Mt. Manalmon Plants, Ants, and Other Things

One of my favorite things to do is take close-up shots of what I find interesting. During our hike at Mt. Manalmon, there were many interesting plant patterns.

The first thing we noticed was an ant nest made of leaves.

Further along the path were plants that had an interesting fringe pattern on the leaves.

There were leaves with variegated patterns.

One of my absolute favorites on the trail were the pineapples. They were bright against the mostly green foliage. They aren’t as big as store-bought pineapples, about less than 1/3 the size, but apparently are much sweeter. All the pineapples we came across were immature, so we didn’t even try picking them. They would have been horribly sour.

There were plants with leaves like flowers.

One plant even had a very apt, if sexually explicit name. The locals call it Burat Aso, or Dog Penis, because of the shape of its seed heads.

If I remember my botany lessons correctly, it looks like a type of grass. The seed head is more correctly known as an inflorescence. I can’t correctly identify the type of inflorescence as I didn’t dissect it to reveal the stem, known as the rachis, and how the inflorescence connects to it.

Another favorite of mine is this tree we saw along the trail.

The neighboring mountain of Mt. Manalmon, Mt. Gola, is where there used to be marble quarrying. They used to quarry pink marble. The barangay was able to force the miners out of the mountain, to preserve the mountain and the river system. You can see how beautiful the stones are by what was left behind.

It’s difficult to determine which stones were left the way they were because of nature, or because of the quarrying.

I want to go back. I know there’s still more to see.