A visit from the Durban CREW office

Suvarna and the CREW admin team came to visit us at Beacon Hill on Thursday for our annual planning meeting - our meeting time with all the computer and projector equipment coincided perfectly with an Eskom load shedding event so we had to revert to steam-era technology.

The planning meeting

We managed to get through the discussions fairly quickly because of the lack of electricity, and decided to treat our visitors to a trip to the Western Heights. As was the case last week, our two student visitors, Lindo Tshapha and Sibuyile (Buyi) Zakuza, jopined us for the walk. With the good rain in July, the veld was showing signs of producing a good show. It was not long before we were able to show Suvarna and her colleagues an early endemic, Lotononis bachmanniana. The Merwilla plumbea (Scilla natalensis) were putting on a great show, interspersed with many Gladiolus longicollis and Disa baurii.

Lotononis bachmanniana

Suvarna demonstrating how to take a photo of Erica cubica

We stopped for lunch next to the little stream - with its Disa tripetaloides hanging over the water.

On the way back we encountered two more orchids, Eulophia clitellifera and Eulophia parviflora, and when almost at the vehicles found an uncommon white form of Sopubia simplex.

White and more common pink forms of Sopubia simplex

Participants: Anne S, Dorothy M, Graham G, Kate G, Maggie A, Uschi T, Suvarna P, Hlengi M, Mbali M, Lindo Tshapa, Buyi Z.

Flowering now (July 2015)

Despite the cold (for us - 10 degrees Celsius minimum overnight temperatures) weather, the flowers know that spring is on its way. This is a selection of the flowers seen over the last weeks of July 2015.

Disa baurii, Orchidaceae

Disa baurii, Orchidaceae

Disa tripetaloides, Orchidaceae

Disa tripetaloides

Eriospermum cooperii, Eriospermaceae

Eulophia parviflora, Orchidaceae

Euphorbia bupleurifolia, Euphorbiaceae

Gladiolus wilsonii, Iridaceae

Indigofera rubro-glandulosa, Fabaceae

Ischnolepis natalensis, Apocynaceae

Nuxia floribunda, Buddlejaceae

Bachmannia woodii, Capparaceae

Outing to Smedmore

We had a special visitor join us on our walk today. Anthea Mensing, "Mr Nic's" daughter came to have a look at the Hugh Nicholson/Tony Abbott herbarium and other reminders of the contribution that her father to the establishment of the Umtamvuna Reserve and the herbarium collection. Buyi and Lindo also came along for the walk.

We had intended returning to the Western Heights but the management team were busy doing block burns in that area so we elected to go to Smedmore instead. We first walked in the grassland and along the edge of the kranzes above the Umtamvuna gorge but at this early stage in the season there was not much flowering. We then walked a short distance into the forest to have lunch.

Anthea Mensing in the centre of the group

Despite the good rains which fell about 10 days ago, most of the plants have yet to wake up for spring. There were some Bachmannia woodii just starting to flower - always an impressive sight. Back out in the grassland the Gerbera natalensis still very much have their winter pyjamas on.

Gerbera natalensis

Bachmannia woodii

Participants: Anne S, Dorothy M, Graham G, Kate G, Maggie A, Uschi T, Anthea Mensing, Lindo Tshapa, Buyi Z.

The Pondoland Centre of Endemism (PCE)

Pondoland is a region of the Eastern Cape province on the south eastern coast of South Africa (see below). The area is named after the Pondo, a group of Nguni-speaking peoples who inhabit the area.

The Pondoland Centre of Endemism is defined in terms of the underlying Msikaba Formation sandstone which occurs in Pondoland and in the southern part of KwaZulu-Natal. The area has been acknowledged as one of the important centres of plant diversity and endemism in Africa.

The Msikaba Formation is fairly homogeneous and is now known to be unrelated to the Natal Group with which it was previously associated. The Msikaba Formation is most closely related to the Witteberg Group of sediments of the Cape Supergroup. This may be the reason for the area being the northernmost distribution of fynbos species such as Leucadendron spissifolium and Leucospermum innovans.

Soils overlying the Msikaba Formation sandstones are sandy and, due to the high rainfall, are highly leached, and often fairly shallow.

The vegetation of the Pondoland Centre consists mainly of grassveld together with isolated forest patches which are restricted mainly to the protected river gorges although these sometimes spill out onto south- and southwest-facing slopes.

The grassveld is particularly vigorous, and permit a high burning frequency of two to three times per year, and indeed, regular fires are essential for the maintenance of the grassveld biodiversity. However, inappropriate management practices of too frequent fires and heavy grazing have led to loss of floristic diversity and increase in the unpalatable grass Aristida junciformis. In contrast, where fires are deliberately withheld, woody shrub species come to dominate fairly quickly.

The leached soils with low nutrient content combined with the mild temperatures and plentiful sunshine have created unique conditions for the evolution of a diverse group of specialised plants, encouraging a high level of endemism. More than 100 species are believed to be endemic to the Pondoland Centre (click on the heading Pondoland Endemics A-Z above).

Map of the Pondoland Centre of Endemism reproduced with permission from Prof. AE van 
Wyk, an author of Regions of Floristic Endemism in Southern Africa (Umdaus Press, 2001)

About the CREW Program

[CREW; Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers]

The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the Botanical Society of South Africa have partnered to co-finance the implementation of the CREW Programme. Twenty six CREW groups (based in the Northern Cape, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces) survey remaining pieces of natural vegetation for plant species of conservation concern and identify critical fragments of land with high numbers of threatened plants that are in need of conservation. 

Their surveys of the plant species present in these fragments allow for a thorough understanding of the distribution of populations of restricted range or endemic species. Data collected in these ongoing field surveys is invaluable for the annual updating of the Red List of South African plants, biodiversity conservation plans, protected area expansion strategies as well as reporting on the state of biodiversity nationally and internationally. 

CREW volunteers work with landowners, local municipalities and conservation authorities to promote the conservation of these sites. Plant specimens collected by volunteers help professional botanists to describe and classify plants. 

Since the start of the CREW programme in 2003, volunteers have discovered several plant species new to science, as well as many rediscoveries of plants not seen for decades.