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A spring weekend

Posted on August 4, 2013 by fynbosblog One comment

I have been away too much over the past few weeks and am overjoyed to be back on the farm for a few weeks before I have to do any serious travel again. The last post talked about the Bulbinia fragens, the harbinger of spring. Spring here does not arrive over many weeks as it does in Europe. Within one unseasonably warm week I have returned to find the farm full of new flowers. This is building up to the height of the flowering season for Fynbos and the next few months are going to see an explosion of life. I’m already struggling to keep up – this blog will be quite long and I’ll be trying to keep regular posts so that we capture as much as possible of what’s happening on the mountain.

I’ve been looking out for this flower – it’s a dear friend, one of the first that made me realise the special nature of our fynbos bulbs. This photo is quite deceptive as this is a tiny iris-like flower – each petal not much bigger than my fingernail. This is Moraea tripelata and it has started to flower all over the farm. I spotted it first thing when I went running with the dogs on Saturday morning.

Moraea tripetala

Peter then took us up to see the work he’s been doing clearing alien vegetation, especially the Port Jackson trees that choke the river. Every winter when the planting on the farm is done he attached this for a few weeks. Two winters ago we cleared around the waterfall and what was a chocked up watercourse that you couldn’t see is now full of vibrant fynbos life. He has just opened up this area, so dense with trees that you couldn’t get into it and has found the spot where the two rivers that run through the farm meet, before tumbling down the mountain to add their waters to the mighty Berg River that runs through the Paarl valley below us.

Clearing alien trees along the river

The place where the two rivers meet

In the late afternoon I took some guests on our first “Flower safari” of the year. All we did was walk down the front drive and we were enchanted with the profusion of flowers we came across, many old friends that we have posted before, and quite a few new ones.

First of all we came across this tiny white gladiolus. I first saw it at the top of the bank, which gives an idea of scale.

Unknown gladiolus

Then I realised they are growing along the side of the road. I cannot find this one in my book at all – not even in the bulb encyclopedia. I’ve done this before, failed to identify a flower and then realised I’m not looking properly at the description, so if I do realise what it is, I’ll post it. It is quite enchanting, with a delicate fragrance, like so many of the gladioli.

Gladiolus unidentified

Then we came across another example of the bell like pink Erica that I posted last week, this time a lot closer to home.

Erica with pink bells

There are masses of these on the drive, and masses of what I guess to be Erica daphniflora, in colours of green, white, red and a particularly vibrant pink.

Erica, probably daphniflora

The Oxalis are still flowering away, these ones in white and pink profuse along the bank and the lands still covered in the yellow ones.

Oxalis

The next new find was this Erica – you can see it’s quite distinctive in the way it grow and flowers and the little white bells have the brown anthers exposed at the end. This was very attractive in the late evening light.

Erica, unidentified

Another new find is this flowering shrub which is common all over the farm. I have always assumed it to be Cape Confetti, but with my evolving botannical eye I think it is more likely to be Adenandra villas, possily . I’m sure I will have many more occassions to photograph this stunning shrub.

Cape confetti – coleonem album or adenandra villas?

As I was showing our guests one of the Protea nerifolias along the road we saw this little bud. We were delighted as it means these glorious proteas are going to continue to flower for some time.

The bud of a Protea nerifolia

The Felicia is such a wonderful flower. This is the first one I have seen this year and it will flower from now until the summer, along with the Lobostemum it is one of our commonest shrubs. That makes the first sighting of these pretty lilac flowers with their yellow centres no less exciting, both for their own sake and the promise of more spring flowers to come.

Felicia filifolia

This warm weather won’t be with us for long, with temperatures expected to plummet during the week. Luckily up here on the mountain we almost never go below 5 degrees, so the flowers will be safe. In the valley below it can freeze, but the moutain seems to hold the heat of summer and protects us from the coldest weather.

We are coming into the best season for sunsets. Yet another amazing sunset this evening as I was finishing some more traditional gardening and the mountains behind turned a glorious orangey-pink.

Babinia Fragrens, the Harbinger of Spring

Posted on July 26, 2013 by fynbosblog 2 comments

I got home on Tuesday morning and of course my first thought was to get up on the mountain and see new flowers though I didn’t achieve it until late in the day.

Every year as we reach the end of July, the coldest and wettest six weeks of the Cape year, a flower emerges that is for me the harbinger of spring. Like hearing the first cuckoo, I always note where and when I see the first Babinia fragrens. These crocus-like flowers cover the farm, they are everywhere – and the bulbs are particularly loved by porcupines. Last year I was running up a steep hill on the farm when I came across a 300 metre stretch of road where a happy porcupine had wandered up and dug up every single plant to munch on the bulbs. There are plenty to share and it was fun to think of him happily crunching not far from the house in the night as we slept.

Babinia Fragens, the first of the year

Next up was this delicate white flower. I didn’t get a great picture of it – I think it’s a Cape Snowflake, to give it it’s common name, but will pop it into the research folder and see if we can get a better shot. These are quite common so I’m sure we’ll see more.

