Contents
of the summer 2007 Northants News
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Welcome to South Africa (Part 1)
Trevor Wray |
Many friends have asked about our
trip to South Africa last year and I thought I would write a report for our
magazine. Many of the ‘touristy’ anecdotes have already been recounted in
the St Peter’s Parish magazine. The FL was desperate for copy (aren’t all
editors) and raided my emails home to friends and family. However I insisted on
including a picture of Euphorbia esculenta, along with the lions and
cheetahs. In this report I will concentrate on the important things….
We left Heathrow Airport at 7 pm
on a direct overnight flight to Cape Town. For the same time (and half the
money) we could fly to Los Angeles but we fancied a change and South Africa has
a wealth of interesting succulents. Sue wanted to see the whales and penguins of
course. We both wanted to see the Southern Cross. We had a provisional itinerary
to glimpse a sample of the flora (you do not see much in three weeks) and to
guarantee the penguins. As to the whales we would drive and see. At the last
minute we booked into a Game Reserve, Sue thought that if we made the trip just
once we had to see the ‘big five’. I thought that if we made the trip just
twice it would be worth getting the lions out the way quickly so we could
concentrate on the plants.
Our plane landed at 6 am and
slightly jaded we speedily collected our rental car and left the airport. As we
passed the neighbouring township we were quickly aware that this country was
completely different from anywhere else we had holidayed. We had three nights
accommodation in an apartment in Cape Town and took a drive to get the feel of
the place before ‘checking in’. At the seaside in False Bay the dunes were
smothered in flowering plants from many families, some I recognised, and some
were succulents. I knew immediately I was going to enjoy this trip. Sue looked
out to sea and saw whales, so we could strike that off our list.
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We spent the first full day
at Kirstenbosch Gardens and met Ernst van Jaarsveld who gave us a
whistle-stop tour of the new conservatory. This area is well designed with
aesthetically pleasing regional plantings of the succulents and xeric
plants which occur in South Africa and particularly the local Cape Floral
Kingdom. Over lunch Ernst explained that organisation and funding of the
Gardens were modelled on Kew. One immediate difference was the entrance
fees £12 for Kew and £2 for Kirstenbosch. Ernst allowed me to tour the
reserve collections where I naturally had to see the Gasterias, a genus
that he is the world authority on. My knowledge of these is small but I
was impressed by the sheer size of some specimens. Growing the little ‘uns
in our greenhouses at home is no preparation for plants like Gasteria
excelsa with a single rosette occupying a yard of staging. |
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In the section for Crassulaceae I was amused
to see a plant of Adromischus marianiae DT 6780, one of the well
known knobbly ‘herrei’ forms that are so popular at home. There was a
good selection of Tylecodons and I added T. racemosus (left) to my
want list. Oh, and there was just one cactus! I could have spent the day
there but the FL was nagging me to get a move on. ‘I want to see some
flowers!’
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| The gardens are set on the lower
slopes of Table Mountain and you cannot imagine a finer setting. With a
benign climate a huge number of fascinating plants are grown. Ernst
indicated a general route up through the succulent gardens to the Proteas
and back down the Cycads but we kept getting diverted by spectacular
displays of flowers and spent hours watching sunbirds collecting nectar.
Most spectacular were the flowers of the King Protea (right). Signs indicated the
way, guided tours stopped regularly and it was worth the entrance money
just to see this one (and I know it is not a succulent).
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Kirstenbosch is strong on
conservation and there are several areas demonstrating rare and endangered
plants (and a gravestone for an extinct species – there was humour in several
places in the Gardens).
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Most eye catching was a huge exhibit of conceptual art
with 15,000 white flags planted on the lawn like a military cemetery. They
symbolically represent the danger to some thirty thousand endangered plants in
the World. The board gave some facts – SA has 22,102 plant species of which
1,500 face a high risk of extinction. By comparison, the UK has just 1756
species altogether. Despite its serious significance, young children ran up and
down the alleys between the flags. |
It was getting dark (the gardens close at
7.30 - how civilised) as we left. I could easily have spent another day there.
