I spent a week at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in August of 2004 looking at rattan specimens with Andrew Henderson (see Pressing Plectocomiopsis) in preparation for our expedition to northern Myanmar (see Hukaung Valley Rattan Survey). When I just couldn't stand to look at one more spiny herbarium sheet, I would always walk out to the Palm Garden, sit on a bench by the lily (Victoria) pond, and gaze out on the scene shown above. [NOTE: Much of the collection at HITBC has been digitized and is available online. The labels, however, are still in Chinese].