Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Rain Tree flower, Fan worm, any link?

During my FYP, i have learned how to identify a Rain tree (Samanea saman) and Angsana tree (Pterocarpus indicus) from my friend's project. They are the common big trees that are planted on the streets of Singapore which provide shades from the hot blazing sun. What caught my attention is the flower of the Rain tree.

The flower of Rain tree is pink and white bicoloured with powder brush-like feature. Bright attractive flowers usually attract insects for pollination.
On the first look, it looks like some marine worms i saw before.


Look like Fan worm or Tube worm?! The brush-like or feathery-like features are actually modified tentacles called radiole. They live in long tube which are usually hidden, sometimes underground. Their tentacles have eye spots which allows them to slip inside their tube when there's danger.

Are the any evolutionary relationship between them? I guess nope! Since both features are used for different purposes. Maybe the more you look at it, they don't actually look the same after all..!

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