Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

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HORIZONS - Thursday 04 August 2005

BANGKOK POST

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Drifting off the beaten path

 

In the heart of Singapore lies a natural forest reserve that makes for an ideal

trek through a terrain full of towering trees, rare plants and creatures

 

Story and photos by NONN PANITVONG

 

 

The visitor centre at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve.

 

An unidentified crab, probably one of Singapore's three endemic species of

freshwater crabs.

 

A full-grown Spinny Turtle (Geoemyda spinosa).

'Trekking? " My friend asked, apparently surprised.

 

" Yes " I replied.

 

" In Singapore, you mean? " He asked again still not quite sure what to make of

the plan I just unveiled to him.

 

" Yes, in Singapore " I replied, almost shouting to sound serious.

 

" Trekking in the hotel's back garden, right?, or may be on the Orchard? " He

still didn't believe me.

 

" There is a patch of forest in central-west Singapore named Bukit Timah Nature

Reserve. We are going to trek there. " I told him.

 

" Ha ha ha. OK, good luck man. " He still found it hilarious, my

trekking-in-Singapore plan.

 

Most people know Singapore for its shopping centres, business districts, sea

port, international expos, etc, etc, _ well just about everything _ except its

forest, a 163-hectare (approximately 1,019 rai) patch of verdant mountain

landscape full of interesting plants and animals that lies in the heart of the

island nation.

 

My Singaporean friend, Eugene, and a young Chinese amateur naturalist named Zhou

Hang who has been studying in Singapore for seven years came to pick me up at my

hotel. We stopped by the Ba Ku Tae restaurant _ the famous pork ribs soup shop _

for breakfast and then proceeded to the forest that for people outside Singapore

didn't exist, the Bukit Timah.

 

The reserve's visitor centre was a nice two-storey building _ half cement, half

wooden. On the first floor was the park's office and on the second a nice

exhibition of what we could find in the forest.

 

We spent some time at the centre, bought some books, and took pictures of the

last wild tiger of Singapore which was shot down in 1930 and of plants and

animals that are found in the national reserve and were showcased there.

 

 

A nice heart-shaped flower of C. x timahensis, found only in Singapore.

Being an avid aquarist, I found the small fresh water crab and the forest

fighting fish (Betta pugnax) very interesting and really hoped that we would be

able to see them. But what actually brought me to Bukit Timah was not these

creatures but a small brown aquatic and semi-aquatic plant named Cryptocoryne x

timahensis. This plant is found nowhere else on this planet, but in Bukit Timah.

 

The first part of the route was a well paved stretch, as big as Thailand's local

roads, and wasn't anywhere even close to a trekking trail. The only thing that

made it memorable was that it was uphill all the way, from the start to the end.

Under the hot rays of the Singapore sun that found their way through the canopy

of trees, we walked non-stop and by the time we arrived at the first stop my

T-shirt was soaking wet.

 

There were many people in the park that day. We saw young kids in school uniform

dangerously storming down the hill, teenagers attending what looked like a

training camp, young and old couples jogging.

 

We rested at the end of the uphill climb and it was the first time that I had a

chance to appreciate the natural beauty of the park. The trees were very tall

and most were covered with moss, orchids and parasitic plants; various species

of palm were also present in abundance, but looking beyond the greenery we could

see the city of Singapore shimmering in the tropical sun. A small monkey came

down a tree under which we're standing begging for food, but the " no feeding "

sign posted all over the park reminded us not to oblige.

 

We continued our journey on a small paved road and after a while Zhou lead us

onto a real forest track where the earth, rock and tree roots were paved by

Mother Nature. From there we walked down a steep slope to the other side of the

mountain and finally I heard the faint sound of a running stream which meant

that we were very close to our destination.

 

 

A carpet of Cryptocoryne x timahensis.

Soon we reached a small cement bridge under which flowed the stream less than a

metre wide. Here, large fern trees provided shade for moss, begonia, and various

kinds of shade-loving plants that grew on moist rocks along the stream. Zhou led

us up the stream through a thick undergrowth where pandan trees with sharp

spines on the edge of their leaves were our main obstacle. The lean and fit Zhou

was at home in the forest while I and Eugene struggled a bit. I often got

tangled in the vines, roots or spines of the plants and trees.

 

We were now in a real forest, a far cry from the well-tended garden of my hotel.

After a while we found a small brick dam, which the guide book said, was built

by the Japanese during World War II. Zhou was the first to get there and I

caught up with him shortly afterwards.

 

" OK, you can say wow now, " he said.

 

" What? " I asked, trying to get a big ant off my back.

 

" Look there, " he said pointing at the muddy bank under the shade of large trees

close to where I was standing.

 

" Wow! " I said without thinking.

 

Right in front of me was a sight that was unlikely to elicit a " wow " from

anybody who saw it. It wasn't like a field of colourful tulip in Holland or a

garden of full bloom Japanese sakura, but a carpet of small brown dirty plant.

