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Windy Mountain

Posted on October 13, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

Spring is turning into summer on the mountain and the wind is howling at night and most of the day. There is an afternoon lull but already, at 7 o’clock in the evening, I can hear it picking up outside the office and later it will whip around the house and rattle the roof.

I spent the weekend in George, along the famous Garden Route at a Horse Trials, the Western Province Championships. We had fun, didn’t win any big prizes, but spent the weekend with our friends and got to gallop fast over solid fences which is the most fun you can have on a horse.

On Friday morning I went for a run in the suburbs of George and enjoyed sightings of fynbos flowers that have adapted to the urban environment. Here on the farm I know only of one place where the Gladiolus maculatus blooms and that’s in July. Looking at the book I see they are winter flowering but I saw them, or something very similar, in a spot of suburban wasteland as I ran past. Perhaps I should have taken a closer look.

When I don’t take them running often enough the dogs get bored and take themselves off for their own runs. Sometimes they are gone for hours and we get increasingly worried about them until they come home, panting and joyful, terribly pleased with themselves and usually soaking wet as they’ve stopped for a cooldown in the dam on the way back to the house. Several dogs have disappeared on the mountain that we know of and we worry and worry when they are gone, we go looking for them and calling them for hours and never see a sign. Last time I checked there was no tracker available that would work here in South Africa but recently I heard of one, so I searched again and found it in Germany. It arrived today and has now been attached to Maebh. She and Jemima Chew often go for a quick hunt in the evening, and sometimes Maebh and Seamus go off together, but for some reason, never the three together. If Maebh has a tracker, we’ll know where to find them.

I know better than to think I will get any photos in this wild wind, but I’ll see what’s there and where to go when the wind drops. They say in Cape Town that if you don’t like the weather today, don’t worry because it will be different tomorrow and the change in weather is heralded by the wind dropping to that incredible stillness on the mountain that I’ve so often written about. When that happens we will pick a moment of good light to catch the latest spring flowers. In the meantime there is much to catch up on. Last year I failed to name this blue flower so I posted it on ispot. The experts suggest it might be Aspalathus cephalotes subspecies obscuriflora.

Aspalathus cephalotes subsp. obscuriflora

Aspalathus cephalotes

Another pretty thing I couldn’t identify is this white “flower” which is tiny and turns out to be the seedhead of Ursinia anthemoides which I photographed in August but hadn’t posted, much more interesting to post the two together now.

Ursinia anthemoides in flower

The seedhead of Ursinia anthemoides

I love these fluffy heads that must be Stilbe, I think vestita.

Stilbe vestita

The other fluffy flowers that I photographed some time ago and never posted are the wild buchu plants that grow on the farm. Our crop is buchu, Agathomsa crenulata and hybrids thereof, and Agathomsa betulina. These are used medicinally and in the food flavouring and perfume industries because of the powerful essential oils that have an intense note of blackcurrant. I occassionally post photos of the buchu we farm which is indigenous to the area. This is a genuinely wild buchu, probably either Agathomsa imbricata or capensis.

Agathomsa – wild buchu

As I was running down one of the roads I noticed that it was bordered by shrubs of Salvia africana all in flower and would make a wonderful photo. Being in a hurry I put it off only to find when I returned that a spring wind had blown the flowers to shreds. They are tough and they flower all year but the best display is in a wet spring. They are stalwart friends on the mountain with an exceptional colour and fortunately enough remained for me to capture some of the flowers.

Salvia africana-cerulea

Salvia africana cerulea

Summer is Helichrysum season and it begins with this Helichrysum patulum. We have several subspecies of this wonderful and resilient plant on the farm and they deserve a page of their own.

Helichrysum patulum

Along the drive the Crassula fascicularis has come into flower.

Crassula fascicularis

Finally, one of my top favourite flowers has emerged, the lovely spikes of Aristea capitata, unmistakable and one of the first flowers I identified when we bought the farm and I started running here. These are prolific in damp areas and I hope they will be spectacular this year after the wet winter. We’ll have more photos of them over the next month.

Aristea capitata

Aristea Capitata

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.

Maebh hunting in the olive groves, her coat dark from running in the soaking wet fynbos

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Philosophical musings, buchu and wild rosemary

Posted on July 13, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

I don’t remember all that much about my schooldays, more important things have happened since. But I clearly remember one lesson. Mr Clifford, the science teacher, was explaining the structure of an atom. Someone asked the inevitable question “but if we can’t see it, how do we know it is there?” “Ah”, said Mr Clifford tapping the table in front of him, “but how do we know anything is there, how do we know this table is here? But”, he said, “that’s philosphy.”

That question really caught my imagination, and years later when I was studying philosophy at Trinity College Dublin, I read Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosphy where that question about the table comes under discussion. As does another question: that of truth and knowledge. Simply put, I know all bachelors are men because that lies within the very meaning of the word men “bachelor”. Similarly, can I know that all swans are white? No, I have to keep seeing swans and noting their whiteness. One day I’ll go to Australia, or the zoo, and see a black swan. Whiteness is not a defining factor of swans; that was Russell’s point.

