Flower of the Day: Aristea capitata
One entire section of the drive is covered in these glorious blue spikes that shone out of the gloom as we set off for this morning’s run in a damp mist. The lovely Aristea capitata, our Flower of the Day,
Monthly Archives: October 2013
Fire on the Mountain
In South Africa people rise early, so a call at 7 am is not necessarily worrying. Peters kids get up early to avoid the Johannesburg traffic and often call at that time for a chat. Anything earlier than that signals trouble, so when the phone started forth with ‘Gangnam Style’ (yes, that really is my ringtone) at 6.15 on Saturday morning I jumped out of bed to get it, knowing the news wasnt going to be good.
It was our neighbour and she was clearly concerned. A fire on the mountain, right by their house. We leaped into action – Peter quickly got dressed while I equally quickly manned the phone and made him a coffee to take with him. He’d call the local fire marshal, get down there, assess the situation, and they’d decide how much support was needed to get this under control quickly.
We have terrible fires here on the mountains, last year one burned all the way from Franschhoek to the N1, which must be over 20 kilometres. They go far further than that when they are out of control and the wind is high. But we’ve had a very wet winter and the past few days have brought the first southeaster of the season, a howling wind that comes with the dry spring weather and frays all our nerves.
We predicted this fire a few days ago. Another neighbour was burning in his lands and he didn’t seem to have taken care to put out the smoldering embers. “There’s going to be a fire” said Peter on Wednesday evening as we drove down the mountain on our way to dinner. Sure enough….
This was not a particularly dangerous fire. Frightening when it’s close to your house, but with the ground and the undergrowth still cold and wet, it was never going to be the frightening inferno we’d see later in the season. By mid-morning it was under control. Still, a good warning and we are very diligent about clearing potential fuel and firebreaks on the farm. In the season, January and February, we are on high alert.
Fire on a neighbours farm just below us.
Today was altogether calmer. I went for an early run with the dogs and then we had some friends who came to lunch and were very keen to see the flowers. As ever plenty of new sightings emerged. Rather frustratingly I am writing this on a plane (London this time) and have left my books behind. So here are some pictures of new flowers, taken in case they are no longer flowering when I get back and I will do the research when I get home in a few days time and repost with some names.
This beautiful flowering bulb is all over the farm. It must be common but I cannot find it in the books.
Blue flowering bulb
This kind of flower emerges in summer. Lots of fynbos have these short spikey stems covered in leaves and a single flower on the tip. We’ll see lots more and identify as many as we can.
Pink flowering shrub
Polygala is identified by the fluffy bits on the flowers and this creeping plants is everywhere at the moment.
Polygala
Maebh resting under the shade of a protea tree
I’ve never seen a wild Aloe on the moutain before and this is growing in the area along the river where we’ve cleared huge amounts of alien vegation.
Aloe on the moutain
Another of these flowers on the end of a prickley spike. Quite distinctive so I have hopes of identifying it.
Blue unidentified flower
This stunning Protea bud is almost architectural.
Protea flower in Bud
Tiny yellow stars appear everywhere.
Tiny yellow flowers
These clusters are also found in several different areas. I had to use myself as a shadow to capture them in the bright sunlight.
Clusters of yellow and white flowers
Two new flowers in the morning light
On Wednesday I got up early, determined to run up the mountain properly and not stop for flower photos. The weather was strangely warm and humid and as I ran down the road I couldn’t, of course, resist stopping to take a photo of this Crassula that has just emerged. Crassula’s are wonderful things, there are over a hundred fynbos subspecies and I think this one is probably Crassula fascicularis and one of the best ways to check is to wander down the drive where it grows one evening at sunset and see if it is fragrant in the evening.
Crassula fascicularis
The other thing I couldn’t resist capturing in case it has faded before I get a shot in better light is the Painted Yellowwort or Sebaea exacoides. Lots of it has suddenly emerged and it is much loved by insects, the red lines are sweet ridges. It likes the damp so this very wet winter has probably led to this year’s prolific flowering. If it doesn’t fade we’ll post a better picture.
Sebea exacoides
Springtime – Pelargoniums, Proteas and Polygalas
- Last week was a bad week for running with the dogs. I’d hurt my leg and I had to go to Johannesburg on business and then when finally I was motivated to get out there, it rained. But on Friday evening friends came to do a “flower safari” and it is always wonderful to see the mountain through their eyes – the wild beauty of it and the spectacular blooming of the fynbos all the more marvellous.
Sunday morning came with glorious sunshine, the dogs’ tails were wagging in anticipation and there were no excuses or reasons to avoid an hour of excercise interspersed with photography. The morning light as the sun slants over the mountain lends itself beautifully to photos, so we were up at a reasonable hour and the four of us panted up the hill.
I probably repeat this too often, but although this is the 42nd blog this year, I have seen something completely new every single time I’ve been up the mountain and I know I’ve missed flowers as well. Shrubs tend to bloom for a while, but flowering bulbs sometimes have only a brief moment of glory and the saddest thing is to come back from a trip, head up the moutain and see the withered shape of some lovely thing that we shan’t see again until 2014.
Yesterday we saw old friends and some completely new flowers. The first to greet us was this coral-pink protea. The buds have been there for ages and the anticipation was worth the wait when it finally bloomed. It could be Protea eximia, the large leaves with a distinctive border and the black tips of the outer petals seem indicative.
Protea eximia
There are quite a few of these gorgeous fluffy white flowers just below the area we call the lookout and I think it might be Stilbe vestita.