 

" We are very lucky. There is one flower over here, " Zhou said as I climbed up

the dam. " May I present it to you, the Cryptocoryne x timahensis, " he said when

I joined him.

 

" Beautiful! " I said, looking at a small, yellowish heart-shaped flower of the

plant that shot up some 30 centimetres from the water's surface. On this

particular plant, the leaves were much larger than those growing along the bank.

The leaves of the Cryptocoryne are very flexible; plants growing along the banks

have smaller but thicker leaves, while the leaves of the submerged variety are

normally larger and more delicate.

 

The plant I was looking at had dark green leaves with deep brown stripes, which

made its quite attractive (for me, anyway).

 

This plant is not only attractive visually, but its history is fascinating as

well. The species was first reported or made known to aquatic plant enthusiasts

in the mid-'90s after the Singapore Science Center published the picture of a

Cryptocoryne on its web site profiling endangered plant species, and ascribed

the specimen to C. griffithii.

 

One person who looked up specimen was Jan D. Bastmeijer, an expert on this

particular genus of plant. He found that the published picture wasn't exactly C.

griffithii but something quite unusual. In 1999, with the help of Singapore's

National Board, he got to see the real plant and found out that it wasn't C.

griffithii at all, but probably a natural hybrid of C. nurri and C. cordata. The

interesting part is that, C. nurri has never been recorded in Singapore and that

C. cordata, apart from being a lowland-brackish water species, was already

thought to be extinct there.

 

Both plants however, can be found in abundance on mainland Malaysia and

Indonesia. Being a hybrid, C. x timahensis was fully sterile, meaning it never

produced fruits or seeds but propagated by way of shoots. How it got here in the

stream atop a mountain remains a mystery.

 

Further up the stream some more flowers and beside them, in the water, we saw a

strange object that looked like a long pipe with two pointed ends. I carefully

examined it: at its side was written " For research purpose, do not remove " .

 

Although a hybrid, this plant is a rarity for hybrids seldom occur in nature,

let alone survive. This particular hybrid can be found only in this part of the

stream _ a stretch no longer than a few metres _ and nowhere else on earth. So

it was vulnerable to any change in hydrological condition that could result in

extinction of this only known population. Thus monitoring the conditions in and

around the stream are extremely crucial to its survival.

 

We were so captivated by the plant that we forgot everything else. While

climbing the dam on our way back I realised that we had forgotten to look for

the little crab and the forest fighting fish. So we began looking for them.

 

Zhou seemed an expert in attracting the attention of the Betta species. As we

sat down on the dam he picked up some small rocks and, one by one, threw them

into the pool at random.

 

" This method always works for me, " he said. After a while, a fish of brown and

green colouration emerged from under the Cryptocoryne leaves to attack one of

the sinking rocks. " You saw that? " .

 

" Yup, a young male Betta pugnax, " I replied. It was about 1.5 inches long and

the way it swam back and forth, it seemed somewhat confused by the goings on.

Nonetheless, it showed off its nice green colour and long fins.

 

" Wow! " , we all said in unison. We are all familiar with the domesticated

fighting fish that builds bubble nests to tend its eggs and young ones, but the

forest fighting fish lives in running water which prevents it from building

bubble nests. The result is that the male fish has to brood the eggs and young

ones in his mouth until they are big enough to live on their own.

 

The crab can be found under the leaves growing along the banks, the guide book

said. Carefully, we opened the leaves one after another until under one of them

I saw a small brown crab hiding there. " I found it, " I shouted and my friends

rushed to join me. It had dull brown colour and measured less than an inch

across. I took pictures of it and put the leaf back into place. Their number has

shrunk drastically in recent years due to the rapid pace of urbanisation

Singapore has gone through.

 

But the fun wasn't over yet. Bukit Timah still had one more surprise left for

us.

 

Zhou spotted something moving slowly along a bank of the stream. We moved in for

a closer look and it was Eugene who saw it first, the Spiny Turtle or Geoemyda

spinosa. In Thailand it's called Tao Jak. This turtle, according to the guide

book, was an uncommon resident of Bukit Timah and we were very lucky to stumble

upon this fully grown adult.

 

Our task accomplished, we high-fived each other and headed back, out of the

forest. Climbing a steep hill, we had to stop occasionally to catch our breath.

Leaning against a big tree and panting heavily, a quote from the movie Hitch

that I had watched on the plane to Singapore came to mind: " Life is not about

the amount of breaths you take; it's about the moment that takes your breath

away. "

 

 

 

MORE INFO

 

- For more information on Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, visit www.nparks.gov.sg.

- For more information on Cryptocoryne, visit the Crypts pages at

http://132.229.93.11/Cryptocoryne/index.html.

- For more information on the Forest Fighting Fish, check out www.siamensis.org.