arum lily | The Fynbos Blog

Tag Archives: arum lily

Jemima Chew and the francolin

Posted on June 2, 2014 by fynbosblog One comment

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog and I think I may be struggling with a little writer’s block. There has been so much travel, work, report writing, negotiating still more work, over the last few weeks, to say nothing of trying to keep a semblance of normal life, that the runs and the flowers have faded to the background. Back on a plane now, headed to Nairobi, not a destination that’s particularly attractive at the moment, Time to write a blog. The lovely thing about this time of year is that every day is so different.

Unlike most of the continent we do have four proper seasons and now we are headed from autumn to winter. I’ve talked before about how our autumn is more like spring in the Irish world I come from. Here it is the relentless heat that stifles growth and shrivels the landscape. So once the rains fall and the temperature is mild, the landscape becomes green, birds start courting and building nests and though winter is cold and damp, it is also fecund and bears the promise of life to come.

One silly Cape Francolin (a partridge-like bird) decided to build her nest on the shores of the dam, where the undergrowth is thick and a willow tree grows overhead. Jemima Chew found her, of course, and she flew into the willow tree and refused to budge; presumably reluctant to leave her eggs (it is a little too early for chicks). Jemima spent the entire day barking at her, running around the willow tree, ferreting in the damp waters and generally causing havoc. The bird still didn’t budge. At one point, when Peter and I went to inspect the cause of all this commotion, Jemima Chew had actually managed to climb onto the lower branches of this willow tree, defying both gravity and the limitations of her portly figure. I had left my iphone in the house so we have no evidence of this unlikely event. Luckily night brought the irresistible temptations of a warm fire and a good dinner and the by next morning the francolin had learned some sense and was gone. Birds are not stupid.

While we were there we saw the first arum lilies of the season. These lovely lilies are indigenous here and will grow all winter long anywhere damp, the wetter the better. Roadside verges are covered in them, a joy to behold. The gleaming whiteness is quite hard to photograph, but these are the first.

The first Aurm Lily of the year

Another fynbos bulb that likes damp places is Chasmanthe floribunda. I grew up knowing this as Montbrecia – it grows wild in the hedgerows of Ireland (a damp, mild climate if ever there was one). Oddly in Ireland it also flowers in May and June, justifying my claim that the Cape autumn is a kind of spring. Botannical names get changed to bring more global consistency and perhaps this is one that has been changed. When I look up Montbrecia it shows up as Crocosmia and looks exactly the same, so I’m a bit confused. Not an uncommon feeling when it comes to naming fynbos with pinpoint accuracy.

Chasmanthe floribunda, or Montbrecia or Crocosmia

There is a particular light we see here in winter that charms me most of all. It happens when the sun is setting in the West/North West and a mist comes off the river down in the Paarl valley on a perfectly still evening. At a certain moment the setting sunlight catches the mist and turns the whole valley into gold. I only ever see it once or twice a year and it is enthralling. Last week we had such an evening and this photo is taken from the balcony. Hard to catch the magical glimmering golden light in a photograph, yet there is something of it captured here.

A golden evening

The next morning greeted us with cool cloudy weather pierced by the odd shaft of sunlight and a double rainbow.

As we ran up the mountain we saw the first wild rosemary – Eriocephalus africanus. This stunning herb grows commonly all over the farm and soon the air will be scented with its flowering. The tiny while flowers are a delight to behold and we’ll see many more of them in the months to come.

Eriocephalus africanus, wild african rosemary

The Phylica is now in full flower everywhere and I noticed that the tiny flower heads have opened, each one a little flower in its own right. So pretty.

Phylica eriocoides

Wet weather finds in the fynbos

Posted on August 31, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

The weather and our travel arrangements have played against the Fynbos Blog for the last couple of weeks. We are in Ireland for a short holiday visiting friends and family. The Cape may seem green in winter but nothing compares to the overwhelming lush greenness of the Irish countryside.

Meanwhile in the Cape everything flowering and especially the bulbs seems to thrive in the wet wet weather. At this time of year the Arum lilies line the roads whereever there is a bit of damp or water. I have never seen them more prolific than this year – the verges are shining with white trumpets set in the glossy greenness of their leaves. Extraordinary that this magnificent flower should be so very common here.

Before we left I did manage to go up to the top of the farm between the torrents of rain and of course were new and exciting flowers to photograph, even though we only had a few minutes. The Babinia fragrens is everwhere, like all the bulbs it is loving this wet spring and the blue flashes are everywhere.

Babinia fragrens

I haven’t been able to identify this rather tatty yellow flower – it may not be looking its best after the rain but the honeybee doesn’t seem to mind. The leaf shape is very distinctive but I can’t make a certain identification in the books anything that looks similar seems to belong in sandy flats while we have sandstone and granite slopes so it is the wrong habitat.

