Date & Time: 28 February 2015, 4:00 p.m. (Saturday)
Venue: Symphony Suites, Jalan Sultan Nazrin Shah, Ipoh
(Perak Academy, 71A (1st Floor) Jalan Tun Sambanthan, Ipoh)
Registration fee: RM10/= per person
Please contact Ms Jaya or Ms Jasvinda (Tel: 05-2545293) to reserve your seat(s).
The flora of Perak with special reference to Palms & Gingers (picture: Begonia pavonina Ridl)
An illustrated lecture for the Perak Academy by Datuk Seri Lim Chong Keat, FASc (Fellow of the Perak Academy)
About the speaker:
Datuk Seri Lim Chong Keat ‘devolved’ from being a full-time architect and urban designer to an ‘overtime’ amateur field botanist, fascinated by the wonderful flora of Malaysia, particular by the palms and gingers. He was drawn into taxonomy by the ‘challenges’ of errors and uncertainties encountered in precedent literature, records in herbaria, and by the ‘depression’ in local botanical efforts – and the context of international protectionism! His early field work in Peninsular Malaysia and Thailand since the late 1980s – in his self-funded ‘Palm Search Malaysia’ project – yielded many new species of palms, which he began to describe, learning ‘the tricks of the trade’ as well as the socio-political environment of botanical research. He belatedly ventured into the hotbed of the ginger world – finding more new taxa* to be recognised, and recently another new genus – from Perak! With editorial support from eminent botanical advisors, he initiated in 2000 the publication of the journal Folia malaysiana – “devoted to Botanical Knowledge, inspired by the Cultural, Environmental & Floristic Heritage of Malaysia and its Neighbours”. The journal is now into its 15th year, providing useful independent media for ‘cutting edge’ taxonomy and botanical writing. In this talk he will refer to rare and endangered flora of Perak – and introduce the latest new species discovered.
[*He has since founded and funded the Suriana Botanic Conservation Gardens, with research programmes for Zingiberales in collaboration with UKM, UPM and others.]