Merkus pine (Pinus merkusii)

Tusam or gondorukem or Sumatran pine or Merkus pine (Pinus merkusii) is a species in Pinaceae, 25-45 meters high and 1 meter in diameter. Orange-red-brown bark, thick, cracked at the base of the stem, thin and scaly in the upper crown.

P. merkusii is endemic to Sumatra and the only natural distribution of members of Pinaceae in the southern part of the Equator. Most grow at an altitude of 400-1,500 meters, but sometimes at 90 meters and 2,000 meters. This tree generally covers the entire canopy in a large area.

The leaves are needle-shaped and paired, 15-20 cm long, less than 1 mm thick and green or yellowish in color. Woody cones have a length of 5-8 cm and a width of 2 cm at the base when closed, green but with aging will turn red-brown shiny.

Cones will open to 4-5 cm wide at maturity to release seeds in all directions. The seeds have 5-6 mm length and 15-20 mm wings to fly riding the wind. Tusam has separate male and female genital organs but in one individual.

Sumatran pine naturally dominates mountain tropical forests in Indonesia, but is widely cultivated in a number of places in Java and Sumatra to harvest sap on the stem as a raw material for turpentine and gondorukem or resina colophonium.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Class: Pinopsida
Order: Pinales
Family: Pinaceae
Genus: Pinus
Subgenus: Pinus
Section: Pinus
Species: Pinus merkusii

Wild durian (Cullenia exarillata)

Wild durian ( Cullenia exarillata ) is a species of plant in the Malvaceae, a tall tree with smooth, greyish-white bark, peeling on older trees, a straight trunk, horizontal branches and often with a series of knob-like tubercles for flower and fruit attachment. C. exarillata has young branches and the underside of the leaves is covered with golden brown peltate or shield-like scales. The leaves are single, alternate, glabrous, glossy green on the upper side and covered with silvery or orange peltate scales on the underside. Hermaphroditic flowers are tubular and also covered with golden brown scales, 4-5 cm long and cream or reddish brown in color. Flowers have no petals, formed of tubular bracteoles and tubular calyxes, 5-lobed. Fruit is round, 10-13 cm in diameter, covered with thorns and clustered along the branches. Many seeds, reddish brown, 4-5 cm long and 2-3 cm wide. The seeds are enclosed by a fleshy, whitish aril. The fruit splits open when ripe and dries to release the s...

Prof. Weiming Zhu ironwood (Xantolis weimingii) described with completely glabrous flower crowns

NEWS - Xantolis weimingii (Sapotaceae, Chrysophylloideae) is described from Yunnan, southwest China and can be easily distinguished from its relatives by the combination of densely covered plants with ferruginous arachnoid-lanate, oblong or obovate leaves and pendulous staminodes at the base. Xantolis Raf. 1838 (Sapotaceae, Chrysophylloideae) is a small genus of trees and shrubs containing about 14 species with a distribution from the eastern Himalayas to the Philippines in tropical Asia. The genus is morphologically characterized by distinct spines, a sharp anther appendage, lanceolate lobes on the calyx and corolla, and aristate staminodes. Molecular data suggest that the genus is sister to the entire subfamily Chrysophylloideae and is a very isolated and poorly understood genus. Specimens was first collected in the Luzhijiang Valley in August 2015, but only sterile or fruiting specimens were collected. In April 2022, a specimen with flowers was finally collected in Wadie, Yuanjiang...

Thomas Sutikna lives with Homo floresiensis

BLOG - On October 28, 2004, a paper was published in Nature describing the dwarf hominin we know today as Homo floresiensis that has shocked the world. The report changed the geographical landscape of early humans that previously stated that the Pleistocene Asia was only represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens . The report titled "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia" written by Peter Brown and Mike J. Morwood from the University of New England with Thomas Sutikna, Raden Pandji Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wahyu Saptomo and Rokus Awe Due from the National Archaeology Research Institute (ARKENAS), Indonesia, presents more diversity in the genus Homo. “Immediately, my fever vanished. I couldn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t wait for sunrise. In the early morning we went to the site, and when we arrived in the cave, I didn’t say a thing because both my mind and heart couldn’t handle this incredible moment. I just went down...

Dlium