Miranda+Dang's+Journal

Observations: • There are cacti and some kind of fern pod, lava rocks, small purple flowers • Night Blooming Cereus • There are black bees, butterflies, and ants

Free Journaling: We went back in the morning to see if we could see the Night Blooming Cereus in bloom, but we did not. I did notice that there were a lot more wild life out and about. Such as birds (cardinal), bees, and geckos. We also found a hidden path that had a lot of lava rock, trees, and more Night Blooming Cereus. We will look into that area on our next visit. Rocky Hill over looks Punahou Campus. We are doing our research near the top of Rocky Hill where there is more likely to be wild life. So far we have made two visits to Rocky Hill. The first time wasn't very successful and we saw not much wild life. It gets very hot on Rocky Hill and was probably the reason why there weren't very much wild life present. When we made our second trip, which was very early in the morning it was much cooler and there were a lot more birds, bees, and geckos out and about. We made that trip early in the morning hoping to see the Night Blooming Cereus in bloom, but alas it was not. We would have to go much earlier to see them in bloom. While looking around I discovered a path that was hard to see because the Night Blooming Cereus was on top of the lava rock that surrounded the path. We went down and found lots of trees and even what looked like a lava tube. It was maybe 4 ft by 4 ft big. We did not have enough time to look into the area more, but we will do so on our next visit.

Niche: On our second visit to Rocky Hill during the morning time we saw many birds flocking in the vast patches of Night Blooming Cereus. Im assuming that some of them could be nesting in that area. We also see big black bees around the area, there are not many flowers in our area except for the Night Blooming Cereus and a very small unidentified purple flower. I can make an assumption that maybe the Black Bees pollinate from the Night Blooming Cereus. I did more research and found that the Dragon Fruit comes from this species of Night Blooming Cereus. I don't believe our Night Blooming Cereus will produce any fruit, but I did notice that when we were up there I took pictures and noticed in one of the photos that there was, what looked like, a Dragon Fruit. I will continue to research more on this.

<-- DRAGON FRUIT



Journal Entry 2: Free Journaling: My latest visit to Rocky Hill was at around 7:00 am, still no sign of any blooming cereus. There is a giant concrete block on the very top of the hill, and that is where we used to make observations, and still do sometimes. But my focus has been on the new area that I have explored, there is a sort of lava tube at the end of the path. That is where I saw a dead, but vibrantly colored, Dragon Fruit. I have done some research and it states that the Hylocereus Undatus, or Night Blooming Cereus, blooms in the summer and autumn. We still haven’t been lucky enough to see one bloom. My question is, can we help speed up the process? Could we prune the already flowered, and now dead, Nigh Blooming Cereus, so that there would be more room for others to bloom? I have seen how the workers at Punahou tend to the Night Blooming Cereus that grows along the edges of school. They cut and prune the dead flowers and make room for ones that haven’t bloomed yet. And they always seem to have some bloom to it. On my next visit I will pick an area and pick off all the dead Night Blooming Cereus. I noticed on my trip that there were many geckos on the closed in path, surrounded by Night Blooming Cereus. The geckos blended in very well and had quick movement when moving in between the Night Blooming Cereus.I also noticed some snails in what seems to be a lava tube, this would be an ideal place for them because its more out of the sun and has vines and rocks for the snails to move around on.

Assigned Journal Entry: The birds on Rocky Hill may not get enough food to eat, or their nesting area could possibly be inhabited. Another reason why the Night Blooming Cereus may not bloom could be that there aren’t enough bees to pollinate them. While I was up on Rocky Hill I noticed a lack in bees compared to my last early morning visit. There are spikes on the Night Blooming Cereus, this would help the plant defend themselves against predators that might want to eat the fruit, such as birds. When I was on the closed in path, I noticed many geckos in the Night Blooming Cereus. The ones that I saw were a green color, exactly the color of the Night Blooming Cereus. These geckos would use this to help blend in with the Night Blooming Cereus to avoid predators. There are an abundance of ants, bees, and cockroaches in our area, which is what geckos feed on. This increases the geckos chance of survival on Rocky Hill. I have seen a few, but not many, butterflies in our eco-zone. They are brightly colored yellows and blacks, a reason why there isn't too many buterflies could be because there isn't enough food or lack of resting areas at night. The trees in our eco-zone are very short of leaves and have very nimble branches. There also isn't many flowers in our eco-zone, the only ones that we have seen are a small purple flower, which I am thinking is a type of weed, and the Night Blooming Cereus. Since there hasn't been many of those blooming lately we haven't seen too many butterflies. There also could be that there isn't enough food for the butterflies. Butterflies do not //eat// but they do have long tubes, which act like straws, that help them drink nectar from flowers or fruit. Now since there isn't many flowers, or fruits, in our eco-zone we can also presume that is another reason why we don't see many butterflies.

