Hi all.

Just returned from a small month holliday to Malaysia. mainly to see orchids and Nepenthes.

On the Dutch forum where I'm a member of its a tradition that I make a photo story about what I've seen. Maybe you like that to.

This trip was a bit of a surprise to me as very shortly before I got the invitation to join Rianne Wubben and Yves Veniat (Of Ryanne orchidees in France) on a trip to Malaysia.
First I decided not to go but then again.... This was a very good oportunity.
So after buying a new camera and some research about the native flora it was soon time to go.

My personal main goal was to see Corybas in the wild and also to explore the world of the carnivorous pitcher plants Nepenthes there.
I choose these two groups as they are relatively small compared to "orchids in general" and since Corybas and Nepenthes have quite high standards for their habitat, visiting these would mean that we would certainly come across many more orchids and other interesting plants.

After our arival in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur we directly flew to Penang where our friend and fellow orchid grower Michael Ooi picked us up.
Michael Ooi is well known for his nursery AA orchids (or Ooi Leng Sung Orchids) wich is now run by his son Benjamin.
Michael and his family gave us a great welcome in Malaysia wich meanth a lot to us.

Penang lies in teh Northeast of Peninsular Malaysia and is for Nepenthes lovers well known for it's red form of Nepenthes albomarginata wich grows near the summit of Bukit Bendera on Penang Island.

Since we where in the "Neighborhood" a visit to this hill could not be missed. And so we went up with the funicular railway


First we went to our hotel to drop our luggage and to have some food. During our lunch the hotel staff told us that snakes could be sleeping in the climbing vegetation above our heads. And it did not take long to spot a beautifull pitviper sleeping above the stairs.
Pit vipers are deadly snakes but above our heads in the vegetation not really dangerous as they are not at all atracted to people.
So this was the reason of the nature minded hotel to leave them alone. And it is great to see that such a method works well.


A local guide picked us up later. And teh search was on for orchids and of course the red Nepenthes albomarginata.

Well, that didn't take long


Here you see a typical red pitcher


At this moment it was the dry season in northeastern Malaysia wich meanth that not many orchids where in bloom. However on a rock in teh deep shade we found this Dendrobium aloifolium.



This Podochilus species had an even smaller flower

The plant covered a rock and looked more like a moss than an orchid.

After seeing a lot of nice plants whe went back to the hotel

That night our friend the pitviper was awake


The next morning this was our view.

here you see Georgetown on Penang Island, The bridge to the mainland and the mainland in the morning mist

On the street we encountered a large Emperor scorpion. It looks dangerous but it's not


That day we had the wish to see paphiopedilum barbatum in the wild. Penang island is home of a very good form of this species but was thought to be extinct for a while.
Luckily some people still know where they grow and our guide was one of them.

Sadly it was not teh blooming season. But seeing a slipperorchid in the wild is always something special.

Right on a path grew this beautifull Goodyera species.

Probably G. hispida. A true jewel orchid.

High up in the trees grew these massif staghorn ferns. Platycerium coronarium I have been told.


A monkey.

Personally I'm not so fond of these naimals as they can be rather agressife. I rather be in a forest with hundreds of those emperor scorpions than in one with these monkeys because I know wich animal is more dangerous .

It was getting dark. But our guide knew about one orchid that we absolutely HAD to see. "The Tigerorchid"
There are many orchids that can pass as tigerorchid so I had no idea what he meanth at first but after he pointed us to a plant high up in the crown of a enormous tree it was very clear what it was.
There was a the most gigantic and monumental specimen of Grammatophyllum speciosum I have ever seen. It was at least 6 meters from left to right
It was not dificult to make a picture at that hour against the light but I hope you get a picture of the size of this monster.


Our next destination is Gunung Jerai or Kedah peak. Rumors say that one day the rodasides where home of Paphiopedlilum callosum var. sublaeve.


To be continued.

Rogier

Very interesting Rogier.

Penang is a fascinating island.
Only one thing wrong with Bukit Bandera. The top. I would call it 'like Blackpool', but in your case perhaps more like the 'drielandenpunt'. Anyway very noisy and not somewhere I wanted to linger.
Also on the funicular railway well, it's a good place to get to know people. In my case I got squashed, and I mean squashed, against a very nice lady who's husband had been the manager of that railway. She mentioned that it wasn't as squashy as it sometimes gets, and that on a busy morning you could tell what those near to you had for breakfast.
Definitely an experience!

But the ancient rainforest on the hillside is fascinating.

Alec

Nice pics and info - awaiting the next instalments now!