Opposite the Cape Snowflake, the water was tumbling in huge volumes down the waterfall in the evening sunlight – there’s been a lot of rain while I’ve been away.

One of the other wonderful sights of late winter and early spring is the Lebostemum. Another very common flowering shrub which flowers now and for several months. I have tried several times to transplant these to the garden, but they have a long fragile tap root and even very young ones invariably die. They are magnificent shrubs and flower in blue, pink or anything inbetween.

Lobostemon fructicosus

We wanted a good view of the sunset and went to the highest point of the farm on a road we don’t often run. This wonderful combination of Protea nerifolia and Protea nitida blocked our route at one point and forced a detour.

Protea nerifolia and Protea nitida in the evening light

On the detour we came across this stunning Erica with little pink bell-like flowers in full bloom. Pink ericas with bell-like or urn-like flowers are like yellow daisies, there are an aweful lot of them and they are hard to tell apart. Thanks due to Jemima Chew who stood behind them, making them much easier to photograph!

One of the many ericas that flowers with a tiny pink bell-like flower

The Cape Sugarbirds are in full mating feathers at the moment and they are having a lovely time in areas where the proteas are thickest. Their tails are so long they can hardly fly – that’s the males of course, the females look drab and take their pick. I haven’t yet managed to get a really good shot of one but hopefully it’s a matter of time.

I don’t believe we have posted and recorded this protea which is now in full flower.

Protea – indentification will be confirmed in a further posting

Finally – another sunset. As dusk gathers and the sun sets you can see the mist from the Berg River gathering on the valley floor. No wind, the light is stunning and in the far distance table mountain and the whole of Cape Town is covered by a dark wall of cloud. The rain is coming.

Proteas, Montinea and another glorious sunset

Posted on July 7, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

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.

I hesitate to say we see something new every single time we go out, but it does feel like it. On Wednesday we came across this Montinia caryophyllacea by the side of the road as we ran up the mountain. I’d taken a picture of it, but these white flowers are hard to photograph when there isn’t enough light. Today was a bit better, though I still need to go up in full daylight to get a better picture. There seems quite a lot of it coming into flower so I’m sure we’ll find more in better light.

Montinia caryophyllacea

That part of the mountain is covered with Muraltia heisteria – it’s not supposed to be flowering at this time of year but this does seem a perfect match. They are lovely, the colours vibrant in the evening light. We’ve seen these before; their vibrant colour means they deserve the occasional picture as they are long flowering and dominate the winter months.

Muraltia heisteria

I’m learning to question everything, and although our Protea nerifolia does come in cream as well as pink and this is probably nerifolia (looking at the leaves) we need a bit more research to be sure. It’s a lovely flower and there are hundreds of these shrubs flowering on the farm at the moment. The house is filled with vases full of proteas, leucadendrons and oddly enough the most wonderful camelias which thrive in the acid sandstone and decomposing granite (and lots of good compost) of the garden here and flower all winter long.

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.

There is something emotional about a sunset. This evening the air was completely still, quite rare here in the montains. After a rainy day, the sky cleared and the sun broke through, flooding the mountains with colour. The river and dams in the valley reflected the deepening sky. The smell after the rain is clean and scented with flowers and rain, washed and pure and you want to breathe deeply, happily. We were so glad to be up there this evening, thanks to Andy who polished off his victory in time for us to catch this glorious sunset on the night of his even more glorious victory.

Sunsets and Pelargonium

Posted on July 3, 2013 by fynbosblog 2 comments

This morning’s surprise is this lovely Pelargonium. When I’ve had a series of new sightings I’m not necessarily expecting something new every time I go up on the mountain and I’m delighted when we (the dogs and I) come across some enchanting flower waving its petals at us in the dawn light. This is another of the mysterious Pelargoniums – I was so pleased to see this one, and thought we must be able to identify it, it’s so clear and distinctive. Well, I must tell you it is not in the book and a visit to Kirstenbosch with the hopes of a specialised book on Pelargoniums (or is it Perlargonia?) is on the cards very soon. This doesn’t appear to be in the rather good Fynbos Field Guide where 24, presumably of the most common, of the 150 fynbos subspieces occur. This farm is a source of lots of different sub-spieces of Pelargonium and Ericas. I will catalogue them and maybe work through them over time…

The farm sits on an East West Axis, and from here, 70 km away through the clear air, we see Table Mountain, behind which the sun sets in the spring and autumn months. Some nights, at any time of the year, the sun floods the mountains behind us with pink light. It’s not every night, in fact it’s not common at all. Last night I was working away at my desk when an instinct brought me out to look at the light – sure enough, pink mountains. I grabbed the iphone, ran to the dam wall, pursued by delighted dogs, and took this photo. We’ll see have better and pinker mountains to come, but this is the first I’ve captured for the blog. It’s about the flowers, but it’s not all about the flowers.