It was buchu that led to these musings as the dogs and I ran this morning. We grow buchu commercially and I always have the notion that buchu flowers are white. As we peaked at the highest point of the run and headed down the moutain (always a very happy moment in the morning run) I suddenly saw this flash of lilac.

Buchu – in this case a hybrid of Agthomsa Crenulata, with an unusual mauve coloured flower

I stopped at once, and low and behold it was a little buchu plant, a hybrid from the farm, with lilac coloured flowers. They were hard to photograph in the dim morning light – I can’t wait for the days to lengthen so that photography becomes easier in the early mornings when I run. Where did this purple come from?

In referring to the books, buchu, or Agthomsa as it is properly known, can indeed flower in mauve. Rather like a swan can be black.

The buchu harvested on our farm is mostly a hybrid. The oils are distilled from the leaves and is used in the European food flavouring and perfume industry, mostly for its strong blackcurrent flavour and smell. Here in South Africa it is used medicinally, it is one of the oldest medicinal flowers in the Cape, indeed in the world. Personally I believe in its natural anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties and I love its aniseed, fennel like flavour and drink a cup or two most days.

Agthomsa crenulata hypbrid: this plant is farmed here and harvested for its essential oils

The other highly aromatic plant on the farm at this time of year is the wild rosemary. This grey scrubby bush used to irritate me, but no longer. Running my hand down the leaves and smelling the rosemary scent, seeing the lands full of shrubs and this exquisite, delicate flower has become a winter joy.

Eriocephalus africanus or wild rosemary

Wild rosemary has taken over this land on the lower slopes of the farm

We are enjoying a mid-winter break at the moment. Winters in the Cape can be long and stormy and sometimes quite cold. This year we are enjoying a warm July. Here in Africa the temperatures are as warm as an Irish summer – over 25 degrees during the day. It’s a bit confusing for the poor plants though and I’m sure we’ll see some strange flowering dates as a result.

The mornings are clear and lovely. As we ran we saw the first rays of sun over the Simmonsberg to the South West. A joyous morning.

The first rays of sun on the Simonsberg

13 May 2013

Posted on May 14, 2013 by fynbosblog One comment

There are days when I bound up the mountain followed by happy dogs, fully of the joys of, not spring as it’s autumn here, but certainly the joys of life and the beauty of this place in the morning light. And there are other days, probably far more frequent, when the run is more of a plod, as the busy life we lead catches up, sleep is never enough and despite the glories to be found on the mountain it’s an effort to drag myself out there. Yesterday was one of those other days.

Luckily there was lots to photograph so I had plenty of excuses to stop and to take my time and the usual morning run took much longer than it should have.

The first excitement is that the wild rosemary is in flower. Like the buchu that we farm it is cultivated for the perfume industry. The shrub is a little nondescript thing, a few grey tendrils coming out of the ground, until it flowers and then these exquisite flowers emerge at the top of each branch. Very common, they are all over the place at the moment.

Eriocephalus africanus or Wild Rosemary
Many of the flowering fynbos have a long season – one of them is the fynbos version of salvia. It starts to flower in late November or early December and it’s still flowering prolifically now. There are several of these bordering the roads where we run and they are like friends we great every day for half the year. Coming towards the end of their season now and flowering as vigorously as ever.

Salvia chamelaeagnea

As we run, or should I say plod, up the path that goes through the olive groves to the top of the farm, we pass this fearsome, stunning shrub. I showed this photo to Peter, my husband and he wryly acknowledged that he knows it all too well. Like many South African farmers he likes to wear shorts and sometimes comes home with his legs ripped to shreds. This chap is one of the culprits. But look at what a stunning chap he is. I actually managed to get a shot of the small thorn-head in focus, grey with tiny spikes of gold set in little balls. A bigger version could be a medieval weapon of war. I don’t know what this is, there’s lots of it about and it must be pretty common and I will identify it sooner or later and post the name.

One of the most varied and most prolific fynbos varieties we have are the Ericas. You know this species as heather. The amazing thing about Ericas is that they grow all over Africa and Europe but 80% of the species grow in Southern Africa and there are 660 fynbos sub-species. Quite a few of these grow on this farm, so there will be plenty of Ericas in the blog. Here’s the first one, another long standing friend who flowers throughout the hot months, giving us lovely purple-mauve flashes on the mountain when all else is hiding deep underground away from the relentless sun. I don’t know which of the 660 this one is. Will have to get a book or two on Ericas – there are plenty more to come.

One of the 660 subspecies of Erica resident in the region

Finally, there I was, puffing along, when I saw a little group of tiny pink whorls. Pulled up and investigated. A little flower head with flowers tightly furled waiting for more daylight. I drove up later to catch them open. I haven’t identified it but it looks and behaves like Oxalis so that’s what we’ll call it. Completely different to the Oxalis I photographed a few days ago with their clover-like leaves, and that is the enduring joy of fynbos.