Che Nurul 'Aini and her Lenggong Rafflesia

I was waiting for the day Che 'Aini would be included in the Rafflesia Hall of Fame, for her relentless work on Rafflesia of Lenggong, which is the only known surviving site in Bintang Range. She came to my office with this photo last week.

Congratulation Che 'Aini, you are now just like one of them !

Tahniah Ng Suan Beng

Faizi and Ng Suang Beng came back from Cameron Highland on 20 Dec 2007 with a set of photos of Balanophora as part of his project. They have visited a new site near the border of Kelantan and I have positively identifiied the flowers as the Balanophora fungosa that I have not seen it before. That set of photos were then posted in my Flickr collection and these were selected by the University of British Columbia (UBC) Botany Photo of the Day for today's entry.

I visited the site again last weekend, with the two chemists Prof Dato' Dr Noramly Muslim and Prof Dato' Dr Laily Bin Din and Faizi as a guide. And sure equiped with my trusted Sony A100 and 100mm macro, we came out with 5 gigabytes of superb close-up photos. We managed to get male flowers as well this time around (Suan Beng) could not get good males then.

Watch out for our Flickr, coming soon.

Best of Lucks, Zu and DJ

RRMT lab is not going to be the same without some of the most senior members, who are leaving and returning back to their campuses in the late December 2007. Zu (Zuhailah Mazlan) has got a new position with Universiti darul Iman, Kuala Terengganu and Dj (Donna Jackson) was back to Bintulu campus of UPM. We are going to miss them and their leadership in the 4th floor. The lab is now being taken care of by Nery. We are expected to get both Jazreen and Izlamira who would be doing their Masters but we are not sure if they will be in our RRMT.

RRMT in Gunung Bubu

Congratulation to Mat Ros for his dash-in effort for the tracking of new bloom of Rafflesia in Jeliang. While Pakdin, Donna Jackson and Mat Ros were attending Bintang Hijau Cenference in Lumut, Pak Yeop sent us a photo of a recent bloom in Gunung Bubu.


I immediately asked and despatched Mat Ros to Gunung Bubu in the morning and he came back to Lumut in the afternoon (that was 200 km round trip) not to count dirt road with scrambler.


Mat Ros was soaked in the rain, lucky not to have his camera "toy" wet as well. Mat Ros know too well that another bloom is imminent.

Returning to Bangi, we received mms alerted by Pak Yeop again that the other bud was in bloom and again, I have to despatch Mat Ros and Faizi together with Nor Laddawan to go and collect neccessary data for her thesis project.

There are several more buds are there, and one mature flower will explode soon
Details in Rafflesia-in-Bloom and more photos are available in Pakdin Flickr collections.

Siti Nor Laddawan and Bubu Rafflesia

Congratulation to Nor Laddawan who was photographed with Rafflesia cantleyi of Gunung Bubu !
More news about the population of Rafflesia in Bubu will be posted in Rafflesia-in-Bloom