Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus)

Madagascar periwinkle or tapak dara (Catharanthus roseus L. G.Don) is an annual shrub that lives wild or cultivated in open places in various tropical regions, but can also grow in a rather shady place. Shrub habitus grows sideways and is 0.2 meters to 1 meter high.

This beautiful plant in Indonesia is called tapak dara, Malaysians know it as kemunting cina, in the Philippines as tsitsirika, in Vietnam as hoa hai dang, in China known as chang chun hua, in England as rose periwinkle, and in the Netherlands as a soldaten bloem.

C. roseus has a beautiful flower appearance and is similar to frangipani flowers, round and diameter shaped stems are small, branched, woody stems and downy leaves. Flowers have red, pink, blue, white and others.

These plants can live wildly on any land including clay, sand and rocks. It grows and spreads rapidly during the rainy season where the wake flowers bloom on dewy mornings. This flower plant bursts and appears to be striking between the surrounding grasses.

The leaves are ovoid, about 2 cm to 6 cm long, 1 cm to 3 cm wide, green, and pinned pinned together. The leaves are about 2-6 cm long, 1-3 cm wide. The stalk is very short and the leaves contain white latex.

Flowers grow axially or arise from the armpit of leaves, flower petals and nail-shaped. Trumpet shaped crowns, widened ends, white, blue, pink or purple depending on the cultivar. The fruit is cylindrical with a pointed tip, hairy, 1.5 cm to 2.5 cm long, and has many seeds.

Flowers and leaves contain vincristine, vinblastine, reserpine, ajmalicine, and serpentine. Other contents are catharanthine, leurosine, norharman, lochnerine, tetrahydroalstonine, vindoline, vindolinine, akuammine, vincamine, vinleurosin, and vinrosidine.

Kingdom: Plantae
Kingdom: Embryophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Gentianales
Family: Apocynaceae
Genus: Catharanthus
Species: C. roseus

Jian Huang parasitoid wasp (Proaphelinoides huangi) from China strongly supported as sister group to Aphytis

NEWS - Jian Huang parasitoid wasp ( Proaphelinoides huangi Chen & Jiang, sp. nov.), reported from China based on standard DNA barcode COI, partial nuclear ribosomal 28S-D2 and 28S-D2 rDNA. The new species is similar to P. bendovi , P. elongatiformis , P. australis , P. assamensis and the genus Proaphelinoides is strongly supported as the sister group to Aphytis. Proaphelinoides Girault is a small genus in the Aphelinidae with 7 species worldwide. P. elongatiformis (Girault 1917) from Sri Lanka is the type species. P. australis from Australia (Girault 1922), P. bendovi Tachikawa (1984) from China, and 4 other species, P. anomalus Hayat (1984), P. chidambaramensis Manickavasagam & Menakadevi (2012), P. assamensis Hayat (2012) and P. ematus Hayat & Veenakumari (2016) from India. P. huangi can be distinguished from other species by yellow antennae, forewings with 10–14 feathers below the marginal vein, linea calva bordered proximally by a single row of setae, F3 1.0–1

Rhamphomyia kitadai, Rhamphomyia brunnipennis, Rhamphomyia decens and Rhamphomyia pennipes from Middle Eocene Kishenehn Formation

NEWS - Leland Kitada dance fly ( Rhamphomyia kitadai sp. nov.), brown wings dance fly ( Rhamphomyia brunnipennis sp. nov.), beautiful dance fly ( Rhamphomyia decens sp. nov.) and wing-footed dance fly ( Rhamphomyia pennipes sp. nov.) from the Middle Eocene Kishenehn Formation are described as species new to science. Females of Empidinae often display sexual ornamentation, an adaptation in the animal kingdom in general, often associated with males, especially in vertebrates. Ornamentation of female Empidinae includes legs with rows of relatively large pennate scales, enlarged and/or darkly pigmented wings and an expanded abdominal pouch. The ornamentation makes the female appear larger, more fertile and therefore more attractive to potential mates. Given the rarity of female sexual ornamentation, especially Empidini, it has become a model system for studying this phenomenon. The known fossil record includes several genera from the mid-Jurassic era dominated by two genera, Empis and

Elephant bell gourd (Trichosanthes tricuspidata)

Elephant bell gourd ( Trichosanthes tricuspidata ) is a plant species in the Cucurbitaceae, stems grow elongated to propagate or climb, many branches, cylindrical in shape and green in color. T. cochinchinensis has stem tips or branches that twist to attach themselves to a support or other plant. It grows to climb to cover a support, usually on another plant, up to several meters and creeps along the ground to reach another support. Arrow-shaped leaves, split base, sharp apex and two wings at an acute angle, have many veins ending at a sharp edge, green and have a long petiole. Single flower is white. The fruit is round to oval, ends with a tail, young green and turns red with maturity, thin skin, thick flesh and reddish yellow, has a short stalk and hangs. The seeds are in the middle of the fruit. Seeds are white, oval and flat. Black coated seeds. Elephant bell gourd grows wild in primary and secondary forests, agricultural land, roadsides, watersheds, especially on slopes, damp a

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