Visit to Oribi Flats

We set off a little earlier through Izingloweni to get to a small grassland which was burned on the 2nd of June this year and had produced a good showing of flowers. This grassland has been been burned on a 2-yearly cycle and has been under a moderate grazing load over the last several years, but has not been grazed since the burn. We were interested to see how the species diversity of this paddock compared against that for similar grassland nearby which has had no grazing for at least two decades. The farmer has indicated that the grazing practice is to be changed to intensive grazing for a short period and then the veld will be allowed to recover. It will be interesting to see what impact this change has on the prevelance of ngongoni grass, Aristida junciformis.

The first thing to catch the eye was the abundant carpet of Ocimum obovatum in patches.

Shortly after getting out of the vehicle we came across small clumps of Callilepis leptophylla, a species Red Listed as "Declining". Most of these were still in bud but we did managed to find one open flower. We have only one voucher for this species in the HNTA Herbarium, this having been collected at Lake Eland NR, not far away, attesting to the relative scarcity of this species in our area. 

Not far away we came across several clumps of an unusual form of Lotononis bachmanniana and which we are calling the Oribi form until the taxonomy is resolved. This form has very narrow, almost needle-like leaves and elongated inflorescenses. We collected material for our herbarium and will make some of this collection available for the next revision of the genus Lotononis.

Other interesting but less threatened finds were Ochna arborea var. arborea, Huernia hystrix subsp. parvula and Brachystelma pygmaeum subsp. flavidum. 

It was gratifying to see that most of these flowering species can accommodate moderate amounts of grazing pressure.

Participants: Anne S, Dorothy M, Graham G, Kate G, Maggie A, Uschi T, Anthea Mensing, Lindo Tshapa, Buyi Z, with a short visit from Mike N.