Today we had two people join us for the first time, Alison and Michel. We decided to travel to the Western Heights and find a part of the grassland that we have not explored before. We parked near the Proteas and set off walking westwards, dodging scores of Cyrtanthus breviflorus in the recently burned grassland on the way. The fire had also caused the Protea caffra to release its seeds making an interesting pattern on the burned ground.
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| Cyrtanthus breviflorus |
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| Protea caffra seeds |
Back at the stream we found one of our target species for the year - Faurea macnaughtonii - and fortunately this specimen was still carrying old fruits. In this part of the streamside forest we also saw Putterlickya retrospinosa, Eugenia erythrophylla and Schefflera umbellifera as well as Syzygium gerrardii in fruit.
In a very accessible place we found a flowering Dermatobotrys saundersii carrying an old fruit, and later we saw another of this species also flowering and growing in a hollow high up in a tree.
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| Dermatobotrys saundersii |
Although it was not a hot day, we still enjoyed the cool shade of the tall trees in the forest as we sat in the river bed having our lunch. Anne found an interesting plant that was subsequently identified as Trichocladus crinitus. After lunch we scrambled down the river bed until it became obvious the banks had become too steep for us to comfortably climb out, so we retraced our route to the junction with a side stream and clambered out there.
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| A riverine lunch spot |
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| Trichocladus crinitus |
We strolled back in the mellow late afternoon winter sunshine, finding a small cluster of Crassula perfoliata subsp heterotricha growing on a weathered rock on the way.
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| Walking homeward |
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| Crassula perfoliata subsp. heterotricha |
Participants: Alex V, Alison L, Anne S, Colin T, Gail B-W, Graham G, Kate G, Michel B, Tracy T.
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