DIY Pandan

I have inherited a peculiar habit from my Mom: we glefully rub our bare feet against a variety of textures, from split bamboo floors to high thread count sheets! Now have any of you discovered the immense pleasure from these pandán pillows and ottomans? They are such handy pieces to have around the house, multi-tasking as side tables, step-stools, caddies for trays, but most sensory as an ottoman to prop your tired feet up. In our case, it serves best as an elevated, three-dimensional organic mat to rub our soles and enjoy the smooth, natural and woven texture.

It's no surprise that I have massively frayed them, especially the corners of the cube-shaped one (right), pandan being a natural and biodegradable material. And wait, while we're at this photo, not many people know that the interior is stuffed with even more pandan leaves!

Anyway, a new piece would have the corners looking even with the rest of the sides (below left). So my trusted staff, May got some fresh leaves from our pandán plant, took off the spines on the edges, air-dried them, and cut them to strips and started weaving our still-greenish leaves into the corners (below right).

She'll let the strips dry in the weave to make it more taut and trim off the edges and lock the ends in place. In just a few days, it will look just as it used to be.

Cattleya

What else is there to say about cattleyas that have not yet been written nor published? They are among the most fascinating plants to watch: the dazzling colors, the flowers' velutinous textures, the seemingly random yet predictable shapes, and in the case of cattleyas, a gentle fragrance that is unmistakably its own.

The truth is I'm not even as passionate of orchids as I am of ferns and aroids, but lately, I've been slowly getting hooked.

Monitor Lizard

A healthy ecosystem would be teeming with life of all sorts and forms, so there is nothing to be spooked about occasional monitor lizards; it's actually an affirmation that our locale supports a fairly good cross-section of local flora and fauna.

Besides, the bayáwak is actually a shy animal that pretty much keeps to itself, and all the more it will not purposely come up to humans. So any fear of bayawak attack is virtually baseless. But just like any animal that we provoke, it will naturally defend itself.

Philippine Tree of the Month: Niog-niogan

Occurring naturally only in our archipelago is Ficus pseudopalma, a small but attractive tree that's quite under-rated, even taken for granted but acclaimed internationally and known as the Philippine Fig.

Here in Batangas, it is called Niog-niogan (literally "pretending to be a coconut," possibly that is why the scientific name is "a fig pretending to be a palm") not only because of how the tree grows but moreso because its fruits indeed, look like small coconuts.

This is the same tree that the Bicolanos call Lubi-lubi; they harvest the young leaves and cook it in gata (coconut cream), a vegetarian stew that must be nutritious and I bet, delicious.

The Most Beautiful Flower in the World

Among the crown jewels of the Philippine rainforest, naturally growing only in our islands, is what is perhaps the most captivating flower in the world: the Medinilla magnifica, locally called Kápa-kápâ. Can you imagine walking in the wild amidst a forestful of trees, vines, small reptiles and animals, and suddenly you are confronted by the elegance and splendor of this astonishing floral gem. It is the stuff legends are made of, like an ostentatious bunch of pendant pink-colored pearls hanging from deep-green, velvet-like leaves.

Two weeks ago, the buds were already beginning to appear (below left), and after a week, the small, undeveloped flowers started to be visible (below right). Actually, the flower on the top photo is not yet mature; it has yet to stretch longer and spread out and produce small, white florets at the end of the beads.

Meantime, we are enchanted witnessing and photographing such a wonder of nature. It belongs to the same family as the rest of the medinillas which are also indigenous to other tropical countries, but this particular kind is the most alluring and is endemic to the country.