The Guernsey Lily and other stories –

Posted on May 26, 2013 by fynbosblog One comment

Writing this blog involves a lot of leafing through books trying to identify the flowers. My favourite and the best that I’ve found so far is called Field Guide to Fynbos by John Manning. It seems remarkably comprehensive, very detailed and I’m very grateful for it.

One thing I have learned is that small, daisy like purple and yellow flowers are quite hard to identify with pinpoint accuracy. The devil, as always, is in the detail. One has to note leaves, shape, colour, and plenty of tiny details involving the language of the botanist. The purpose of this blog is not to bore a reader with the science; at the same time reasonably accurate identification of the plants means I must learn something of it myself. As time goes on I should get better at it.

This has been a busy week and included some travel which means I’ve been out on the farm less than I like. Luckily here were a few flowers I found last Sunday that I hadn’t taken the time to identify and it’s a rainy Sunday today, the mountain unphotogenically covered in dense cloud, so it’s a good day to spend leafing through the reference books.

This stunning purple daisy-like flower looks like a Felicia, of which we have lots on the farm, though they are not quite in flower yet. Closer study reveals a white circle at the base of the petals which, combined with the shape of the petals (I really must take care not to become too much of a geek about this) makes me think it must be a subspecies of Senecio. It looks quite like Senecio Sophioides which is not due to flower until July but it could be a close relation. There are 80 fynbos subspecies of Senecio and not all are in the book.

I am a little more confident with the next identification despite the fact that the yellow daisy-like flower is the commonest of all, seen on lots of different shrubs. Still, this one is quite distinct so I’m going to identify it as Ursinia. Again it’s not flowering at quite the same time of year as the sub-species in the books, but it is quite distinctive for a yellow daisy-ish thing.

The day after I saw the Brown Afrikaner I saw another gorgeous bulb. When it comes to bulbs there are two exceptionally prolific areas (that I’ve identified) on the farm and luckily one of them is the bank along the drive. Running down the drive the other morning I caught a flash of red and stopped to see this; high on the bank above us. It’s a south facing bank which doesn’t get much sunlight at this time of year. I stopped several times as I drove up and down the drive and managed to catch one shot late in the day with the sun behind it. I’ll go and have a look this week if the weather improves but I don’t know if I’ll find more of these so although the photo isn’t great, I decided to publish it in any case. I couldn’t get close enough to identify it with pinpoint accuracy – I can’t believe I’m going to have to bring field glasses with me to identify flowers. I’m pretty sure it’s a Nerine though. It is a lovely thing.

Nerine Sarniensis or Guernsey Lily

There is a multitude of shrubs on the farm with shapes that are unique and rather strange; not familiar to anyone who grew up in the herbaceous gardens of Europe, even those filled with exotic flora. A feature of these, and we’ll have lots of examples over the coming months, is that the leaves grow close to the stem, all the way up a long stalk, with the flower heads clustered at the top. One of these is Metalasia Densa, coming into flower now, – a prolific flowering which will last for the next six months. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of these shrubs on the farm.

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.

Oxalis?

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Introducing The Fynbos Blog

Posted on March 17, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

Most mornings I get up and unless I have other early morning commitments I take the dogs for a run around our farm, situated on the mountains of Klein Drakenstein Municipality in the Western Cape of South Africa. Because it has a Mediterranean climate with dry summers and wet winters, unlike the rest of sub-Saharan Africa which has wet summers and dry winters, the Cape Floral Kingdom is unique and diverse and known as the 8th Floral Kingdom of the world. All year as we are out running, me and the dogs, a spectacular botannical feast unfolds before us, and every year I think that I must find a way to share it with a broader audience. Collectively the shrubs and bulbs of the Cape Floral Kingdom are known as Fynbos.

The year starts, in my mind, at the end of February or early March which is the end of summer in this part of the world. Typically we have had a hot dry summer, often with no rain at all from early January and the floral life dries and dies by, with only some robust flowers, usually near a source of underground water, surviving the heat and blazing sunshine. We rarely go over 40 degree here on the farm, but in the valley, in Paarl, it can be 45 on a hot summer day. Suddenly, before the rains, the mountains burst into life, as Protea Repens, for me the first flower of the new botannical year, bursts into life.

This year I will take a photographic record of as many flowers as possible, starting with Protea Repens, and including a tiny pelagonium that I found nestled by the side of a path, unusal for the time of year. I will include anything I know about the plant, but I welcome comments as I’m no expert.

Protea Repens is common on the Du Toitskloof Mountain and is commonly known as sugarbush. It can be pure cream, or the petals can be tipped with pink. The flowers are narrow and cupshaped. The shrubs, here on the farm at least, grow in massive quantities and the spectacle of pink and white flowers is a magnificent sight.

There are hundreds of different pelargoniums, worthy of a book in themselves and we have many different species on the farm. I couldn’t identify this one.