Tuesday 23 January 2024

Pont Outpost 12 January 2024

We met at Beacon Hill and decided to not venture too far as we'd had a tremendous amount of rain and didn't want to get stuck on dirt roads. After pulling out invasives along the road near Panpack we obtained permission and headed towards Clear Water and parked at the dam near Maggie’s house and meandered to the Pond Outpost.

In the forest we found Gymnosporia rubra in flower as well as Clutia pulchella. These flowers on both these plants are incredibly tiny and easily overlooked when passing. Clutia pulchella sexes are separate and on different plants. It’s the larval food plant for the butterfly Chrysoritis aureus.

Streptocarphus formosus were so happy to receive rain and were flowering. A beautiful Acridocarpus natalitius var. natalitius had set seed and the burnt red caught one's eye.

It was too noisy to sit by the waterfall to have lunch and so we meandered further down. The ants were beastly and aggressive, we hurried into the forest at The Fish Eagle trail admiring the Eriosema parviflorum and Tephrosia polystachya var. Polystachya along the way. What a beautiful plant. The flowers are a gentle pink colour and one wished it grew in our gardens. Alepidea peduncularis were on show. This differs to Alepidea natalensis, the white bracts are not narrowly ovate and only five are conspicuous. Alepidea peduncularis is an edible perennial herb native to montane grasslands. Habenaria dives and Habenaria pseudociliosa were the two orchids we found that day.