Spring Sunday Flower Walk

Hello all,

I've loaded last week's walk on the blogspot www.sundayflowerwalks.blogspot.com

Spring? Well, it must be:

Almonds in blossom, Compagnesdrift

Almond trees on Compagnesdrift, alive with bees! The orchard rows are lined with these...  Romulea tabularis?

Romulea tabularis?

We were keen to get back to the place where I found the pink flower among the mosses along the track. We picked out several of them, once we found the first and they certainly look like Drosera, or Sundews:

Sundew Drosera?

Sundew Drosera?

Sundew Drosera?

This one below looks as if it is pushing a flower up! The seed was quite firmly stuck in its grasp! One can see how poor the soil is, just coarse sand. The plant is said to catch insects and draws nutrients out of them instead of the soil.

Sundew Drosera with flower bud?

Lobelia tomentosa still add spots of deep blue to the veld. According to the books, they shouldn't be in flower now, but they are!

Lobelia tomentosa

A Gnidia, not sure which kind, with many clusters of buds at each stem end:

Gnidia ornata?

In this picture the leaves can be seen to be hairy. Many are described as hairless. The description that best fits it is G. ornata, but that's supposed only to be found east of Hermanus.

Flower detail of above Gnidia

This looks like a pink Erica with a white one behind. But it's the white flowered plant which has had us guessing for a long time. The foliage looks like that of a Deodar Cedar.

Pink Erica with unknown plant with white flowers

The white flowers are tufts at the end of what looks like plaited green. What is it?

Flower detail of above plant

Some weeks ago I posted a picture of these bushes, mentioning that they looked slightly different as if one was male and one female. Well, this one has set berries:

Unknown plant with berries

... and this one has not, even though the remains of the flowers are still there:

Similar plant nearby, spent flowers, no berries

We have seen this Struthiola before, it's difficult to miss now! We think it's S. ciliata.

Struthiola ciliata?

At last! The first Wachendorfia paniculata bud! It will form a candelabra of yellow flowers.

Wachendorfia paniculata with bud

This bokkie has been dead a long time, the dogs didn't even pick up a scent. Head bashed in :-(

Skeleton of small buck

I thought this might be two Leucadendron plants, m & f, but it's all one. Just the bottom left has set flowers.

Leucadendron laureolum?

Flower detail, L. laureolum?

Flower detail from lower left of above plant

At a casual glance this looked like yet another pink Erica, but is it?

Is this an Erica?

These yellow Irises seem to flower and be over and done with without us catching them.

Yellow Iris

But this one has a bud, if we can find it again!

Bud on Iris above

At last, buds on the Oftia or Teedia to help us distinguish which is which! If the flowers turn out mauve, then it's likely to be a Teedia lucida.

Teedia lucida? 

This looks like an Elegia persistens female. There appear to be seeds along all of the flowers.

Elegia persistens female

Anina has kindly confirmed this is Elegia persistens and adds the following: "The little dark things under the golden spathes are actually the flowers. They are obscured by the dark brown bracts that enclose them, and the only hint you will see that they are flowering is when the anthers in the males or the styles in the females come popping out. The anthers are cup-shaped to hold the pollen until the wind disperses it. The styles of the female flowers are often feathery (to better catch the pollen) and can be quite dramatic in colour – cream, red or purple. Interestingly, there is quite high specificity in the pollen-style interaction – probably due to the shape of the pollen of an individual species and the corresponding style of the same species. One seldom sees the pollen of one species on the style of another, which is quite amazing as wind pollination is so random. For this reason restios do not hybridise."

Which is this Palmiet Tetraria?

Palmiet Tetraria, but which one?

Flower detail:

Flower detail of Palmiet above

This grey-green bush is covered with white flowers.

Unknown plant with white (spent) flowers

On closer inspection, it looks as if they are spent as there are a few pink flowers left. Maybe we missed it this year?

Single pink flower on plant above

The last bud on the Protea cynaroides; a laatlammertjie.

Last Protea cynaroides bud for the year!

More Baroe Cyphia volubilis:

Baroe Cyphia volubilis

.... and a bud:

Baroe Cyphia volubilis bud

Good Night!

Sunset in the road outside!

:-) A