A spectacular swallowtail. (Photo by Robert)
As for the typhoon-predicting grass, a week after we saw it, a major typhoon hit Taiwan: Typhoon Morakot. We hope it's correct in predicting that this will be the only one this year.
Though we were relatively unharmed in the north, the south saw massive flooding and landslides. Some mountain communities were wiped off the map, and many people lost their lives or went missing. And the government's poor handling of this emergency has led to charges that this is President Ma Ying-jeou's Hurricane Katrina. Michael Turton gives this issue extensive treatment in his blog The View from Taiwan.