Those Vipers are stunning. The orchids are pretty too.

looking forward to the later part

Hello

some wonderfull pictures. i one day must go abroard to see orchids in there natural suroundings. could learn alot about them from it. have never been abroard so far so i guess theres a first time for everything.

that is a good silouet (cant spell that word) of a grammatophyllum (but why can i spell that?) , it shows the size they get too really well. it time they get so heavy that the break the tree they grow on. that one must weight well over 1 ton.

Happy orchid growing
F2F

Great I loved looking at the pics and reading about your visit, as the others have said I will be looking forward to part 2.

Thanks all.



Well luckily it was relatively quiet when we where there. On the way up we even had something I would call walkingspace in the train. The way down was a bit different. It was crouded untill a whole family decided to go down to.
Then it was. Well. Interesting....

It's time for part two. Gunung Jerai

Gunung Jerai is a mountain that lies north of Penang in the state Kedah. The mountain is therefore also known as Kedah peak.

Michael Ooi our guide. Knows the mountain from top to bottom as it was his playing grounds in his younger years. He told us that he can remember well that Paphiopedilum where growing along the roadsides here.

Sadly many visitors (strange enough also many schoolchildren) picked so many flowers and even took plants home that Michael wasn't so sure if we would be able to find some plants.

A public road goes towards the top but ends at a large resort. Only a small closed road continues. Luckily Michal was known there so we could drive trough.
After a short while he stopped at a small parking spot. And we got out of the car.
It took us about five steps to hit the ground as we where admiring these little babies growing at the roadside just as they used to do.


The exact species is Paphiopedilum callosum var. sublaeve.

Quite typical was that the abundant Nepenthes albomarginata there are just as red as on Bukit Bendera


Luckily there are many seedlings wich is of course a good sign.


Very lovely where the thousands of insect eating yellow Utricularia which grow in the wet roadsides.


A lot less common was this smaller pink species.


We went into the forest for a moment and the shade immediately brought new species like this Anoectochilus species.


Also this strange chlorophyl lacking plant (not an orchid)


Yet another miniature Podochilus



More of this rubbish

Note how this plant growing in the deep shade differs from the ones on the more open roadside.

Where there was a little bit more light we found this Zeuxine gracilis. An orchid of the jewelorchid family but this one drops her leaves annually.


Close by was this golden coloured skink lizzard.


When we continued walking over the road again we came across this beautifull Anoectochilus. It's clear that not many people and cars come up here.


Also this Bulbophyllum (triflorum?)



And Coelogyne fimbriata.



That day we stayed on or near the road to get a taste of the area as the next day we would go deeper into the woods with a guide.

But that will come the next time.

regards

Rogier

Once again thank you very much Rogier, a very enjoyable and interesting picture-story.

All that green sphagnum moss says that the area is very wet. Were the Paphs growing in such damp conditions as well? I would love one of those callosum var. sublaeve.

Great to see you had such a good trip Rogier. I'm totally enthralled! Of course you had my attention from the off with talk of Corybas. Hope it's not going to be a tease Still holding out hope of making it to the Cameron Highlands at least for a week at the end of August and something even more exciting if things go to plan.....
When does the curtain go up on part 3?

Craig

nice, possible Coel pallens the last one

Where's part 3?
This is better than going there (well almost) love the odd wildlife shots too, nice skink.
All those Paphs so little time, it is nice to see plants making a comeback into areas that seem to have been de-populated.

What a great holiday you have had! Thank you so much for writing about it with all those lovely photographs. Is there a part 3 to come - I do hope so.

Thanks all.

Yes there will be a part 3 (and 4,5,6,7 etc) as next to penang and Gunung Jerai we visited langkawi, Baling, The Cameron Highlands, Mount Kinabalu and the genting highlands.

However I have not resized those photo's yet so I'm not suer when I will be able to post those

@ Craig. I think you will like some of the next parts for sure I did see Corybas in the Camerom Highlands and I can definately say that I can partially blame you for that .
You gave me the link to the REACH website wich eventually brought me in Contact with Antony van der Ent a Dutch guy who cooperated on that Book. And he brought me in contact with a guide who showed me the Corybas in the wild.
So let me know if you go there to and I'll bring you in contact with that guide to so that you can see them as well.

