ACMELLA OLERACEA

This groundcover Acmella oleracea (Synonym: Spilanthes oleracea, Spilanthes acmella, Bidens oleracea; Common Name: Toothache Plant; Family: Asteraceae) was planted at the Malay Garden and from the looks of it, it is rather free-flowering.

BUTTERFLIES

There are 3 species of native butterflies highlighted in this post. I have not talked or posted about them for a long time now.

The first is the Plain Tiger on the flower of the Tabernaemontana. The second is the interesting Tawny Coster that is often found in wastelands. We do have the weedy climber host plant Passiflora foetida found in certain parts of the garden and the Bidens alba provides the nectar for its butterflies. Finally, the caterpillars of the Mottled Emigrant are abundantly found on the host plant Senna alata planted at several spots in the garden.

BAY EAST

I love the Bidens alba planted along the Skyline Promenade. In fact, it looks better than in the photos. As for the Barleria cristata, it finally flowered after they stopped pruning the shrub and the purple and blue flowers are so lovely.


The sky gradually turned dark and I switched my Nikon camera to the night mode to take the night photos. Under this mode, the whole city skyline and garden looked brighter than it actually was. 

DELIAS HYPARETE

I managed to capture these photos of the Painted Jezebel butterfly flitting from one flower to another flower of the Bidens alba. Beautiful!

BIDENS ALBA

These are more photos of the Bidens alba and the interesting seed heads, which look like pincer claws of crabs.

BIDENS ALBA

I started growing this Bidens alba (synonym: B. pilosa, common name: Beggar's Tick, Spanish Needles, Butterfly Needles) from the Asteraceae (Compositae) Family when I started working on the Butterfly Garden project.

This is a fast-spreading nectar plant for butterflies. If not controlled, it would spread very quickly to other areas. When visitors go in to HortPark from Pasir Panjang Road, they would see a whole sea of them on the left of the road and butterflies can often be seen visiting these flowers.

A link on this plant is attached below:

http://www.floridata.com/ref/b/bide_alb.cfm

BIDENS ALBA

This Bidens alba is a beautiful but weedy plant that grows up to 0.6 m or more in height. With the stalks of flowers, they actually look even taller.

It is easily propagated by the numerous seeds from the very prolific seedhead shown below. The photos were taken on 11 Jan 10.

Apparently, there are a few varieties of them and this is the one I love most because it has bigger white florets and has a more elegant leaf shape.

If left on its own, it would surely sprawl up everywhere in its vicinity, just like the area at HortPark from the Pasir Panjang Road entrance. So enthusiastic gardeners who want this plant, you know where to collect the seeds.