Journal Entry 3: On this visit I noticed a lot more vegetation on the path's leading to Rocky Hill, also up on Rocky Hill. When I got there they're was a lot of humidity and heat and it was hard to concentrate up on the concrete block at the very top of the hill. I went to explore the path on the side of Rocky Hill, where the lava tube is located. I noticed that on the side of the path where the Night Blooming Cereus covers had been cut and pruned, we could see inside and through the bushes of Night Blooming Cereus. When I looked in I saw some wild life inside which included a snail. There was also these small little plants with a strange pattern on it's leaves and stem. The pattern was a sort of stripped/spotted purplish black color. It was small no more than 8 inches high. The leaves were thick and not very, as you would say 'leafy'. I also took notice in the more open area near the lava tube where there were many trees and the some of the Night Blooming Cereus had clung to the trees and had been growing onto the trees. This differed from my last visit in the way that there was more vegetation and since there had been lots of rain in between my visit, it makes sense that there is more vegetation. I also noticed that the purplish/blackish plant was not on Rocky Hill last time i visited. Since my last visit I noticed that there might have been at least 20 of these plants in our area. I hypothesis that if I prune more of the Night Blooming Cereus on the path way towards the lava tube, then I would find much more wildlife, possibly where many of them make their homes out of. I hypothesis that if I introduced another Night Blooming Cereus plant, then it could help with the Night Blooming Cereus that have not bloomed in a while. I say this because the bees would come to pollinate the new one, and later the Night Blooming Cereus would spread.

Assigned Journal Entry 3: Free Journal Entry: My experiment is: to take a patch of the Night Blooming Cereus and to see weather there is more wild life going on inside than there is out side of the Night Blooming Cereus patch. My Procedure: 1. I will cut away about 1 foot of Night Blooming Cereus, so there is enough space for me to see inside. 2. I will look around to see what kind of wild life is inside, and record what I see. 3. After looking around and making observations, I will make a table to record the data I collected.
 * || Birds || Bugs || Geckos || Snails || Other Plants ||
 * 0 || x ||  ||   ||   ||   ||
 * 1 ||  ||   || x ||   ||   ||
 * 2 ||  ||   ||   || x || x ||
 * 3 ||  || x ||   ||   ||   ||
 * 4 ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * 5 ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="color: rgb(30, 104, 159);">6 ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="color: rgb(30, 104, 159);">7 ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="color: rgb(30, 104, 159);">8 ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="color: rgb(30, 104, 159);">9 ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="color: rgb(30, 104, 159);">10 ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||

From these observations, and previous observations it shows that there is not a dramatic difference between wild life outside and inside the Night Blooming Cereus. This could mean that most birds, geckos, and snails find their home in other places. If I had more time I could have investigated //where// they make their homes. From my last observations I have noticed a lot more over grown plants. The "cowboy wheat" plant has grown in the majority of area. The strange green/black plant I saw last week has appeared more frequently in our eco-area. <--- green/black plant <--- new pinkish flower I noticed when I arrived in my eco-area that there was a new pink flower, just like the purple ones I had seen in recent visits. It was very interesting to see, because I think they are the same species, and they have the exact same shape and size just a different color. The Night Blooming Cereus that had been climbing its way up the trunk of a tree has gotten farther up the tree. I also notice the green/black plant to be making its way farther and farther away from where I first saw it on my last eco visit.

Assigned Journal: This shows some of the Carbon Cycle that happens in our eco-sight.