I have posted this before admiting that I couldn’t identify it and hoping it would helping by flowering. It has done so and while it’s not our most spectacular flower, it is everwhere on the mountain and the discrete bright red flowers add considerably to this already rather attractive shrub.
Cliffortia ruscifolia
Published on yesterday’s blog, and a flower I am sure I won’t be able to resist photographing many more times. This delicate pincushion is on the fynbos red list and we are very happy to see it thriving here. It is not the only one; I wouldn’t quite call it a colony, but we do have a few of them. Luckily they are largely inaccessible to flower hunters and enthusiastic photographers.
Leucospermum lineare
The torrents of rain have played havoc with our internet with is normally very good at the farm. On Thursday last week it poured all day and the dams in the Cape are now officially full. But the storm hit the “tower” on the farm which wasn’t repaired until Monday and we have only just acquired enough bandwidth for blogging and uploading, which is all very frustrating for The Fynbos Blog.
It’s raining heavily again today but in between we’ve had some glorious weather and today’s blog includes photos from several runs and a “flower safari” that we did for friends over the weekend. Luckily they were knowledgeable friends and identified some plants that I was not sure about.
The first glimpse of sunlight in at least 10 days came on Friday morning and floodlit the moutain through the clouds on our morning run. What a joy to anticipate some warmth and light over the weekend.
Dawn sunshine floods through the clouds
One new flower that I’m very happy to see is the Leucospermum that climbs down the bank on the driveway – aesthetically positioned on a bend in the road it is one of the few of this variety that we have on the farm and faithfully flowers every year. This is Leucospermum lineare, touchingly known as the Vulnerable and on the Red List of South African fynbos plants. It should be safe with us. (with thanks to Rupert Koopman for the ID).
Leucospermum lineare – the Vulnerable
This Protea is one that I’ve photographed before but I don’t think we’ve identified it correctly. I suspect that it could be Protea speciosa but we need to see if those petals have the right kind of hairy beards when it flowers fully. It is loving the rain and throwing lots of new buds.
Protea speciosa-esque?
Rain is also wonderful for flowering bulbs once they get a bit of sunshine and on our Sunday walk we saw this Spiloxene Capensis, the Cape Star on the point of flowering. We will definitely post a picture of this beauty in full flower if we get enough of a break in this week’s rain to get up the mountain.
Spiloxene capensis about to flower
Most of the flowering bulbs are a bit tattered but this Babinia Fragrens was clearly happy to see the sun and possibly emerged just after the rains as its petals are in perfect condition.
Babinia fragrens
On the road down from the waterfall to the farm stands this curiosity, a protea with a strange but apparently very happy parasite growing on it. I have no idea what it is and am posting a photo of it for curiosity value.
I have not yet quite identified this fabulous fynbos shrub. Notice the way the flowers seem to grow out of the fruit. When we first came here I was fascinated by the shapes and strange habits of some of the fynbos.
Unidentified shrub
There is so much going on that it is quite hard to choose what to post after an empty week. I cannot resist another photo of the Erica with it’s lovely pink bells – Ericas of all types are rampant at the moment, loving the damp cool winter air.
Erica nudiflora?
We had an exceptionally dry and mild June this year, followed by a wet and mild July and a very wet and quite mild August. This combination has made for an early spring flowering season and we can see life exploding all over the place, at least we can when we get out there in between the rains!
The final flower from our weekend is the Lobostemum Fruticosa. I won’t be able to resist taking photos of this shrub for the rest of the springtime, it is spectacular and flowers all over the moutain. These delicate trumpets shine both in sunshine and on gloomy days and bring joy to the soul of the weary runner and frustrated blogger.
Lobostemon fruticosus
On Monday evening after a beautiful crystal clear day I drove home in the early evening just as the sun was setting and the moon rising behind the mountains. This photo was taken from the bottom of the long dirt road that leads through the vineyards to our farm. By yesterday the clouds were back and with night came that sound of rain hammering on the roof again. Enough! Time for some sunshine!
The last of the sunlight and a rising moon over the Hawequas Mountains
As Capetonians know every day this week we’ve woken up to the thud of rain on the roof which is a huge disincentive to go up the mountain. Somehow I have become an African and the sound of rain is welcome, although I will never get over my Irish dislike of getting wet and don’t stand happily in the rain like some of my South African friends. I’m certainly not keen enough to go running in the heavy rain.
This morning the rain was not merely thudding; we had a warning of big storms today and during the night it started hammering and it didn’t let up until around 2pm and picked up again a couple of hours later. When it rains like this our thoughts immediately go out to those who have to cope in informal settlements all over the Cape. It must be hell for them.
Here in Paarl the rivers all look set to flood, any low areas of roads are flooding, and our mountains are disgorging water everywhere. It’s wet, but it’s also stunning and these long winter rains feed the Cape all year and make its fabulous wines and harvests possible. Dams are finally full and the winter is fulfilling its promise.
