Gelagah (Saccharum spontaneum)

Gelagah or wild cane or Kans grass (Saccharum spontaneum) is a species of plants in Poaceae, chronic large grass, reeds spread widely in the tropics with rhizomes that spread long and erect stems, stout, thick hollow and 2-4 meters high.

S. spontaneum has a broad, green stem that is covered in a layer of white wax. Leaves and midribs have a length of 20 cm or more, purplish in color and triangular ligula with short hairs.

Ribbon-shaped leaves, 50-200 cm long, 3-30 mm wide, green, rough surface and sharp margins, a large white bone runs linearly in the middle, getting to the middle getting bigger and narrowing to the sharp end.

Flowers are collected in branch panicles that are branched, ovoid, dense and 20-50 cm long. Branch-shaped branches, 3-15 cm long, containing pairs of spikelet with a stem and the other sitting. From the base of the spikelet grows long white hairs.

Gelagah grows at an altitude of 0-1,700 m with high rainfall which is usually more than 1,500 mm/year. This grass is easy and fast-growing, adapts well to alluvial soils on river banks to sandy soils in former mines and volcanoes, resistant to drought and flooding.

S. spontaneum is used in controlling soil erosion and reclamation of mined lands, animal feed and elephants. The leaves are dried to make a roof, stems for pulp, shredded shoots for eye medicine and boiled shoots for vegetables.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Liliopsida
Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Tribe: Andropogoneae
Genus: Saccharum
Species: Saccharum spontaneum
Supspecies: Saccharum spontaneum ssp. aegyptiacum, Saccharum spontaneum ssp. spontaneum

Black potato (Coleus rotundifolius)

Black potato ( Coleus rotundifolius ) is a species of plant in Lamiaceae, herbaceous, fibrous roots and tubers, erect and slightly creeping stems, quadrangular, thick, and slightly odorous. Single leaves, thick, membranous, opposite and alternate. Leaves are oval, dark green and shiny on the upper side, bright green on the lower side. Up to 5 cm long, up to 4 cm wide, slightly hairy and pinnate leaf veins. Leaf stalks up to 4 cm long. Small, purple flowers. Star-shaped petals, lip-shaped crown, dark to light purple with a slightly curved tube shape. Flowering from February-August. Small tubers, brown and white flesh and tuber length 2-4 cm. Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Tracheophyta Subphylum: Angiospermae Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Lamiales Family: Lamiaceae Subfamily: Nepetoideae Tribe: Ocimeae Subtribe: Plectranthinae Genus: Coleus Species: Coleus rotundifolius

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...

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