis.

> Zippelia begoniifolius – Known from only three collections, the last one in the 1930s.

> Monophyllaea musangensis - Previously known only from Gua Musang, Kelantan.

> Tridynamia megalantha – Last collected in Perak in the 1880s.

> Calciphilopteris alleniae - A rare endemic fern known only from five limestone hills.

> Cleisostoma complicatum – This is the third locale for this orchid which is found in Pahang for the first time.

These are just the preliminary findings; the botanists have bags of specimens awaiting analysis and they intend to make more trips to Merapoh.

“We’re just scratching the surface as we’ve only surveyed five hills. We need to survey all 20 hills to document the plants and see which is critically important for conservation because of rare and endangered species.

“Limestone hills have a lot of micro-habitats. For instance, at the foothills you get plants suited to damp conditions. On the rock face, there are other types of flora and at the hilltop, you get plants which are exposed to the sun. So, you must survey all habitats to get a complete list of the flora,” says Dr Kiew.

She adds that surveys of fossils, micro-snails and cave fauna are also needed to determine the importance of the hills for wildlife.

Preservation of the caves is important, she adds, as they can be part of the Sungai Yu wildlife corridor, a stretch of forest that is important for connecting Taman Negara and the Main Range, the country’s two largest forest complexes.