The first time that I was introduced to this marvelous place, I was about seven years old. Those days, Lata Jarum was yet a gazetted Recreational Forest Reserve yet it was one of the most amazingly rich in flora and fauna site I've ever visited. Despite its relatively low altitude (I think only around 300 plus meters from sea level), one can find lower montane flora on its banks like spaghnum mosses, lichens, tree ferns and beautiful orchids. Unfortunately, years of abuse had finally caught up with this place - gone are the orchids flowing from mossy branches along the cascades, hordes of lotong, the dusky leaf monkey, is a rarity these days, colourful plastic wrappers and cans replace the flickering colours of butterflies, courtesy of our great Malaysian weekend picnickers, and worse, the recently discovered sites of Rafflesia face dangers from careless tourism management, not to mention over-harvesting for traditional medicine.
Well, all clouds do have silver linings and hopefully, it will be for this wonderful place. The Forestry Department had set up an office to regulate the Rafflesia site in situ, already one step towards positivity...then, if there's only enough interested volunteers to help maintain the place, things might just make a turn...and that should begin by NOT developping the area with CONCRETE infrastructures and clearing trees to make more cabins and what-have-yous for tourists. The only kind of tourism that should be encouraged is responsible and GREEN tourism!
Last Sunday, I went for a chat with En. Shukri, the Forestry Dept's Officer on the site and we went for a stroll on one of the less frequented trail. We tried hard and the photos below are just some of the lovely fruit of this visit. Enjoy...
A beautifully coloured bed of spaghnum moss
Well, all clouds do have silver linings and hopefully, it will be for this wonderful place. The Forestry Department had set up an office to regulate the Rafflesia site in situ, already one step towards positivity...then, if there's only enough interested volunteers to help maintain the place, things might just make a turn...and that should begin by NOT developping the area with CONCRETE infrastructures and clearing trees to make more cabins and what-have-yous for tourists. The only kind of tourism that should be encouraged is responsible and GREEN tourism!
Last Sunday, I went for a chat with En. Shukri, the Forestry Dept's Officer on the site and we went for a stroll on one of the less frequented trail. We tried hard and the photos below are just some of the lovely fruit of this visit. Enjoy...
Take Nothing But Photos
Leave Nothing but Your Footprints
Leave Nothing but Your Footprints
A beautifully coloured bed of spaghnum moss
A flowering terrestrial orchid
Bright pink berries radiating from the trunk of a tree.
A beautiful flowering bract of a wild ginger under dappled light of the forest. This one is unusually large.
Kacip Fatimah, a traditional herb still collected for its medicinal properties.
A curious looking black fungus
Mushrooms after a spat of rain...
Beautiful bract fungi on a rotting trunk
Bright orange fungi
Wild berries...
Dark crimson berries
The necklace orchid - Coelogyne spp.
A tiny orchid on a granite boulder
Strange fruit on a tree with fruit ressembling a kiwi fruit, even in size...
Fallen flowers of a species of parasitic mistletoe, Loranthus spp.
A fiery coloured insect on a leaf...
The lone fruit on this trunk is not a jackfruit despite its similarity - its Bangkong, wild cousin of the jackfruit.
This is NOT dog poop - it's fallen wild chestnut, called berangan on the jungle trail. I collected lots of these during my childhood and half the fun is peeling them off their shells and roasting them. 
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