Next day we went up Table
Mountain. I am afraid we didn’t climb it, we took the cable car. At the top
there was a large Aloe arborescens in bloom to welcome us and the views
were spectacular. We were impressed by the manners and behaviour of secondary
school children on an outing and Japanese visitors dressed impeccably in their
business suits on a lovely warm day.
A local guide gave us a free
conducted tour and we took a long walk across the top. Although there were
flowers aplenty (even some Proteas and orchids) the succulents were
disappointing. Much of the top was bog and covered in sedges. I thought we would
be seeing Euphorbia obesa and other choice succulents but these are on
the way up, (or down) so a lesson learned. We did see an adder so we were
careful where we put our feet. Low-light of this visit was I dropped my macro
lens down a gully to its destruction – no more close-up shots. Moral of this
story is to stow expensive lenses in a bag and zip it up when scrambling in
rocky places.
Leaving Cape Town we travelled up
the west coast viewing flower reserves and national parks. The West Coast
National Park has many interesting succulents, in some places there were waist
high shrubs of the Euphorbia, Composite, Crassula and Mesemb families with
choicer things underneath. Many shrubby species turned out to be quite difficult
to name later. We saw our first tortoises here but they turned out to be a
common sighting.
In the flower reserves we had
missed the most spectacular displays of annuals by perhaps a week but there were
pockets of pure colour to indicate how it had been. During our visit we did
however hit the floral peak of the shrubby mesembs. One incredible purple
flowered Drosanthemum was impossible to drive by and we stopped at the same time
as a young woman. ‘Wow’, she said as our cameras whirred, ‘that looks like
it’s been Photoshopped!’.
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Above: A
large Argyroderma delaetii
and below:
Dactylopsis digitata
both growing on a quartz hill
near Vanrhynsdorp.
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At Vanrhynsdorp we got a
permit to visit a plant reserve on a kopje in the Knersvlakte. It was
amazing to see Argyrodermas (left) growing in the pure white quartzite. Some of
them had burst their skins, just like they do at home. Now I find
Argyroderma fairly easy to grow but here there were also beautiful
Dactylopsis (lower left) and Oophytum, which are a real challenge. These plants grow on
winter rain and some species were heading for summer dormancy. I was able
to take pictures of Monilaria at various stages of shedding its leaves to
leave the bead-like stems. I also snapped an armoured ground cricket, an
evil looking beast no doubt intent on eating only the choicest of
succulents.
At this particular place the
habitat of gently rolling quartz hills seemed to just go on for miles in
every direction. When Sue got bored with her book she walked to the top of
the nearest hill and I WAS NOWHERE IN SIGHT! What if I didn’t come back?
My GPS was still in the car! How would she get help? Well of course I was
there (somewhere) and had the main road in clear view (as she had). She
also had a car and the keys and there was only one way back to the main
road. Anyway, how was I supposed to hear her hollers over the shutter of
my Nikon? But we had to get on, there were more succulent places to visit. |
A few days here saw us cross the
Mittelberg Pass in sudden downpours. Not a problem you think about but traction
on the dirt road was like ice on the descent (with monster drops either side).
When we survived that the car was so caked in mud that we had to have it washed
and blow-dried (our clothes got more messed up from the car than our trips out
in the rain to see the San rock art). Luckily for £4 a couple of guys in a
garage (scenting a big tourist tip they had nudged the regular girl cleaners out
of the way) brought it back to saleroom condition, they had to drive the car to
a high pressure hose to clear the Mittelberg mud. Running low on time we had to
drive off with one of them still painting the tyres black.
One of the surprises of the trip
was to find multiple species from one genus growing in the same habitats. I am
used to there being just one Mammillaria species, just one Echinocereus species
etc and in a place where there are two or more species they occupy different
niches - under bushes, rocky places, sandy places. At one place I found three of
the bushy Tylecodons I grow all easily visible on a hillside within a few yards
of each other. No doubt there could be small species there as well. Very
different.
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Strangely, I was quite
surprised when I saw the common succulents of South Africa; Crassula
argentea (the ‘money plant’ - surely the UK’s most grown house
plant succulent) on the cliffs and roadside plants of Aloe variegata (right).
I spotted the flowers of these at 100 Kph.
Trev
In the next
issue I shall write of the Karoo Garden at Worcester and an incredible
cactus collection. Yes, I know this is South Africa!
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