Elusive Fungus Identity

I've died and gone to mushroom identification hell. I eat about 4 varieties of mushrooms from the garden, including the one pictured above, said to be edible by our helper. It turned out to be tough and spongy, but it makes a good "soup bone", tossed in a pot to make broth, and later removed. Don't judge me for eating strange mushrooms, please.



















I stayed up all night last night looking for its identity, saw many that resembled it, but none with its underside!

What Kind of Shit is That?!

While I was gone from my room, it seems to have been peppered with fat grains of white-tipped poo, which have been identified as lizard or butiki poo. Apparently they get brash when there is no activity in a place, and I am thankful to them for consuming any crawlies or biters in my absence (and they seem to have eaten a lot!)

Meanwhile, something slightly too massive for our chickens' digestive systems showed up on the (sealed) tops of what will soon be one of my water catchment barrels.



With a smell too mild to be cat poop (but still too offensive for too-close examination), this presents yet another mystery to me. There were bits of seeds and also what seemed like little larvae. Seems like chicken or avian poo, but as large as my wrist. Really.



I flicked it off with the bamboo coin bank I was hacking in half. As a side note, it came from an uncle's farm and I had carved some plant onto it, and I put some varnish on it from homemade resin distillate, but it was time.

Flower Vendors in Old Manila

An old photo with flower vendors in front of an unidentified Manila church. Look closely! What are the pots made of? I'm guessing they are folded old layers of banana trunks or banana leaves, tied around the midsection to prevent them from falling apart.

(Photo was posted on the Old Manila group on Facebook.)

Luyang Itim: The Wonder Years

One piece of the luyang itim ("black ginger") I'd collected awhile back has now grown into a teenage specimen. I still do not have any information about it, though. I admit that while I planted some roots in places I do not remember, I left most in some corner of the house for a long time, and they grew a bit without being in soil. I was impressed by its will to live (and a bit guilty about the neglect), and planted it in a pot a couple of weeks ago, and now it is about two and a half feet tall (including leaves).



I removed it from the pot and the roots were screaming to be transplanted. I placed it by the gabi outside my bedroom window, because it seems to do well without much sun.



I still do not have any information about it, but will probably have a better chance at identifying it (scientific name and all the uses in other cultures) when the flowers come. One detail I've gathered is that it has a maroonish stroke down the middle of the leaf. I will probably try eating it one of these days.

One potential lead I found, on a recent trip to Anilao, Batangas: there is a factory, or some walled compound, with "Luyang Itim" painted in large letters on its gate. That is probably the name of the sitio/barangay. I will be sure to stop by next time I am in town to ask the folks about it.

Transplants: Batanes Gabi and Mystery Stuff

Our web guy Omar's family is from the Ivatan ethnic group. Though he didn't grow up in beautiful Batanes, his family goes back and forth between the area.

We were meeting over crepes one day and we got to talking about gabi or taro, which is called sudi in their parts. Having what is one of the most windy, stormy and unwelcoming position on our archipelago, Ivatans traditionally used less vulnerable underground tubers such as yams and taro as their staple food. Both visitors and natives attest to a characteristically bland diet, one of the hazards of difficult terrains. (Check out this interesting article by Mol Fernandez by Batanes food in the Inquirer.)

I expressed intrigue over the Batanes gabi, which Omar said had more narrow leaves, probably for protection against the tearing that the large ones are likely to experience from the wind. Furthermore, they are supposed to taste better. Omar recounted buying a "regular" gabi from the grocery and testing it by cooking a Batanes variety at the same time, and by all counts, his native root crop was superior.

Omar so kindly requested his parents to bring home some plantable specimens, which were intercepted at the airport, or something like that! But I saw him last week and he handed me some that his cousin brought back, which were composed of the stems, and a portion of the tuber. I left it in my bag for a few days due to something hectic, and when I removed it, roots were growing quite encouragingly.





So I planted them in last night when I was making Oakley (dog) pee in the garden, and I can't wait to see how the leaves look, and better, how they taste (I actually have a book on Batanes plants, but I lent it to someone.). I put them in pots first until I figure out where the best place to plant them is.



I've also taken a bunch of baby trees from the side of the road. One of them is hopefully a little version of the berry tree (bignay) that was beside it. They are several different ones, none of which I am familiar with. Sometimes that's part of the fun, right? There is a tall dill snapped off from someone's house, which shall be poked into a random part of the garden.

(It's raining pretty good now.)

Black Ginger

I've been drawn to this variety of ginger for years. I found it first among the mystics' stalls in Quiapo, among amulets and such. It is used for incantations and spells. People call it luyang itim, literally "black ginger", presumably because when you slice the root, it shows a black ring under the skin. The rest of the flesh is somewhat bluish. I got a big bunch of it on someone's lot in the province, where it was growing wild. Someone was clearing a bit of the land, and the roots were left exposed.



The root looks like a fat, non-orange turmeric. It smells incredible. Sort of minty, like a good balm. I'm not sure about culinary applications, but I attempted to make a balm out of it by drying slices, and then cooking with some oils and natural waxes. It didn't turn out as expected, but I'll keep trying.

In the meantime, I planted some of the roots, and they're beginning to grow. I can't give any info on how the plant itself looks, but surely I'll be posting more as it shoots up.

Mystery Trees

It's rainy season and that means the mosquitoes make it hard to garden. Nevertheless, I'm growing the following found seeds:

Mystery pod tree from National Museum garden.



Mystery berry (could it be related to bignay?) from Alabang.

Mystery Mushrooms

Mystery mushrooms have cropped up in my garden! They look like brown flowers.

I was hanging around the coconut tree when I saw this little flower-like thing on the ground. I thought it to be that part of the fruit that people turn into ornaments, the thing that holds the coconut while still on the tree. When I picked it up, I was startled to find that it was soft and actually a mushroom. I had to yank one out of the ground for inspection, and was surprised to find that the stem was really skinny and quite short.


What the hell is this thing? Anyone familiar with it?