Stilbe vestita
Some flowers really create the feel of the mountain as there are prolific flowering shrubs all over the place. I should do a blog dedicated to them. I caught a lovely image of one, Oftia africana, on Sunday.
Oftia africana
This pretty blue flowering bulb has been present in the same part of the farm as the Stilbe vestita and I’m also not sure what it is. Further research will probably find it though, as I have lots of books on bulbs, but not always the time to read them before I post the blog.
This white erica is really amazing – in one small part of the farm it has taken over and at this time of year there is a carpet of tiny white blooms – spectacular. It’s a flat Erica that grows close to the ground.
Spreading white erica
The white Erica in close up
Another Erica we love to see is this one. It resembles several in the books, most closely abietina which one of my books says grows only on Table Mountain. A close relation perhaps? In any case it seems to flower for most of the year, with a brief break only over the worst of the winter months.
An Erica related to abietina?
From time to time I post a photograph of the many Pelargoniums on our slopes, they are prolific, there is a variety of subspecies but not that I can identify for certain.
Pelargonium
Strangely the same is true for this gladioli. You really would think that something so very common and prolific would be easy to identify. I often struggle with gladioli and for this one I have been through the Encyclopedia of Cape Bulbs several times. The flowers are pink when in bud and turn pure white as they flower. On the bottom petals there is a hint of yellow. They are prolific and flower everywhere the slopes are damp.
Gladiolus – strangely unidentified
A while ago I posted a blog entitled The Red Protea, fascinated by these red “flowers” that were growing on a protea bush. It turns out that it’s the new growth of the lovely Protea nitida (see the Protea page for a picture of the lovely Protea nitida in full bloom). Here is the very beginning of that new growth – it does indeed look like a flower in bud.
The new growth of Protea nitida
This flower, growing on a damp road right at the very top of the farm is clearly a member of the pea family, though unidentified at present.
Another member of the pea family is Polygala. There are quite a few of these and I’m not sure which one we have here but they are prolific in quite a few areas of the farm during the spring months. The little white fringe confirms the identification as Polygala.
Polygala
Finally, also at the top of the farm, we saw the first flower of Scabiosa columbaria. Part of the charm of this flower is that it can survive the hot weather and will continue to flower all the way through the summer months when not much else is happening.
Scabiosa columbaria
An evening walk in the fynbos
No sooner does the weather improve when I slip in the gym, pull a muscle quite badly and can’t run. Which is not good for the purposes of identifying and recording all our flowers. This evening I really had to get up onto the mountain so I took the car and followed by the loyal hounds went up the mountain to see what’s happening. As always it’s stunning up there – we never get bored the dogs and I. They rush around investigating old smells and new, putting up the odd gerbil or francolin. I am endlessly fascinated by the changes I see, no sooner has something disappeared than something new takes its place.
I stopped on the way up to take a better picture of the Pterygodium catholicum, the little orchid known as the cowled monk. The summer southeaster that howls over us in dry clear weather has begun and it makes it hard to capture flowers close up as they quiver in the wind. So we may get a better picture on a still day, but on the other hand, they fade quickly and by then they may be gone.
Pterygodium catholicum
All over the mountain the Felicia is out. I’m not quite certain of the identification but it’s most likely Felicia aethiopica.
Felicia aethiopica
Felicia aethiopica in close up
This starry flower, which I once confidently identified as Geissorhiza ovata is perhaps Hesperantha cucullata. It could be.It seems more likely when I look in detail at the flowers and leaves. Frustrating when they are so prolific, identification should be easy but it is not.
Hesperantha cucullata?
Another flower that’s hard to identify is this little thing. Quite small, it grows all over the place in little clumps of spikes with these fuzzy white or pinkish white flowers on the tips. When you photograph the flowers in close up they are amazing, like bunches of roses. This is quite high magnifications, so the pictures are not crystal clear but it gives you a sense of the extraordinary precision of nature. The detail is amazing. It is quite prolific but though I’ve looked and looked I cannot find it in the books.
Unidentified pinkish white flowers
The flower head
Seen at even more of a close up – you can see that each tiny bud is like a miniature rose
I love this Erica. I can’t identify it, but these coral flowers will last all summer – Erica’s flower for months on end, it’s part of their charm. When I get a specialist book on Ericas I will identify it more correctly.
Coral flowered Erica
As we stood at the top of the farm in the fading light Jemina Chew stood on the path among the flowers, looking around, enjoying the evening.
Jemima Chew pauses to enjoy the evening
And as the sun slipped behind Paarl mountain, it still lit the shimmering misty space between us and Table Mountain and Table Mountain glowed pinkly 60 kilometres away through the evening air.
The Red Protea
While the blog and the running help to motivate one another, the profusion of flowers has taken over and I’ve been spending too much time taking photos of flowers and not nearly enough doing the actual running. So this week I’ve been determined to run harder and hoping to get out at another time of day for the flowers.
Next week I’ll focus more on the blog. In the meantime I did stop to capture this unusual flower, which has come out near the waterful. I’m not quite sure what it is – Protea? Leucadendron? I can’t find it in the book.
The weather is vastly improved and spring has definitely arrived. The proof? The farm echoes with the call of the red chested cuckoo – known as the Piet-my-vrou, in reference to its distinctive call. It’s a migratory bird and arrives with the heat in springtime.
I also couldn’t resist stopping on the drive to capture the Leucospermum linaere who’s graceful fronds have grown down the slope to eye-level. This plant has obviously enjoyed the quantities of rain – I’ve never seen so many flowers on it.
Leucospermum linaere or The Vulnerable
The Fynbos Blog 