Yellow daisies | The Fynbos Blog

May Day, home, sunset and the warmth of the mountain

Posted on May 1, 2014 by fynbosblog 3 comments

Peter and I both agree that although we both hate leaving the farm to travel, usually for work, the best part is coming home. I’ve been in Europe for a couple of days. One night and two days in London; two nights on planes. I arrived home this morning feeling pretty horrible. This evening in anticipation of a gorgeous sunset, I took the dogs for a walk and the sky lit up with pink and orange out towards the Paaderberg as we walked on the most northern parts of the farm.

A painted sunset, 1 May 2014

I took a different path from our running routes and the slower pace of a walk meant that I saw much more than I do on the morning run. I must do these leisurely walk more often. Three separate daisy-like yellow flowers; always the most frustrating to identify, and a tiny little pelargonium, one of my favourite plants. The mountain was amazing tonight – the days are still warm, but the evenings cool and at dusk you can feel the mountain giving out the warmth it has absorbed during the day into the cool evening air, sending out blasts of heat that I walked through as I returned to the house. The dogs were joyous and Maebh’s pale coat glows in the evening light.

Seamus and Maebh in the fynbos

The Pelargoniums flower here all year round; different plants in different months. Identifying the subspecies is hopeless, but each one gives me great joy.

Autumn Pelargonium

As for the yellow daisy-like flowers. There are three, all on the same road, within 100 metres of one another. The first is an Osteospermum spinosum I think.

Osteospermum spinosum?

The needle-like leaves could be telltale

The second has these splendid clustered flowerheads with gorgeous curly stamens on the tips, with a soft grey-green hairy leaf. You would think that would suffice to identify – but no.

Clustered yellow flowers

Something about the flower makes me think Helichrysum but the leaf says not

Something about the flower makes me think Helichrysum but this thick hairy leaf says not

And the last is a perfect yellow daisy, with clustered spiny leaves. I love the way that these three plants tell me how far I’ve come on my fynbos journey. A year ago they would have looked the same to me; the way your friends’ two dogs both look the same to you, but are completely different to them. Now the differences jump out at me, yet I still can’t identify them. I love that too – that the fynbos journey is without end. I’ll probably never be able to identify every single plant on the farm, a mere pinprick within the Cape Floral Kingdom. But I won’t stop trying.

A perfect daisy, but which perfect daisy?

It's a small shrub with little needly clustered leaves

It’s a small plant with little needly clustered leaves

Wild windy summer sunsets

Posted on December 11, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

I never get tired of looking at the view from the balcony and because we look west we have wonderful sunsets. Tonight’s was special by any standard. I took this photo just as the sun had gone down – no filter, just the last light of the setting sun reflected from the clouds onto the dam.

Sunset over the dam

We had Christopher, the brother-in-law, to stay and before he left I offered to take him up the mountain and show him the flowers. All spring we’ve had a wonderful time showing our guests the wonders of the mountain fynbos flowers. That time has passed. He loved being up on the mountain but the flowers have become sparse and less interesting to the casual visitor. A really passionate gardner might still enjoy it – for the less passionate there is merely fading and die back and the fucundity of the land has passed into dryness survival mode.

It doesn’t mean that there is nothing of interest out there, I’ve often mentioned that yellow daisy-like flowers are among the hardest to identify. This one could be the rock daisy, Heterolopis, or perhaps Leysera. If I see it again which is quite likely we’ll take a closer look.

Heterolopis or Rock Daisy?

The wind continues to blow – it has been more than a week now, which is quite unusual and not a let up in the forecast. The dogs love it particularly the wolfhounds and here is Maebh standing in the wind, allowing it to stream through her coat.

Maebh poses in the evening light, letting the wind slip through her coat

Jemima Chew on the other hand finds her solace in water and the permanent streams. She loves to wallow and lie the flow and then stands up, looking about her, thoroughly pleased with herself.

Jemima Chew – life is good

As Christopher and I chatted and walked I kept my eyes open for anything new and exciting, expectations low. And here we are, hidden beneath some fynbos scrub, this exquisite pelargonium. There are nearly 300 subspecies, 150 in the fynbos region of which only 20 or so are in the book. This one is so lovely, the colours, the delicate shape of the petals. I would be tempted to move it to the garden but my fingers are not the greenest and what if it’s the only one? I only ever transplant the very common flowers, anything that might be rare, special or precious belongs on the mountain.