@ Tyrone. Well strangely enough the sphagnum there wasn't wet at all. Just moist. I haven't tried but I wouldn't be surprised that it would be hard to squize water out of the moss. Also the places where it grows are far different that what I'm used to in Europe. (I'm not sure for South Africa of course) but I know exactly what you mean with Spaghnum moss that should be wet.
We did see Paphiopedlium growing in Sphagnum (and you will to in the next part ) and it was again moist but not wet.
Most Pahio's we saw where growing is stony sand though. I was surprised that they grow in more or less the same way as you would find Cypripedium here in Europe. I expected all Paphs to grow on a very thin layer of soil. But this seem to differ a lot depending on the species.

@ Piotr. yeas I was also considering pallens. It's clear that this plant belongs to the same groups as fimbriata, pallens etc. And it does not look exactly like the fimbriata's I know in culture. So I asked Barbara Gravendeel (she knows a lot about Coelogyne) what she thought and she said that it looks exactly like a fimbriata form she knows from Sumatra. And since Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia are not far from each other it could be the same type.
But I asked her why she does not think it's pallens. Because if this plant is a fimbriata than what makes the real pallens so special to separate it from fimbriata?

No explaination as yet

Regards

Rogier

And the journey goes on.

The next day we went back to Gunung Jerai with Benjamin, Michael's son. This time to truly explore the mountain with a guide.

We started of pretty good by hitting the jackpot of that day.
As our guide brought us to a flowering paphiopedilum callosum var. sublaeve.


What a sensation to see a Pahio flowering in the wild.

The plant grows at the base of a small hill and right on the other side of the hill we found the next jackpot. One of my goals this journey. Corybas in nature.

Sadly these Corybas geminigibbus where not flowering but that day there was no place for complaints

Michael told us that a Nepenthes species I really hoped to see (Nepenthes ampullaria) also grows on Gunung Jerai.
This was quite a surprise for me as this species is more common in the south of the country and a lowland plant. So why does it grow here on a mountian in the north?
I asked the guide if he also knew about this funny nepenthes with it's round cups.
"yes sure" That one grows here but it's quite some walk from here.

And so we went. The car was parked at around 1000 meters altitude and the plant grew at 700 so the walk went down for most of the time.

During our walk we came across a lot of interesting plants like this Dischidia.

The inflated leafs act as ants nests

An Eria (E. pannea?)


And this beautifull Acriopsis ridleyi


I don't understand why this species is practically unseen in culture.

Hey!! A Nepenthes!!
It was the common Nepenthes gracilis. This small species grows all over Malaysia however we have only seen it on Gunung Jerai


A red variety


While we where getting lower the forest changer. The trees became higher and the vegetation around us less rich in epiphytes. It is clearly to dark for most epiphytes here
A species that grows well here is the bizzare Bulbophyllum flavofimbriatum. Here on the photo together with Benjamin and our guide.

The flowers are quite unique as the petals carry small particles along thier edges. Sadly we did not see a flower
The species that belong to this group (Epicranthes) are all small botanical wonders, however pretty tough to grow as they strongly resent disturbance at the roots wich they only make at the base of the plant

The forest floor became flatter and wetter and even though I had never seen Nepenthes ampullaria before I read so much about them that I strongly felt that we where in the habitat of the plant.
I asked the guide if that was true and he said yes. Pointing at a spot 20 meters further. "Whe are here".

Most noticable where the clusters of pitchers that emerged from the climbing stems

Soon after that we saw that many small groups of pitchers covered the forest floor.




A little bit further we foudn this green variety


How cool!!..

After this all it was time to go up the mountain again. After all the summit is a place where a lot of orchids grow

Along the trail yet another mini Podochilus. (maybe P. tenuis)



A Paphiopedilum right in the middle of the path.

Here you can see the sandy soil it's in.

Podochilus muricatus. This fantastic little species is quite abundant here and feel like plastic when you touch them


When we came close to the summit the amount of orchids became higher and higher. Everywhere you looked where orchids
Bulbophyllum dayanum wich usually loves to grow on rock, here grows on a small tree.


Everywhere Coelogyne's.


Again the Zeuxine gracilis. But this one was in full flower.



After we enjoyed the view.


It was (sadly) time to go down again.


Next stop Langkawi.

Regards

Rogier

That Paphiopedilum callosum var. sublaeve had lovely colour! Terrible form though but to see it in the wild is too special to convey on a photo.

You are one lucky orchid traveler, Rogier.

Rogier. Thanks very much for what you've shared of your trip so far. One day when I intend to do the same thing. Your pictures have been truely inspirational.

I can't wait to see what comes next. It's always facinating to see what a plant will put up with in it's natural habitat. A lot of those paphs looked battered, some look like they're buried too deep....but because they're adapted to that environment, they can survive that sort of treatment where as in cultivation they might not.

