a sunday morning tree walk

i was excited to receive a text message from cel t. inviting me to join a pnpcsi (philippine native plants conservation society, inc) tree walk at the up diliman campus on sunday morning.

i met up with a small group at the admin building behind the oblation and we got up and started soon enough at a very familiar corner: university avenue cor. jacinto st, right near albert hall (my second home for oh so many years).

our guide, arch. patrick gozon (http://pinoytrees.blogspot.com/) began with a short introduction on the definitions of native, indigenous, endemic and introduced (so similar to how we start our bird walks!), pointing to several palm trees right there at the outpost, beside the lady bathing. obviously, aside from the huge palm oil palms and coconuts, i had never noticed these other palms!

it was a very educational and interesting morning. we walked from university avenue to the up lagoon area (horrors, the lagoon had been half filled in and overlaid with concrete!) on the side of vargas museum, to the back of the main library by the beach house, to engineering and beta way, back to the as building and the faculty center to nsri and msi.

it was a good time to go around, several of the trees were in bloom.

pili (Canarium ovatum) trees in bloom and fruiting on university avenue! imagine that!

a lifer tree: the salingbobog (Crateva religiosa) by the lagoon had such pretty flowers! they must be pretty sweet too, several pierid butterflies were drinking their fill.

the kalumpit (Terminalia microcarpa) tree in by the library in front of phan was still blooming. i know the fruit but i've never seen the flowers (or knew what the tree looked like!)  

katmon (Dillenia philippinensis) in up!  i know katmon because i kept on seeing its lovely flowers in the forest while birding, and the first time in palaypalay.  i learned in agusan that the fruit was used as a souring agent. 

this is a botong/putat (Barringtonia asiatica) flower and dried fruit.  i've seen this at the cbd at subic and even in ateneo! i didn't even notice the one at the msi!

(this isn't a tree but how can i resist the msi blue rock thrush when it lands right beside me and picks up a huge juicy caterpillar? silent note: when my main agenda ISN'T birding! it may be my last sighting of this handsome fellow for the season. )

i'd best be joining more of the tree walks and hitting the books and the internet... i definitely have a LOT more to learn about our native trees... even in up where i stayed for more than 10 years! i'm definitely looking forward to learning more!

• Share this on Facebook
• Tweet This!
• Share this on del.icio.us
• Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon
• Add this to Google Bookmarks
• Subscribe