The plant size of Lupin is around 30 – 100 centimeters, the stem is divided into single stem or stem branching, it is upright with a smooth hairless stalk, the flower is racemiform and butterfly shaped. Lupins originated from the Southern Mediterranean , usually two species are referred to: pot flowers and cut flowers, generally cut flowers are used.

There are hundreds of types of Lupins with rich colors such as white, yellow, blue, and purple; mainly the Yellow Lupins and the Blue Lupins are the most richly colored. The Yellow Lupin as the name only has yellow flowers, the plant is short, and it flowers earlier. The Blue Lupin has light purple, red, or light orange flowers; it is very beautiful when the flowers sway together in the wind.

Bahia grass is a perennial or creeping grass, it has a thick stolon, short internodes, a red crown highlighted with purple, abundant tillers, developed subterranean stems, a vast amount of root system, and the vertical distribution can reach up to 100 cm underground. It has deep colored leaves, smooth and slightly glossy, with length of 20 – 30 cm , and width over 0.6 – 1.2 cm . The flower is racemiform, with two blossoms, bending upward, usually around 4 – 7 cm long. It has oval or inverted oval shaped seeds, with length of 0.3 – 0.35 cm , they are smooth, shiny, waxy, and the germination rate is low.

Bahia grass is a tropical plant; it is a Carpet grass with lower tolerance for low temperatures. St. Augustine grass and Centipede grass are slightly better, they have good shade tolerance, wear tolerance, and drought resistance; their post-drought recovery ability is also worth mentioning. The soil adaptability of Bahia grass is extensive; it can survive in sandy-earth with good drainage and sticky soil that retains water. It especially can adapt to rough and barren coastal ground, but does not have tolerance toward salt; the soil adaptability pH range is between 6.5 – 7.5.

The lawn that Bahia grass forms is a low-quality turf, usually it is used for green areas with unspecific purposes or only for covering, these types of sites include slopes besides roads or green areas between airport runways, they are usually areas that need green coverage yet lack maintenance funds.

Bermuda grass is also known as Cynodon or Wiregrass; it is now widely used in moist areas, including tropical and subtropical turf grasses. Besides being used for turf grass, it is also main forage grass species of the tropics.

Bermuda grass is a tropical plant, with a type C4 photosynthesis anatomy, it likes strong light, long periods of sunshine; it has low shade tolerance, and is a type of xerophyte. It can survive in tropical or subtropical regions with annual rainfall over 60 to 250 mm . It has a superior drought and salt tolerance, although it prefers humid environments, but cannot be submerged. The environmental factors that limit Bermuda grass are the temperature and the sunshine, the best growth temperature is between 25-35 degrees Celsius, appropriate temperature along with complete sunshine conditions, can form a high-quality turf. Lawns that are grown in a shaded environment will be unable to recover and disappear after the winter, because the underground storage nodes could not accumulate enough energy such as carbohydrates.

Bermuda grass can adapt to various types of soil from sandy earth to clay, the soil pH is not limited, but the best pH is between 6.5 and 8. Bermuda grass is a mid-upper level plant that needs fertilization, in every month of the growing season, every hectare needs around 10 kg of effective nitrogen in order to maintain the minimum lawn quality; it may not survive in over-barren soil.

Apart from being forage grass, the application of Bermuda grass on lawns include: (1) soil and water conservation through surface coverage: for example pond slope stability, soil and water conservation and virescence of road slopes, (2) virescence of courtyard lawns, (3) to provide padding to reduce collision injury, such as fields for contact sports like soccer and football, or the emergency taxiing lawns surrounding the airport runways, (4) golf-course greens, the tee, the fairways, and the rough areas.

The Muller’s Barbet has five colors on its body, with a body length around 23 cm . Their body is mainly covered in bright green, the head and neck has red, yellow, blue, and black; matching these colors together, they look as if they are clowns getting ready to go perform on stage.

