I've always been very mesmerised by the large, shady, aged looking trees that line the roads of my neighborhood. But after the workshop and a little Googling, I found that they are actually rain trees, which, slightly disappointingly, not local. I don't have a closeup of their leaves yet cos the ones that used to be just outside my house have long gone. But here's a long shot of one. They have small leaves which closes upon rain and night fall, and occasionally flowers, small and usually yellow ones, and often occupied by paku-pakis.

May I know what are the species commonly planted here, perhaps to narrow down?
Do we have a list or something like that?

Some have been here for at least 30 years or so, and I hope to see them preserved for the years to come.

Thank you...

Dear Jenny,

You are correct that the rain tree often look aged due to the fissure of the bark. The fissures have ecological function due to their ability to absorb and retain water. This condition is suitable to germinate and help to grow the epiphytic plants such as ferns and orchids.


Asplenium nidus (Paku sarang burung)


Dendrobium crumenatum (Anggrek merpati)


Platycerium coronarium (Paku tanduk rusa)


Davallia denticulata


Drymoglossum piloselloides


Drynaria quercifolia


Drynaria rigidula


Pyrrosia nummularifolia


Pyrrosia longifolia


Sori of Pyrrosia longifolia


Phymatosorus scolopendria


Microsurium puncatum

Although it is not a local tree, Albizia saman brings a good example of epiphytic communities


A community of epiphytes on Albizia saman

The flower of Albizia saman (rain tree or pokok hujan hujan) is pink-white. It will turn brown as matured.


Fresh flower, old flower, and flower bud of Albizia saman


Fresh flower and flower bud of Albizia saman


Open leaves and young leaves of Albizia saman

We don’t have a list of planted road side trees, it is precisely the purpose of collective tree naming and mapping. Nonetheless, Albizia saman is among the earliest road side trees to be introduced in Malaysia. In Pinang, Albizia saman was adopted as one of heritage trees.

Hi Dr Khadijah, thanks again for the very informative post.

I had only recently managed to capture some photos of the trees, but my phone is not of very good quality. A few more questions...

How much information or visual detail do we need for identification of the species?
Since the trees are so tall, it is also hard to get some details.

Khadijah is currently overseas… I am not a specialist but I would like to add some comments.

Two mechanisms concur to tree identification:

1) analysis of characters
2) recognition

A non trained person (like me) needs to identify characters. Those are given in floras and their number depends to the kind of tree. In many times flower or fruit characters are not available. It is an exploratory process. Many botanists are seeking for dead leaves on the floor, the presence of stipules scars on the leaves… In some cases binoculars are needed to see characters in the canopy. A famous Botanist in Malaysia Edred John Henry Corner author of “Wayside trees of Malaya” (12 January 1906 – 14 September 1996) trained coconut-collecting macaque monkeys to do the climbing and collect specimens for him ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._J._H._Corner


Corner's coconut-collecting macaque as it appear on
the first edition of "Wayside trees of Malaya"


A trained person can recognize a tree by the same mechanism we recognize a person in the crowd without the need of measuring characters! We can see that on your last picture where we recognize a rain-tree on its overall crown shape.

Personally I have difficulties to recognize trees, but I enjoy the use of floras or the comparison of images.

Hi Jenny
Sorry for a late respond. I was away for one week to visit my family in Medan.

To take photo for identification should fulfill the botanical aspects for identifdication. Therefore the photos should capture the detail of reproductive organs which compose the flower (sori for ferns), the fruit, stipule, leaves and their venation, bark/trunk, buttress or any other characters. The aesthetic presentation where the photo was taken for artistic purpose may not necessary a good one due to the absent of botanical characteristics. Your current question can also be relayed to the previous answer where it was responded using few photos for how the plant should be presented.

Flower is still chiefly the most important character to be presented for plant identification because it provides better the character of species. Some characters belong to family for example the present of stipule on young leaves on Moraceae and Dipterocarpaceae. However, Moraceae for example Nangka or Chempedak has white sticky sap whilst it absent on Dipterocarpaceae.

I wish we will have more and more photos from you that we will sort out together for identification purposes. Here, more photos are presented to increase the photo library for identification.

See you soon
Khadijah


Young male flower, old male flower, and stipule scares of Artocarpus alitis


Leaves and fruit of Artocarpus atilis


Habit of Artocarpus atilis


Young leave is encapsulated by stipule.


flower of Bauhinia purpurea


Leaves of Bauhinia purpurea


Fruit of Bauhinia purpurea


Habit of Bauhinia purpurea