Thanks again

Another lovely chapter to read through and great pics to drool over. Thanks

Good morning Rogier.
Absolutely brilliant!.....Thanks for this, made my day!

Really loving this Rogier!
Great to see the mess of litter and Sphagnum the Corybas are growing through. How did you know they're geminigibbus?
Love the Nepenthes ampullaria shots & was also thrilled to see some kind of Drynaria sticking up at the bottom of your Acriopsis ridleyi photo, albeit a very tatty looking one. Think my love of ferns is catching up with the orchids. The beautiful shot of Platycerium coronarium is one of my favourites so far - & with very stiff competition. BTW did you see any Lecanopteris? Thats one of the genera I'm really hoping to see.
Thanks for sweetening up a dull day of turf management & surveying. Can't wait for the next installment.

looking forward to the next post!

this really is almost better than going on a holiday myself

you did spectacular picture of Acriopsis ridleyi - very nice.

Come back to Coelogyne we have like two kinds of Coelogyne scientist, in one hand nearly all sp from fuliginosae section like fimbriata, ovalis, pallens etc are treated as synonims / different forms of fimbriata, in other hand we can see some who loves to divide them for many different sp, depend of location/ plant size, flower size and little details of flower structures... I can easly see different between fimbriata, pallens, ovalis, triplicatula, but is very hard to see different between fuliginosa and ovalis etc etc..

Love those all nephentes as well

Thanks all. Glad you like it. It's fun to whrite to as I'm living my whole holliday over again.

Sorry that there is some delay lately but I had so many other things on my mind that I could not resize the photo's and put them online earlier.

@ Osmophore.
Yes it is a bit dificult to tell wich species of Corybas it is just by looking at the leaves. Luckily the guide knew wich species they are. In fact there arent that many variegated leaf species on penisular Malaysia.
No I know what they are I really would like to see them in flower as C. geminigibbus is a beautifull species.

The ferns are great in Malaysia. We did see some Lecanopteris. L sinuosa is common on Gunung Jerai wher it grow together with other antplant species.
In the Cameron highlands I did see one of teh more complex species (with the nice lobed rhizome's) but I have no idea wich one that was.

@ Piotr
Yeah I see differences to between this plant of fimbriata and the ones I know in culture. But sometimes it's hard to tell if you are talking about a very polymorphic species.
At this point it may be one species in several different forms, each slowly separating from each other. Give it some thousands year of evolution and they all may be very distinct, who knows. New species do not just drop out of the air so somehere must be this blurry in between part that we probably see here.
The dificulty of naming and grouping orchids has a lot to do with the fact that they are are a developing group of plants maybe in their peak of evolution. So it is simply impossible that there are clear boundaries every time.
Well it will keep the taxonomosist buisy and disagreeing for some centuries at least

Here is the next part of the Journey

The holliday paradise Langkawi

Langkawi means something like red brown eagle. This probably refers to the Brahminy Kite wich is quite common there


It s a group of 99 islands wich range from small and rocky to larger ones with white beaches and towns. The largest of the islands is Pulau Langkawi.
When you are on the higher mountains of Pulau Langkawi you can see Tarutao island in teh north which belongs to Thailand.

You can actually see mainland Thailand in the distance to.

We did not had a lot of time to explore the mountains but we did went to the skybridge wich is a big tourist attraction there.


There where some orchids around here, for example this Agrostophyllum (at least I think it is.)


And again the Zeuxine gracilis.


However the real reason we where on these island was to see Paphiopedilum niveum in the wild. But for this species you must not go into the mountains

But onto the sea



In the little harbour where mant young mudskippers.


The sea south of the main island is full with these small islands.



And this is exactly where the Paphiopedilum niveum grows.

It's increddible that this ladyslipper grows in teh salty air just a few meters above the waves

And after some time we we saw one after the other.




Sadly not in bloom but the foliage is unmistakable.

Besides the lady slippers the rock where home of many other orchid species.
On this next photo you see a mass Vandaceous orchids and in the right upper corner some plants of Cymbidium findlaysonianum.


And here you see an Eria species and below it a nice Dendrobium secundum (small lilac clusters).


But not everything is great about looking for orchids here though .
It is for exampel not possible to have a decent picknick without getting wet feet

But you know. Sometimes life is tough.

Next destination is the jungle around Baling. The search is on for Phalaenopsis appendiculata.

regards

Rogier

Good morning Rogier
Wow!!.........why dont my Vandaceous orchids grow like that????.. ..picnik?.....you had time for a picnik! .....so many things to see, so little time..next instalment please....Phalaenopsis....ahh...you do realise this is teezing!