Sweet inga (Pithecellobium dulce)

Asem londo or blackbead or guamúchil or sweet inga or Inga javana (Pithecellobium dulce) are species of flowering plants in Fabaceae, have many branches, irregular canopy, always green, 10-15 m high, thorny stems, drought and dry soil resistant at altitude up to 1,500 m.

P. dulce has compound leaves, 4-10 cm panicle stems, 7.5 mm leaf stalks, asymmetrical ovate leaves with pointed to round edges, double pinnate bones, shiny dark green on the top surface, light green on the bottom surface, 1.5-3.5x1-2 cm and not hairy.

Greenish-white flowers in panicles containing 1520 items, fragrant and 12 cm long but appear shorter because of the circular, smooth hair and 1-2 cm long stems. The petals are tubular and 1.5 mm long, the crown is tubular and 3.5 mm long. White flower stalks.

Flowers produce green pods that turn pink and black when ripe and open to release pink or white aryl, sweet and edible. The pods are flat, curled and 1 cm wide. Aryl contains asymmetrical flat seeds, shiny black, 9x7x2 mm. Seeds spread carried by birds.

Sweet inga growing from seeds takes 5-8 years to produce fruit. Seeds need 2 weeks to germinate. Flowering in April-June and pods mature in June-August. Seed oil can also be eaten, while seed flour is for animal feed.

Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Rosids
Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae
Genus: Pithecellobium
Species: P. dulce

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...

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Alang-alang or cogon grass ( Imperata cylindrica ) is a plant species in Poaceae, annual grass, sharp leaf, long buds and scaly, creeping under the ground, very adaptive and grows in all climates which often become weeds on agricultural land. I. cylindrica has a sharp pointed tip of the bud and emerges from the ground, height of 0.2-1.5 m but in other places it may be more, short stems, rising up to the ground and flowering white or purplish, often with wreath of hair under the segment. Leaf strands in the form of long ribbons, lancet-tipped with a narrow base and gutter-shaped, 12-80 cm long, very coarse edge and jagged sharply, long hair at the base with broad, pale leaf bones in the middle. The flowers are panicles, 6-28 cm long with long-haired and white-colored ears for 1 cm which are used as a tool to blow off the fruit when ripe. Cogon grass breeds quickly with seeds that spread quickly with the wind or through rhizomes that quickly penetrate the soil. Alang-alang does...

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