Vernon Crookes and Umdoni Park with UKZN students

We met Prof. Benny Bytebier and his two honours students Thando and Sashin at the offices at Vernon Crookes Nature Reserve on a cold and windy Tuesday morning and, under close scrutiny by the local fauna, set off to see what was flowering in the grasslands. Thando was working on a project report on the genera Senecio and Helichrysum in the family Asteraceae, while Sashin was looking for members of the family Rubiaceae. Fortunately there was no shortage of either of these families, so the progress over the veld was rather slow.

Being watched by zebra, wildebeest and blesbok

The group in front of Ochna arborea. Anne, Dorothy and Uschi had
left by the time I thought of taking a group photo.

One of the species which was particularly abundant at VCNR was Thunbergia natalensis, but Grewia hispida shrubs were putting up some stiff competetion. The very localised endangered endemic Searsia rudatisii was also flowering well in the grasslands - VCNR is one of very few places where this species can be found.

Grewia hispida

Searsia rudatisii

Thunbergia natalensis

We had lunch at the picnic spot and then walked down the slopes below the picnic spot for some further botanising. Amongst other things we found a particularly robust form of Senecio oxyriifolius.

Senecio oxyriifolius

We entered a treed gulley at the edge of which we found Mimusops obovata in flower and in the denser part of the forest was a flowering Vitellariopsis marginata, while up the slope, a Clivia mineata (vulnerable) had a bright head of orange flowers.

Clivia miniata

After we ended our exploration of Vernon Crookes NR, Kate and I followed Benny and his students to Umdoni Park where I was to run a bird-ringing training session while Kate accompanied the University team on their field trip in the forests and grasslands of Umdoni Park.

They came across several interesting species, some of which were flowering. 

Cynanchum ellipticum

Drypetes arguta

Salacia kraussii

Participants: Anne S, Benny B, Dorothy M, Graham G, Kate G, Sashin, Thando, Uschi T