Unidentified yellow flower

Meanwhile this lovely white flower is scattered all over the lower lands. This is a very common garden flower and I always thought it was Osteospermum but the book calls it Dimorphoteca nudicalus.

Dimorphoteca nudicalis

It’s exciting when we make a clear identification of an old and frequently seen friend and this one is Geissorhiza ovata – we see it all over the farm, it’s a stunning fynbos bulb that puts out this little white stars. There are 80 fynbos subspecies of Geissorhize so I hope we find more of these charming flowers.

Geissorhiza ovata

Another very summer flower is this Cyphia volubilis, a twining perennial creeper which is very common all over the farm. The delicate pretty white flowers are everywhere at the moment, often woven in to the depths of shrubby fynbos, so although they are common, they are not so easy to photograph and this was a lucky shot in good light. The flowers themselves are quite small, about the size of my thumbnail, or just a little bigger.

Cyphia volubilis

We ran out of time and had to get back to pack for Ireland. The weather has been appalling since we left, so we wouldn’t have much to photograph and I’m hoping that some warmth and sunshine might arrive which will cause a profusion of flowering in perfect time for our return next week. Meanwhile I am hoping to put up some new pages with collections of some of the larger groups of subspecies.

Flowing Water and Fowers – 28 June 2013

Posted on June 29, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

Home. The desert sands of Qatar behind me at last. It was a shock to return to glorious green after the thick humid sandy air of Doha. It seems it’s done nothing but rain since we left home three weeks ago and the farm has a rich sodden feel to it, with water roaring through the river and tumbling down the waterfall. The roads are in need of maintenance, full of rivulets and potholes but the seeds I planted in the garden before we left have all sprouted into healthy young plants and the fynbos is settling into a winter burst of life. Seamus, the senior wolfhound, is joyous at my return and cannot bear to leave my side.

The dogs and I went for an evening walk, inspecting some of our usual routes, the dogs looking for new smells, and me looking for new flowers. We started down in the stream below the house that leads to the damn. The banks are lined with Arum Lilies at this time of year. Just as the luminous grasses have disappeared the lilies flower along the rivers and roads all winter and their beauty speaks for itself. We have a few months of them ahead, and there will be a lot more pictures to come.

Arum Lilies

The great thing about this blog is that it focuses the mind on home, on the magnificence of this land and the plants that grow here. I’ve seen Chasmathe all over the Cape, they remind me of the Montbretia that grown wild in Ireland, another South African wild flower that grows all over Ireland’s verges and banks in the summer. At first I thought it was the same flower but Montbretia doesn’t grow in this part of the world, it belongs further north in a summer rainfall area. This Chasmanthe is lovely, another of the anchors of a certain time of year, this winter time, when growth is rich and lush and yet only a herald of things to come.

Chasmanthe, most likely floribunda, but to be verified

When we moved to the farm eight years ago this little red creeper was one of the first flowers to awake my interest in fynbos. The flowers are tiny, smaller than my little fingernail and they appear suddenly in midwinter, winding around the stems of thicker fynbos. Despite their tiny size the jewel-like coral jumps out of the greenery and draws the eye. We will have them until mid-spring or later, all over the farm.

Microloma tenuifolium

We could hear the waterfall long before we saw it – with the rainfall we’ve had in June the rivers on the farm are roaring and the land feels replenished.

As we walked along the new road that leads to the waterfall this enchanting sight greeted us. I don’t know what to say or even think about the

pelargoniums; though are stunning, charming, and endlessly delightful the sub-species seem impossible to identify. Our new road is a pelargonium nursery and they thrive here all year round. At least this one allowed me to take a good picture – gracefully gleaming in the evening light.

Pelargonium – subspecies unknown

Pelargonium

The books have a few pelargoniums but they don’t seem to flower at the right time of the year. We have dozens and the best I can do is document them and find a real expert. Some of those that I’ve transplanted to the garden are doing really well, perhaps that will help. They are endlessly endearing. My grandmother grew them, pelargoniums and geraniums, nursing them through the Irish winters. She would have loved this place; not lush like Ireland with it’s dense choking green; more selective; intense; dramatic – she would most definitely have appreciated the drama. It was her birthday on 22nd June, just after midsummer. I was in Doha, so missed the shortest day of the year on the farm. Today is the shortest day we will see this year, and this is the most north-westerly sunset, far over the Paarderberg.

By mid-summer this sun will set far to the South of Table Mountain.

My love of botany is definitely inspired by her, and by my stepgrandmother, both of whom were dedicated and knowledgable horticulturalists. I thought of them both this evening as we descended in the gloom. Two women, one Irish, one English, both Catholic, both of whom were born in one world war and raised their children through the next. Gracious women, much loved, characters, who instilled in us both values and manners. They loved their gardens and gardening brought them together, unexpectedly and into a lifelong friendship. They admired one another and both of them would like to know they are remembered and that they continue to inspire us.

