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34 Ginger Forest 34. Heliconias & Ginger Plants The place Janda Baik - if you could get hold of map with roads shown then the place would looked "spider webbed". There is a fine network of roads in the valley of a very rural setting. Sorry while driving through - No landmark and no reference points. Not to be distracted. we had to stay on to one branch, purportedly the old "main road" of Janda Baik. Whole stretch till the foot hills of Gunong Nuang, the road is about 12 km long. In the first part of our drive, that segment, is the older part of Janda Baik and we were passing through kampongs like Kg Orang Asli Chemperoh. Along the way, there were numerous branch off to hidden resorts. Our target point was using the trail head to Gunong Nuang as reference. Nearing the end of our drive, we saw and found the familiar old junction to Gunong Nuang, Then, Oh! there was this new road to the left. It was extended and paved. So we drove on this new road. Noticed that it was probably made to accommodate or rather developed for the new "Glamping" industry. Anyway throughout the whole Janda Baik vicinity, just as I repeat, there were few roads going out to Glamping sites., Back to my story The "main road" running alongside the Sungei Genus, Heliconias plants were seen sporadically but no more extensively as before. Should I say, those gardens by the roadside that we passed by, were those of the local residents. They have little priority in decorating their gardens. Then, those used as weekend homes have little Heliconias or none at all. In total, I could count 6 species of Heliconias sighted. These too, were in small clumps here and there. But if you are a newbie, then this place have more Heliconias than seen in any of the nurseries in town, which is zero!. I could see that the contemporary choice was towards the usage of more popular and aesthetically better looking Calathea " sweet prayer plants" - Calathea lutea. They are better and more orderly plants for perimeter fencing So this was my exercise of ascertaining the presence of Heliconias in Janda Baik as I called it. End results, I could see are the Bunga Kantan plants -Etlingera elatior. Growing wild on the river banks. This species of herbaceous plant was left growing wild. The size of the forested patches showed that they are terribly prolific plants. We were taken back - the River bank along the road, just the conducive growing environment. We found a complete forest. Went crazy over this find and spent some time collecting pictures Part 1 Heliconia Plants 1. Remnants of Helicoinas Look at this unhealthy clump, this is not an example of poor management but sadly one of the few we saw. So uncommon is this plant in Janda Baik
2. Another species of "Dragon" This is a much healthier clump - only one of its kind
3. The wild Concodo Likewise, these few plants were not bad and we saw in two or three places but only small isolated clumps
4. Beefstick or Lobster Claws This is supposedly the most common Heliconias, we saw in 2 places also small clumps
5. Calathea "Sweet cigar" This is a common plant now. In one compound the entire fencing lined up. Then in many gardens. there were broken chain of plants along the fence
Part 2 The Ginger Forest 7. The Ginger Forest We found 2 stretches or maybe 3 because this large spread was divided by the road
8. Ginger Forest with little under growth There were under growth but very sparse. Can understand as Ginger plants are such ferocious feeder leaving no nutrients for other plants.
8. Clear forest floor - Ginger Forest The flower stems were really tall, some reaching height of 8 feet, otherwise most of them about 4 feet in height
9. A close-up view An idea how close the flowers buds were sprouting out on its own
10. Enjoying the view - Ginger Forest Its would be a field day for photographers
11. Full bloom The red species was among them though most were the more common pink species
12. Unharvested flowers This clump had all red flowers, not for the food industry but for the florist. That explain why the flower were left to be over matured and wither by themselves
13. Beautiful Ginger Forest Couldn't help, just using my hand phone to mak epicture where ever I could
14. A new bud Now I found a nice looking pink bud
15. Beginning to bloom Beautifully allowed to reach maturity
16. Another close-up of Ginger Flower Can't help by lured by the Majestic red flowers
17. Oh! still pink In excitment this picture out of focus. So few pictures made with phones! Unlike using a camera I would have the whole card load to pick and choose. But why is the flower stem distorted. Thats was the focus of the picture
18. Seeds formed Umm! Have not search how to plant from seeds
19. A full bloom pink flower Finally a flower that was properly photographed
The mission was to check out the status and popularity of Heliconia plants in Janda Back. Sorry, no more Heliconia haven in Janda Baik. In fact Heliconias ha seen better times and a type of plants discarded long time ago. A choice by people of another era. Meeting up with Ginger Forest of this size was extra ordinary encounter. A really good find. Now that I know about the place gives an additional destination to think about. I would be going back to practice my macro shooting and stocking up my collection of Kantan Flowers picture
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