Gardens+Team+5

Wonderful job! Nice presentation and highly informative. Needs more personal reflections and insights from group members.

Group Members: Ang Kai Yan (1), Crystal Chew (2), Yu Diwei (13), Charlene Ng (6)

**Interesting features of the Botanical Gardens:**
====1. The Botanical Garden's first director, Henry Nicholas Ridley known to some as 'Mad Ridley', came to the Botanical Gardens in 1888. ==== ====Ridley's persistence in persuading the Malayan planters to grow rubber trees was how he earned the nickname "Mad Ridley". He is known as the "father" of the rubber industry, and was also known as 'the English botanist who was largely responsible for establishing the rubber industry in the Malay Peninsula. ====

It was also then, that Singapore's national flower, the //Vanda Miss Joaquim// was discovered.
====2. The second director of the Botanical Gardens w as Professor Richard Eric Holttum. ====

** Sights and Sounds: **
=//**Simpoh air**//=

- The flower is yellow in colour and with 5 petals.
====- The fruit resembles a flower, so it is commonly mistaken as the flower of the //Simpoh Air//. ====

- The //Simpoh Air// has long roots that dig deep into the ground for underground water. People use it as a guide to dig wells.
=//**Cannonball tree**//=

 - The fruits of the //Cannonball tree// are hard and look like cannonballs, which is how the tree got its name.
====- The //Cannonball tree// i s one of the trees that bear fruits and flowers from the trunk all the way to the top. ====

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"> - The pollinators of the tree are bats.
=//**Penaga Laut**//=

- The flowers have a sweet fragrance.
====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">- The flowers of this tree open in the middle of the night and so <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">one can infer that the <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">pollinators of the tree come at night. ====

Interesting fact:
====<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">- The Penaga Laut is over 100 years old, and a void was made while building the second floor of the visitor center to accomodate its spreading branches. ==== =**//Tembusu tree//**= ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**﻿** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">**﻿** ====

- Like the //Penaga Laut,// the //Tembusu tree// is a heritage tree of the Botanical Gardens as it is about 150 years old!
=**//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Kapok tree﻿ //**=

Characteristics:
- <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">It has a greenish white cottony interior.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">- The tree is drought tolerant.
====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">- The leaves of the tree will drop during winter(although there is no winter in Singapore :), and the new shoots will grow again later on. ====

- T<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">he //Kapok tree// has a lightning conductor that runs down its length to prevent it from being struck by lightning.
=//**Sealing wax palm**//= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">

Habitat:
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">- Swampy areas.

Characteristics:
====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- The //Sealing Wax Palm// has multiple thin red stems that grow in clusters <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">. ==== <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">- The flowers of the plant are a greenish colour.

- The red sealing wax made by the plant was used by nobles.
=//**Coco de Mer**//= ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> ====

Characteristics:
- The //Coco de Mer// is a very slow-growing plant.

- The fruit weighs 500 kilograms and contains the 20 kilogram seed,which is shaped like a lady's butt.[[image:library_(4)_coco_de_mer_seed.JPG width="160" height="119"]]
=//**Rain tree**//=

- The fruit of the rain tree is a fleshy pod.
- Its flower is abnormal, as it only has pink and white stamens, which makes it look like a little brush.

=The Hybridisation Programme:=

1) Growth Media Preparation Room.
====Here, special recipes are used to prepare the growth media necessary to supply nutrients to the tissue or seeds. Precise amounts of mineral nutrients, plant hormones, vitamins, sugars and other ingredients are added to agar jelly. The whole mixture is sterilized by steaming to prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi. Seeds and plant tissue are then fed the growth media.====

2) Transfer Room.
====When plantlets become crowded in a flask, they have to be separated and transferred to new flasks. The transfer is done in laminar-flow cabinets. These cabinets provide clean, filtered air to ensure that the environment is free of air-borne germs.====

3) Shaker Room.
====Shaking the tissue in the nutrient solution is to improve the supply of fresh air and nutrients to the tissue. Shaking also helps to confuse the tissue. Without a sense of gravity, they do not differentiate into shoots and roots but grow into more tissue. When enough tissue has been formed, the shaking stops to let plantlets (with shoots and roots) develop. A very large number of plantlets can be obtained from the clusters of tissue visible in the flasks.====

4) Culture Room
====In this room, an environment with just the right temperature, lighting and humidity is provided for the plantlets to help them grow. Wall-mounted sterilizers remove air-borne germs from the air in the room. Germs and fungi can contaminate and make the plantlets very sick.==== = = =**Biological/ecological facts:**= ====<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">1. The Singapore Herbarium h﻿ouses a main collection of around 650,000 herbarium specimens, as well as a supporting spirit collection. ====