The Ericas are coming out all over the farm and I have not yet identified this one – a detailed book on Ericas as we as Pelargoniums is most definitely called for. The Erica family runs to 660 subspecies in the fynbos region, so we can’t expect to identify them all, but it will be fun to see how many we have on the farm and I will start a library page on them soon.

Arum Lilies, a dedication and 11 new species/subspecies

Posted on May 19, 2013 by fynbosblog One comment

On the 19th of May I think of my brother Mark, who’s birthday this is, and this blog is dedicated to him. Peonies are my favourite flowers because they bloomed in our garden the day he was born and I picked some to bring to the hospital the first day I met him.

Yesterday I took the dogs for a walk in the evening and as we crossed the dam wall I saw the first Arum Lily of the year. I’ve seen them on the roadside already; all winter the roadsides and fields are covered in them – amazing that something so rare and precious in Europe should be a common winter wildflower here. They thrive in watery places and the streams and banks on the farm are covered in them, hence this first sighting. Before our run this morning I took this photograph – the flower shimmered against the brown dam water – its perfection needs no embelishment.

Then off we went for our favourite weekend run. The northern boundry of the farm abutts the nature reserve and the lower slopes of the reserve are covered by a commercial pine forest. Crazy in this environment where the fynbos needs to burn every seven years or so in order to regenerate but if the forest goes up it will be a disaster, not least because there is a village in the middle of it. That said, we love it. On hot days it’s a joy to run through the forest’s dappled light and today was an unusually hot autumn day. Once we leave the property both wolfhounds go on the lead. I probably look a bit ridiculous running along with these two huge dogs, one of which weighs more than I do, but even with baboon sightings they are too polite to pull me over or the lead out of my hand. A passing cyclist generates no more than an enthusiast tug from the dogs, and pedals all the faster when he sees them. They are gentle giants but look quite fierce; this may be Africa, but I feel perfectly safe.

As we set off I was thinking that surely I wouldn’t find anything new on the farm – after all a few days ago I photographed everything I could see. Now I’m curious to see how the year goes, because in one day I’ve identified 11 new species and subspecies, not all of which I’ll talk about yet but still; 11. And as I think about it 12 because I saw the buds of one of very favourite flowers about to bloom and didn’t take a picture as the months to come will offer splendid opportunities to capture it at its best. Out I went thinking, probably won’t see anything new today and 11 new things pop up. This bodes well for our blogging year.

We ran later than usual so the Oxalis, mentioned in a previous blog, are all showing off in the glorious autumn sunlight and as soon as we left the house I notice this lovely yellow version, on the banks of the roadside and also in the lands, this in the last couple of days. There are 120 Oxalis fynbos subspecies so forgive me if I dont’ try and identify this one which doesn’t have a perfect match in my book.

While on the subject of Oxalis, I published a picture of one from the southern part of the farm which I described as unusual. Clearly I shall be humbled by this blog; this flower may be unusual on the southern boundry, but in the north of the farm these jewel-like flowers are everywhere. There is one road in particular which always has the best display of flowers and of course it is littered with these lovely pinky white stars. On closer study I believe it may be Oxalis Argyrophylla.

While photograhing those I noticed this creeping pink Oxalis with finer leaves and a creeping or rambling disposition. I can’t identify it but it is most certainly a different and very charming sub-species.

Ericas or heathers are one of the great marvels of fynbos and the flowers take many forms, often bells or trumpets, others less musical. The trumpets are to my mind the most beautiful of all – and this coral version has started to flower in the past week or so. The morning light was not good enough to capture it and I had a busy Sunday afternoon in the garden so I asked Peter to take me up to the top of the farm this afternoon to capture it in the southwestern sunlight.

This expedition led to several more sightings which I’ll share during the course of the week – too much for one blog. One thing I saw late last night, photographed this morning and again this afternoon is this tiny, delicate flower, of which I could find only one example in the middle of a fertile piece of road. Initially I thought it must be yet another of the 120 sub-species of Oxalis but on looking at this photo that’s clearly not the case; the leaves are all wrong. I think it must be Chaenostoma, yet those in my book are all shrubs and this is somewhat standalone. Perhaps this plant will develop over the years, or I shall find others that permit a more accurate identification. Delicate, delightful, terribly discrete and utterly charming.

Finally – what on earth is this? It looks like it belongs in a very smart herbaceous border, yet here it is, casually on the roadside, red berries glistening in the afternoon sun. Further investigation is clearly required and we need to see what the flowers look like. What a beauty. And if you look closely you will note the little violet wild lobelia flowers growing through it.