August | 2014 | The Fynbos Blog

Monthly Archives: August 2014

Balmy days and foggy nights

Posted on August 18, 2014 by fynbosblog One comment

We’ve been having exceptionally warm and sunny weather for the time of year. Although we quite often get an early burst of spring in August, this is really warm – 28 degrees or even higher yesterday and we are still in t-shirts today. The combination of warmth and damp in spring often means foggy patches and a favourite sight is the view from the farm on a foggy morning. We had one breathtaking dawn moment as the full moon set behind Paarl mountain and the fog lapped at the foothills. The moon is never as spectacular in a photo, this one was huge and round and dominated the morning sky.

Moon setting over Paarl

The Lobostemon fruticosus has burst into flower. The dull light brings out the best in it; it has a luminous glow. And sometimes the very first rays of sun just catch the flowers so they are lit from within. The colour ranges from pink to pale blue and the small shrubs are covered in a mass of flowers. We have them everywhere. I have tried to transplant them into the garden but even the small ones have a deep deep tap root that I haven’t succeeded in transplanting intact, so they shrivel and die. Never mind, they clearly prefer the mountain.

Lobostemon fructicosus

It quite often happens that I notice something in a particular area and think of it as rare and special only to find out a few days later that it is all over the farm. This pretty yellow shrub is one of those. I initially didn’t recognise it, and then was quite excited to realise when I had a good look at the photos that it was probably another Hermannia, like the ones we saw last week. Rushed to the book, looked up the Hermannias and sure enough it’s Hermannia althaeifolia, quite a common plant in the region and also used extensively in gardens. Not surprising, it’s a lovely thing. The photo in the reference book isn’t very good though, so I went to iSpot for some clarification and checking those images there can be no doubt.

Hermannia althaeifolia

iSpot is the place for geeks when it comes to fynbos. They ask us to post what we see and I don’t do it enough, but if I can’t identify something, there is always a far more knowledgeable person on iSpot who will. This little white flowering bulb for instance, which I posted a couple of blogs ago, has been identified as Ixia. They were not sure which subspecies, and I can’t find it in any of my reference books, but reading into the more detailed description of the Ixia, I can see what they mean.

Ixia

I don’t know what this absolutely charming white Erica is. There are some serious Erica experts on iSpot though, so I shall post it and see what we come up with.

White Erica

A couple of pelargoniums – the first one is not really spectacular as the photo isn’t very good – but it’s one I haven’t posted yet this year. The other is another, pelargonium myrrhifolium varr myrrhifolium, a pelargonium I posted a couple of weeks ago, from a different plant on a different part of the farm.

Pelargonium myrrhifolium varr. myrrhifolium

Pelargonium

The Vulnerable – Leucospermum lineare

Posted on August 11, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

Leucospermum Lineare – The Vulnerable

Delicate, tumbling down the slopes beside the drive, the Vulnerable as Lucospermum lineare is known, is one of the sights of winter and early spring. It is rare and endangered and safe with us.

What a weekend! Why do we think: let’s do a dinner party on Thursday, and then, yes, another one on Friday, leftovers on Saturday but oh my goodness a long long Sunday lunch at the gorgeous and delicious Overture Restaurant in the Hidden Valley where we plumbed the depths, the deepest depths, of their wine cellar? And got home at 9pm. From lunch. Personally I blame the wonderful and very talented Niall who has been here coaching dressage and who likes the good life just as much as we all do and is thoroughly good company, so everybody wants to spend time with him when he’s here and we like to entertain him.

So I didn’t get out on the farm this morning, but I managed to stagger out with the dogs for a lovely time on Saturday afternoon which was much more about the flowers than the running. The Babinia fragrans are all over the place now – one of the prettiest and commonest flowering bulbs on the farm. Once they flower everything else seems to start bursting with life.

Babinia fragrens

On the drive, growing now among the Morea tripelata is a delicate little flower which I have not identified.