Their reproduction activity starts in March and ends in late August, June to July is their reproductive peak. It is estimated that from hatching, feeding, to the time the young birds leave the nest, takes a total of around one month’s time. They are monogamous during breeding, and the mating birds often sing “duets” together; which means they often sing back and forth among each other.

The Muller’s Barbet has a round body shape with a thick broad beak, at the base there are erected bristles, their tail and wings are slightly short, they are not good at flying and will often stand quietly on dry branches or among the leaves and branches of the mid-upper layers of trees. The Muller’s Barbet has very good color protection, if they did not call out: “Guo, Guo, Guo!” in their low monotonous voice, it would be very difficult to locate them. Because they have this type of voice, it sounds similar to monks beating on a Muyu, so this bird is also called “Flower Monk.”

The Muller’s Barbet likes locations that are dry and ventilated. They are like woodpeckers, and will drill nesting burrows in dry trees or branches because the moisture content of dead wood is lower, the wood does not breed parasites easily.

The Barbet is distributed in Asia, Africa, Central and South America, and the West Indies ; they live mainly in tropical forests. In Taiwan , they mainly habitat lower elevation mountainous areas among the upper levels of dense broad-leaf forests or secondary forests, as well as in various forests in Kenting.

Images and descriptions source:http://news.ngo.org.tw/topic/bird/Megalaima-oorti/Megalaima-oorti.htm http://w3.loxa.edu.tw/s915221/8.htm

The body length of the female Agriope Aemula is around 20 – 25 mm , the male is around 4 – 6 mm , and their abdomen is a long oval shape, with the front truncate in shape. The back of their abdomen is golden yellow, the black stripes on the top are divided into three groups, the first and second groups have two to three black stripes, and the third group with the biggest range, has a mesh-like abdomen end. The backs of the males are dark brown, with a black abdomen and a yellow white moon-shaped stripe in the front.

The Agriope Aemula lives in low-elevation mountains, they spin their webs in high grass or the bushes next to trails, the webs are round, and usually have an X shaped white stabilimenta. The male spiders often are eaten by the female during mating, the oocysts are pear-shaped and are often hidden in the leaves near the web; the female spider will die before the small spiders hatch.

Note: Spiders are classified as phylum Anthropoda, class Arachnida, order Aranea. The characteristics of Arachnida are the head and chest are combined, forming the cephalothorax, they have six pairs of limbs, including 4 pairs of legs, a pair of fangs, and a pair of feelers. Spiders have two types of lifestyles, snarer spiders and hunter spiders, most spiders can spin webs, but some cannot.

Image source: http://adm.ncyu.edu.tw/~pprotec/animals/p0086.htm

Carpet grass is a tropical type plant with a type C4 photosynthesis anatomy. Observing it in Taiwan , it is a shade tolerant lawn grass species, and it likes humidity and rain, but has a more obvious growing reaction in bright light and long periods of sunshine. It is adaptable in loose soil and does not survive well in sticky soil that retains water. It has a low tolerance toward low temperatures, every year when the winter northeast wind arrives, after a strong frontal wind, the Carpet grass will redden and wilt overnight, this will also happen in the summer in high temperatures and during drought. Carpet grass adapts to acidic soil and grows best in soil with pH 4.5-5; it cannot live in salted soil. Carpet grass only requires minimal fertilization, and cannot be over fertilized.

Carpet grass is mainly used in land virescence, and on land where there is a low tread rate. Because it adapts to barren, acidic soil, and has superior seed reproduction ability, it is an excellent soil and water conservation grass species for steep slopes and roadsides. If it is used in garden lawns then it requires frequent mowing, so that it is not affected by the continuous inflorescence during the growing season, in order to maintain the smooth appearance and lawn density. Carpet grass can also be used as forage grass. 

Image source: http://www.chinabiodiversity.com/search/aspecies/adetail.shtm?cspcode=a0000000364