Ketapang power

Several colleagues of mine rear fighting fish in the office, keeping each one separately in chinese new year cookie plastic tuppleware. So it came about that this morning I saw a dead brown leaf soaking in one of the fish 'tank', leaving the water a yellow tinge. I asked what's the leaf doing there. Robi told me this was for anti-fungal prevention, to keep the fish from falling sick.

Wow, what a revelation! A natural remedy - awesome! This leaf is very common in sgp, I have definitely seen them before, especially in the drains along roadsides and puddles.

According to Robi, this leaf is called the Sea almond leaf or Indian almond leaf or known as "ketapang" in Malay. He pulled out a plastic bag of these dried leaves, informing me that he has washed them and offered two to me. I was so happy, they would be perfect for my guppies!!

I went to dig around the websites and discover Ketapang to be sold on websites. eBay has sales of it at USD20 per 100 leaves. Maybe I should start picking them off the streets..hahaha. To think what we consider rubbish has market value. It has lots of medicinal properties. Really impressive. I feel a greater appreciation for this plant now and will try and look out for this specie of leaves again when I walk around our parks.

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