Western Heights with a Millenium Seed Bank team

Dineo Dibakwane from the Millenium Seed Bank (MSB) and colleagues from Pietermaritzburg had arranged to visit our area hoping to collect seeds from some of the plants we had found recently on our walks on the Western Heights so that is where we headed on Thursday morning. It was not long before we found an endemics in fruit - Eriosema umtamvunense - although the fruits were still immature. One of Dineo's target species was Helichrysum ecklonis and we fortunately managed to find several inflorescenses which still contained seeds. Some of the other target species like Utricularia sandersonii had all but disappeared - certainly there were no fruits to be collected.

Drimia elata

There were not many flowers so it was encouraging to find Drimia elata, a widespread species but Red Listed as DDT, perhaps because of taxonomic uncertainty. We walked over areas which we had covered in earlier visits in the hope of finding more species on Dineo's wishlist, but most of the seeds had already been dispersed. We could nevertheless show her old cones on Leucadendron spissifolium subsp. oribinum, a PCE endemic. 

Kate set off across the next valley to see if there were fruit on the Senecio species we found some weeks back and believed to be a new species but found nothing.

Kate off to look for seeds of an undescribed species of Senecio

Pondoland CREW with MSB visitors

On the way back to Beacon Hill we stopped along the track to check some Aspalathus dahlgrenii. These had viable fruits and a collection was made for the MSB. A little further along Leucadendron spissifolium subsp. natalense (another endemic) was in flower.

Aspalathus dahlgrenii

Leucadendron spissifolium subsp. natalense

Participants: Anne S, Dineo D, Dorothy M, Graham G, Kate G, Khaya M, Maggie A, Mbuso Z, Mervyn T.