Spinyhead sida (Sida acuta)

Galunggung or common wireweed or spinyhead sida (Sida acuta) is a plant species in the Malvaceae, erect herbaceous, cylindrical stems, branched, dense, green, white-haired, growing in forests, agricultural land, waterways and roadsides.

S. acuta has alternately seated leaves with stalks much shorter than blades. Leaves are simple in shape, lanceolate to linear, rarely ovate to oblong, obtuse at base, taper at apex, margins serrated and widely spaced.

Small flowers, disc-shaped, grow in the axils, 2-3 items in a cluster. Centrally jointed stalk, no epicalix, complete, bisexual, regular, actinomorphic, hypogynous, pentamer and yellow.

Sepal five-part, gamosepalous, campanulate, slightly accressed, persistent, valvate. Petals five-part, polypetalous but slightly connate below and connected by staminal columns, crooked.

Stamens numerous, monadelphous, arranged in staminal columns. Stamina column shorter than calyx, divided above into many filaments, anthers monothecous, reniform, basifixed, short filaments, extrorse. The pollen grains are globose with spikes, about 90 microns in size.

Carples of five items, syncarpous, ovary superior, penta or multilocular with axile placentation, one ovule in each locule. Stigma round, according to the number of carpels. A schizocarpic pepperrp, 1 seed in each pepperrp.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Malvales
Family: Malvaceae
Subfamily: Malvoideae
Tribe: Malveae
Genus: Sida
Species: Sida acuta
Subspecies: Sida acuta ssp. acuta

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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Sembung rambat or bitter vine ( Mikania micrantha ) is a plant species in Asteraceae, crawling or wrapped around trees, perennial that grows up to 27 mm per day in tropical climates, branched stems where heart-shaped or triangular leaves are arranged in pairs and a plant can cover more than 25 square meters in a few months. M. micrantha has square-shaped stems or longitudinal bones, light green, many branches and has fine hairs. The stems have segments for lengths of 75-215 mm, each segment has a pair of leaves, new shoots and flowers. New roots grow when the segments come in contact with the soil. The leaves are in pairs and facing each other. Strands do not have hair, heart-shaped or triangular with jagged edges, length 30-125 mm, width 15-60 mm. Petiole is 1-6 cm long and has fine hairs. The flower panicle grows from the armpit of the leaf and the tip of the stem, having 3-15 mm long stems. Each flower head has 4 minor flowers. The crown is greenish-white, tubular and measures ...

Cogon grass (Imperata cylindrica)

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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