Pondoland C.R.E.W. Blog: Western Heights 11 July 2024

Western Heights it was. It was after all one of our favourite places to botanise and this time we observed fewer cows as the Pondoland hunters had shot ten cows. We still saw herdsmen but fewer cattle at a distance. Safely we carried on observing a Crassula vaginata growing in the grassland and on the rockery area we found Ursinia tenuiloba, Haemanthus albiflos and Polystachya pubescens. These poor orchids were so stressed, their leaves more burnt than autumn colours. How resilient is a plant that has a bulb that can survive on nothing. The plants were so thirsty and Rhipsalis baccifera had shrivelled up. Oh, for a drop of rain. Burchellia bubalina's colours seemed so intense and beautiful and we found after clambering over rocks and through Smilax anceps an Alberta magna which looked was growing more like a creeper than a tree. Around the rocks we came across Rabdosiella calycina, there's always a name change and this time got labelled as Coleaus calycinus. We found two types of Erica's, Erica cubica var. natalensis and a dried-up Erica aspalathifolia var. aspalathifolia which is our endemic. Disa baurii is simply beautiful. The blue so pure. So elegant and one could just sit next to it for a while taking in its beautiful structures. Gail and found Hybanthus enneaspermus growing in the shade and Anne dissected it looking at its structure and then decided this was it when looking under a loop. Crassula perforata is flowering, it's truly a beautiful flower when growing on the rocks on mass. As we walked back to the car the flowers that caught our eyes was coming from the Erythrina lysistemon tree. Breath-taking!