Balanophora fungosa

Genus Balanophora is belonging to angiosperms (flowering plants) though it is always misidentified as some kinds of fungi by hikers. Though it resembles fungi by appearance but you could find floral structures in Balanophora such as its staminate and pistillate flowers and bracts by close observation. Also, fungi is saprophytic while Balanophora is obligate parasitic with specific hosts.

The specimen shown here is Balanophora fungosa taken in Queensland in late Oct, 2010. It actually has a wide distribution which is ranged from Northeastern Australia, Pacific Islands, East Malaysia, India, Taiwan and South Japan. It was reported having various hosts including Macaranga tanarius and Diospyros philippensis etc (Hsiao et al., 2010). It has monoecious inflorescence where pistillate flowers are on the upper part of the inflorescence while staminate flowers are on the lower part. There is also a wide range of floral color where the populations from Taiwan and Japan are pinkish orange while those in Queensland are yellow, as shown in the photographs here. Though it is considered as rare and vulnerable in Taiwan but it was found very abundant on the forest ground in Queensland, maybe due to different climate and host availability.


Reference:
Hsiao, S., W. Huang and L. Maw-Sun (2010). Genetic diversity of Balanophora fungosa and its conservation in Taiwan. Botanical Studies 51: 217-222.

Early Morning anthesis

Flowers of Thysanotus chinensis (Liliaceae) open fully between around 7 am and 9 am. It was listed as rare in previous biodiversity survey.

Early morning anthesis is a common phenomenon scattered through angiosperms. Flowers of the early morning anthesis species open in early morning, probably soon after dawn and close before or around mid-day. It is suggested to prevent heat stress as anther and stigma would be destroyed by over-heating and closure of flowers would also reduce transpiration. These are reasonable explainations as most of the early morning anthesis species are herbaceous, grassland inhabitants.

It is important to note that early morning anthesis should be more related to the pollinator activity where it is the ultimate goal of floral anthesis. After a quick search on the literatures, bees were reported to be the major pollinators of early morning anthesis species including Pyrrhopappus carolinianus (Asteraceae) (Estes and Thorp, 1975) and Cassia fasciculata (Caesalpiniaceae) (Thorp and Estes, 1975). Bees were reported to forage actively for the pollen after dawn and their activities quickly reduced towards the mid-day. The close relationship between pollinator activity and timing of anthesis is interesting and I think the early morning thesis species in Hong Kong are also pollinated by bees as certain groups of them are particularly active in the morning. There is a number of candidates for observation including the ones shown here, namely Geissapis cristata (Fabaceae), Thysanotus chinensis (Liliaceae) and Xyris pauciflora (Xyridaceae).

Geissapis cristata (Fabaceae) is another rare species in Hong Kong which inhabits lowland wetland.

Xyris pauciflora (Xyridaceae) is commonly found near wet places in Hong Kong. All of the species listed here are having brightly-colored corolla. It is an important feature to send visual signal to pollinators and to offer them a landing place.

References:

Estes J.R. and Thorp R.W. (1975) Pollination Ecology of Pyrrhopappus carolinianus (Compositae). American Journal of Botany 62: 148-159.

Thorp R.W. and Estes J.R. (1975) Intrafloral behavior of bees on flowers of Cassia fasciculata. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 48: 175-184.

Southern Cassowary

Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) is one of the very few extant members of ratites which is a group of flightless birds in the order Struthioniformes. The other members are all quite well known including Kiwi, Ostrich and Emu. They are primitive group of birds originated from Godwana and were once a very diverse group. However, as most of them require great home range and vulnerable to human settlement, urban development and persecution, many of them had gone extinct. Unlike Ostrich and Emu, Southern Cassowary inhabits forests which mainly forages on the forest ground for fallen fruits. It occurs in Southern Papua New Guinea and Northeastern Queensland, Australia. Its population in Wet Tropics in Queensland is, however, facing habitat loss which is a major threat to the population. The Australian population is therefore listed as endangered under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Queensland Nature Conservation Act.

This spectacular species is on the top of my target birding list for the Australian trip. However it is a nocturnal or crepuscular species which is somewhat difficult to see during the daytime. Fortunately, with the aid of a ornithologist from CSIRO based in the Wet Tropics, I finally saw a father with three juveniles in a resort at Mission Beach, one day before returning to Hong Kong.

It is interesting to note that the breeding behavior of Southern Cassowary is unlike other birds, where the female birds or both parents are responsible to nurture the chicks. Female bird of Southern Cassowary will leave her partner immediately once after laying the eggs. The male bird will then be responsible for incubating the eggs and looking after the chicks after hatching. Male Southern Cassowary is highly territorial which will patrol its territory and forage with its chicks. The above pictures show a father with three chicks foraging at the backyard of a beach resort. They were quite curious of what we were doing when we met each other. People seeing Cassowary have to bear in mind that they are potentially dangerous to human where there are reports of people being killed by this huge bird.

P.S. Southern Cassowary is listed in the interesting book <100 birds to see before you die>. Three ratites are in the list that the other two are Common Ostrich and Southern Brown Kiwi. This encourages me to dig out pictures of Common Ostrich..

Opisthotropis andersonii

Opisthotropis andersonii is not only endemic to China, but also a near-endemic to Hong Kong with a narrow geographical distribution. It has not been assessed by IUCN Redlist but no significant threat is posed to the species at the moment. It is non-venomous and very docile which rarely attempts to bite. It is commonly found in lowland streams in Hong Kong. It is not surprising to see two or more individuals in a night within the same stream.

Got a pretty nice view before night-safari.

Anisopappus chinensis

Anisopappus chinensis (Asteraceae) is a Chinese endemic which is mainly ranged from South China. It is also the only species from the genus distributed in China. It has a prolonged flowering season where flowers were seen from April to October. It explicitly inhabits dry grassy slope in Hong Kong. Though it is said to be a common species, I only had a few encounter of it. However, hiking on dry grassy slope in high summer is something not very pleasant.

Agriocnemis lacteola

Got some luck to see this locally rare small damselfly!

Eleocharis geniculata

Eleocharis (Cyperaceae) is a large genus comprised of about 200 species. Most of them are widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions over the world. Their very broad geographical range might probably attribute to wind-pollination and wind-dispersal mechanisms, which are particularly efficient in open and windy habitats that most of the members inhabit. No leaf blade can be found in the genus where only shealth is present which is a major characteristic for the genus.

Eleocharis geniculata is uncommon in Hong Kong. Their abundance might be confined by limited suitable habitat which mainly inhabit coastal wetlands. Identification of it is easy by identifying three major characters:

1. Spickelets are broader than culm (shown in 1st photo);
2. Stigma is bifid (shown in 3rd photo);
3. Nuts are blackish, of about 1 mm long with 6-8 hypogynous bristles (shown in 3rd photo).