Showing 1 - 10 of 153
Jack of all fruits
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 09/10/2016
» The world population was listed at one billion in 1804. Statistics show that 123 years passed before it reached two billion in 1927, but it took only 33 years to hit the three billion mark in 1960. From then on it rose by leaps and bounds, taking only 14 years to reach four billion in 1974 and 13 years to rise to five billion in 1987. I still remember reading about the world population reaching six billion in 1999. It now stands at 7.5 billion, and it took only 17 years to reach that number.
No slacking off in hunt for salak
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 14/08/2016
» Roy Cruise sent me an email asking where to find chempedak (Artocarpus integer), salak (Salacca zalacca) and gandaria (Bouea macrophylla) in Thailand. A friend of his in Cavite, Philippines, had asked him to look for the said fruit trees but he has not been able to find them in Mae Hong Son, where he lives. "I was wondering if you had any idea where I may find them?" he asked.
Worthy of a name
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 04/12/2016
» Piya Chalermglin, PhD, intrepid plant explorer and extraordinary researcher at the Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research, recently retired. He spent 20 years of his career surveying the country's plant genetic resources, particularly Magnoliales, which includes the custard apple family Annonaceae and the magnolia family Magnoliaceae. In the process, he earned the distinction of having discovered 17 species new to science, joining the likes of famous botanist Carl Linnaeus and other plant explorers who immortalised their names by inspiring the names of some plants.
The agony andthe ecstasy
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 15/05/2016
» I was ecstatic when I saw fruits hanging for the first time from the branches of my Pouteria campechiana tree, otherwise known as canistel or eggfruit. It is called lamut khamen in Thai but actually few Thais know it, and even fewer have tasted it. I suspect that the first tree grown in Thailand came from the seed of a fruit taken from across the border in Cambodia, and the grower named it "lamut khamen" after the country or its people (khamen is the Thai word for Cambodian), as he did not know its proper name.
There's a time and place
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 25/12/2016
» Merry Christmas! Today is a doubly auspicious day, for Christmas falls on a Sunday only once in seven years. Even in Buddhist Thailand, Christmas is a time for celebrations and for immersing one's self in the spirit of the season.
All I need is the air that I breathe
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 20/11/2016
» 'Please introduce air plant farms in the Bangkok area," an email I received recently requested. I am sure there are hobbyists growing air plants in their gardens or balconies, but because of high land prices, I doubt it if there are plant nurseries in Bangkok. Be that as it may, I went to my favourite haunt, the Chatuchak midweek market, last Wednesday to ask around.
Ginger up
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 27/11/2016
» Regular reader Paul Schiller sent me a photo of a plant growing in a flower pot at his summer home in Khao Lak, Phangnga province. "Do you know this small beauty?" he asked. The plant was a cluster of lance-shaped bright green leaves, with a terminal pendant inflorescence hanging from each stem. What's attractive about the plant was the unusual inflorescence, which comprised of showy, widely spaced purple bracts. From the base of each bract emerged the long, tube-like pedicel of a small yellow flower. The plant's stems and leaves are those characteristically belonging to members of the ginger family.
Sparing some expense
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 21/08/2016
» When my now adult children were in primary school, bananas were so cheap that we fed kluay namwa to our pet birds. My late father, who was visiting from the Philippines, made it his duty to feed the birds while my husband and I were at work and the children were in school.
Xerophytes win water fights
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 22/05/2016
» May is almost at an end. Usually around this time, our friends Bantherng and his wife Phen are busy harvesting lychee in their orchard in Phetchabun. This year, however, not one of their more than 100 trees bore fruit. In fact, not one lychee tree in their district of Nam Nao, some 40km from Nam Nao National Park, had fruit this year.
Flowers of flame
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 10/04/2016
» The Tabebuia rosea, or chompoo panthip, on Kasetsart University's Kamphaeng Saen campus in Nakhon Pathom province caused a traffic jam as it attracted people from far and near last February. The trees were planted on both sides of the road and when they dropped all their leaves, only to be blanketed by flowers all at the same time, they were a sight to behold.