Ixia

Seen from the back

And the side

And talking of Morea, as we ran down the path to the waterfall I saw this, which made me stop and look twice. It looks very like an oxalis, but the colour is darker than most, the leaf not the same and it lacks the common yellow throat. Also, the Oxalis petals grow in an Escher-like (would that be Escherian?) spiral, where this has three top petals and three bottom petals. As I flicked though the Encyclopedia of bulbs I suddenly recognised it – Morea veriscolor. Lovely to find something new and learn a new flower as well.

Morea veriscolor

Morea veriscolor, showing the leaves

We stopped for a drink of course and Seamus took his usual spot in the stream, peeking at us through the ferns.

Seamus peeking through the ferns

All over the farm and probably all over the country the tickberry is in flower. This is one of those plants that has been renamed – it used to be known as Chrysanthemoides monilifera but now has been reclassified as Osteospermum moniliferum. It grows wild all over South Africa and is found in lots of gardens as well.

Massed tickberry shrubs growing wild on the mountain

Tickberry flowers

Osteospermum moniliferum

Another very common shrub is known as the climber’s friend, cliffortia ruscifolia. Quite a stocky and strong rooted shrub, which must be why it is known as the climber’s friend, it certainly can’t be much fun to have to grab these brutal prickles.

The climber’s prickly friend

Cliffortia ruscifolia

We’ve cleared lots of lands over the winter and although I always worry about how much fynbos we take off it creates room for new growth. The iPhone does a brilliant job of photographing flowers but not the delicate massed scattering of daisies and Babinia fragens in a field of buchu. At the top of the field are masses of little yellow daisies. I couldn’t find them in the book until I realised that the buttonwood daisy can have yellow petals as well as white. This is not a great photo of this tiny flower as the light was hot and yellow.

Cotula turbinata

Just at the top of the waterfall a single Red Hot Poker, Knophofia uvaria has emerged.

And along the road I saw this flower that I didn’t recognise at all but it was on the first page that I opened in one of my books. It is Metalasia divergens.

Metalasia divergens

And one last flower seen on this run. I’ve spotted some new Pelargoniums that I don’t think I’ve documented before and we’ll be off in the morning if the light is good to see if we can get some shots of them.

Meanwhile this pretty Erica is different from all the others I’ve documented so far this year. Pretty soft grey leaves distinguish it from others, as does the slightly different shape of the pink bells. It’s gorgeous.

Erica with soft grey leaves

A spring morning

Posted on August 3, 2014 by fynbosblog One comment

On Friday evening the neighbours came to dinner and arrived early for a flower safari. Wonderful to have neighbours who love the mountain as much as we do and who appreciate how special it is. I took them on the old doctors road to see the waterfall which is pounding in its winter splendor. There are hundreds of flowers at this time of year, the wildflower spring commences long before flowers come to the garden. We discovered the old doctor’s road when Peter cleared a veritable forest of wattles along the river; they had overgrown this road and below it, a small but spectacular waterfall. Now this place is a haven for the fynbos which grew back the instant the trees were cleared.

From there we walked up to the weir, a favourite spot and much photographed for this blog because of the magic of the magnificent, ancient, white trunked Ilex Mitis trees, and then on up, above the weir and close to the top of the farm. The sun was setting behind the Paarderberg mountain; a soft mist gathered in the valley below, the evening was completely still, silent, breathless. The gentle warmth of a mild sunny winter’s day coming from the earth beneath our feet. As it grew darker the full dams in the valley gleamed the reflection of the evening sky into the stillness of the coming night. “It’s like a holy place” said Francois, “there’s something spiritual about it.”

Dinner was companionable, cheerful and as we are in wine tasting mode for Christopher’s wedding in January, a little too much drink was taken. Our guests left us late, very happy, as were we.