When the weather cleared for a while at 2pm, perhaps the eye of the storm or the bad rains finally wearing out I put on my running shoes and set off with the dogs to look at the rivers on the farm. The waterfall is amazing, gallons of water a second pouring down, white with fury and pressure. In the interest of a good picture I clambered down to the bottom of the fall to capture this photo. At the top of it you can see a pink flowering shrub – it’s the one I had identified as “purple gorse” but I went back to check and it is an Erica – Erica multumbelliferia.
The waterfall after heavy rain
Erica multumbelliferia
The poor old fynbos bulbs are a bit tattered after a week of rain but the same rain that flattens then will only produce more flowers. Meanwhile the Lobostemum seems to glow in the grey light and definitely took the slot of Flower of the Day. Here it is again.
Lobostemum fruticosus
I’ve noticed over the years that after heavy rain the birds are always very active and it was true today with birds calling and flitting all over the place. Best of all was an outraged Malachite Sunbird who had clearly decided the weir belonged to him and and him alone; he called furiously while flitting from branch to branch. There is another who loves the scented flowers by the house and who sits on a high branch outside the backdoor shrieking with rage on spring mornings when we emerge. One day I must capture him on film and post him on the blog, the emerald green colour is extraordinary and fully merits the name.
Higher up the weir is also pouring water and upstream from the weir the pools look amazing. You can see the gathering water and the magnificent trunk of this beautiful Ilex Mitis, the Cape Holly, with its foot in the stream.
Ilex Mitis, the Cape Holly with his feet in this permanent stream
While I was running merrily around the farm Peter was far more concerned with the dam, which looked like it might overflow and possible breach the dam wall which would be a disaster. He had sent the farm staff home – not much they can do in this weather, and spent the afternoon digging out above the wall to make sure we’d be safe. Fires a stiff drink and comfort food all needed at the farm this evening.
With all the rain we’ve been having the flowering bulbs are having a hard time. The Lobostemun on the other hand glowed in the dull rainy light.
Lobostemun fruticosus
The Moraea tripetala is probably the first fynbos bulb to captivate me all those years ago. I was running down the drive and couldn’t believe this tiny Iris-like flower growing prolifically along the bank. The larger petals are smaller than my thumbnail and the colours are exquisite. Of course I wanted to know what it was, I started noticing other flowers and out of that has come this passion for fynbos.
Moraea tripetala
The fabulous King Protea has emerged. It can flower at any time of the year and this one has flowered in the last week.
Protea cynaroides – The King Protea – South Africa’s National Flower
As we have a profusion of amazing flowers, and in particular flowering bulbs at the moment I shall post a “flower of the day” for the next couple of weeks. Today’s is the lovely Cape Star which has suddenly emerged all over the farm. Well named both literally and figuratively, as it looks like a star and is a real star of the flowering season.
Spiloxene capensis, the Cape Star
Most of this Sunday it drizzled, a slow cold Irish-type drizzle, the kind of soft grey day we don’t often get here. We huddled up in the study before a blazing fire and watched Andy Murray win the tennis at Wimbledon. He wrapped it up pretty quickly, and by the time he’d finished it wasn’t yet dark and I felt in need of exercise after a cold damp weekend, so I put on some running shoes, to the delight of the dogs, and set off up into the mountain with pounding paws and wagging tails leading the way.
Montinia caryophyllacea
Muraltia heisteria
Protea (nerifolia?)
Quite quickly it was far too dark to take good pictures of flowers and although I saw the first of one of our favourite late winter shrubs, we will have to wait another day for a photo (that’s today’s new flower). As the sun dropped behind the Paarderberg mountain, we trotted quietly down the montain, remembering to turn around from time to time to see the glow reflected in pink and orange on the moutains behind.
For at least four weeks I’ve been frustrated by this glorious red gladiolus.
Gladiolus watsonius
The species is easy to identify, the subspecies has been confusing; our first sighting was at the end of May and the book says it doesn’t flower until August. Even the more detailed encyclopedia says that it flowers from July to September. Furthermore it grows in clay and granite slopes in renosterveld. We have granite and sandstone slopes which is a subtle but important difference when it comes to fynbos. Over the weekend I got more serious and looked more closely – the only possible suspect was Gladiolus priorii. But Gladiolus priorii has a yellow throat and although I didn’t have a photo of the throat, I was pretty sure it’s not yellow. I couldn’t really bring myself to believe that we have a previously unidentified Gladiolus on the far, tempting though it might be.
Today I picked one.
It had fallen over a bit on the bank above the drive, it’s a bit tatty and it was time to take this whole process of identification a bit more seriously. And I can reveal that Gladiolus watsonius has one particular distinction. The lowermost leaf is narrow and H shaped in cross-section. No I didn’t get the scalpel out – I’m not that much of a geek yet. It’s pretty obvious just looking at it.
The lowermost leaf of Gladiolus watsonius
We have a positive identification – it may be the wrong time of year, it may not be quite the right soil-type but there is no doubt: Gladiolus watsonius likes Du Toitskloof and it likes our farm. It flowers when it chooses to and it’s not going to change, so the sages who write the books may need to change a word or two.
Gladiolus watsonius
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