Perhaps a little less so the following morning when the full consequences of overindulgence emerged, but not enough to prevent me from donning the running clothes and setting off with the wolfhounds and Jemima Chew into the gloomy grey morning on a serious mission to photograph flowers for the blog. The first Babinia fragrens has appeared which is for me the harbinger of spring, and with it shrubs, little trees and tiny plants have burst into flower. I won’t post the Babinia, as there will be thousands more, I didn’t get a great photo and there is so much else to post. It rained heavily during the night, those very still evenings often indicate a change in weather and flowers were covered in raindrops. To my delight I’ve identified two new flowers that I don’t remember seeing last year and which turn out to be related. The first is Hermannia saccifera and the second is Hermannia hyssopifolia, a pretty and sizeable shrub with an unusual flower that has a pin-hole throat and this urn shaped body, called a calyx. Absolutely recognisable when I read the description, there is nothing quite like it.

Hermannia saccifera

Hermannia hyssopifolia

The Hermannia hyssopifolio grows in an area that Peter cleared last year, cutting through old fynbos and finding a large flat area where we least expected it, evidence of terracing by a farmer long ago. A stream runs through this area and shrubs and there is prolific growth along it’s banks, including this sprawling shrub with its sticky leaves and tar-like smell. It’s known as the tar pea, Bolusafra biuminosa, and grows, appropriately enough, along mountain streams.

Bolusafra bitumenosa, the tar pea

Another new identification also grows in this area, Phylica oleaefolia, with these pretty ranks of pale green, cupped flowers. This is quite a tall elegant shrub.

Philyca oleaefolia

We went down to an area where I haven’t been for a while and some of the yellow daisies are still flowering, the Athanasia trifurcata and the Osteospermum spinosum that I mentioned on a blog a couple of months ago. I love when the flower matches the book’s comments perfectly, particularly as the photos don’t always. The Athanasia trifucatum, says the book, has wedge shaped grey leaves, 3-5 toothed at the tips. If you look closely at the leaves in this photo you can clearly see the three teeth.

Osteospermum spinosum

Athanasia trifucatum

In the same place grows a tiny pelargonium, one of my favourite flowers which grows all year round in different parts of the farm. I think it’s Pelargonium myrrhifolium, var. myrrhifolium.

Pelargonium myrrhifolium varr. myrrhifolium

Along the road we walked on Friday night, which I call Erica Alley for the many varieties of Erica that make their home there, are several stunning varieties in flower. Two beautiful examples of the common Erica plukenetii, showing the range of colour, from white with very pale pink, to coral. And some with pretty pink bells in many shades, as well as this lovely white Erica where the bells grow in ranked series but which I have never identified.

Erica plunketii

Erica Plunketii

Erica with tiny pink bells

White Erica, with the flowers growing in orderly rows

A close up of the white Erica showing the tiny protruding anthers

Another pretty shrub which I have not managed to identify. The flowers are green and tiny; so tiny that a single raindrop captures several of them.

And a small tree-like shrub flowering in several places on the farm with prolific drooping flower heads, but I can’t find it in the book.

More familiar friends include Stachys aethiopica, also known as woundwort with it’s mint shaped leaves and pretty little pinky-white flowers.

Stachys aethiopica

All over the farm the buchu is in flower. Agthomsa, mostly crenulata, or a crenulata hybrid, though we also grow lots of Agthomsa betulina. Buchu, the common name, loves the sandy mountain soil and especially the north facing slopes on the farm. The flowers are mostly white but sometimes pretty shades of pink and lilac.

Agthomsa, or buchu with pink flowers

I couldn’t resist capturing Protea burchellii looking stunning in the grey morning light as well as the Leucadendron tinctum. These yellow flower heads will soon turn the most wonderful shade of coral – they are prolific on the mountain and grow in massed groups in certain areas.

Protea burchellii

Leucadendron tinctum

All in all we had a wonderful time, the dogs and I. As a run it wasn’t up to much but as a morning spent together on the mountain, it was the best of times. Maebh has boundless energy and was particularly happy to find a mongoose to chase. He is much much cleverer than she, there was never a chance of her catching him, but she was very pleased with her morning.