Pink Gladiolus Sunday Flower Walk Part 1

Two full weekends on the trot Milling at Compagnes Drift Water-mill are my excuses for the long gap since the last report!

Today, Blondie aka. Yablonya or Scratch Patch, the neighbour's Labrador who comes to play, is hobbling so we didn't go far. But wait till you see what we saw in about two kilometres!

Just beyond the Railway cottage ruins we were assailed by the dead smell of Helichrysum foetida which grow in profusion there. You don't get any closer than this:

Helichrysum foetida

From the bad smells to the good ones! This Buchu Agathosma betulina has an exquisite smell if you rub its leaves. It was badly broken away last year, so we pruned back the shoots which died back and it has recovered nicely. We're watching the progress of its babies all around!

Agathosma betulina

But to the title of this report, we wanted to get back to the large stand of pink Gladiolus we spotted last time, and as expected, most of the flowers were spent:

Spent flowers of Gladiolus carneus (?)

These flowers, almost over were from a separate plant. One could so easily walk past this plant without flowers and take it to be yet another clump of Paspallum grass. The leaves are not much wider than that, about 6mm at the widest. Jessie wants us to capture some seeds of this one, so we inspected the pod development:

Seed pods of Gladiolus carneus (?)

I suspect they must mature on the plant and we plan to take a panti-hose up next time and tie it around one of the many stalks. Mike thinks this is Gladiolus carneus. This is how the spent flowers are arranged on the stalk:

Growing pattern of this Gladiolus

But we were itching to see the other, very different one growing on the other side of the road, which looked so promising last time and which we have been watching all year. We were worried it might have come and gone in these last three weeks, but we were not disappointed! From the top it can be seen that the plant grows out of the ground in an Iris type fan, the leaves are wide and pleated and the flowers are tightly arranged along the stem. Very different from the plant we had just seen!

Gladiolus pappei (?)

Flower detail. Mike reckons this is probably Gladiolus pappei:

Flower detail of Gladiolus pappei (?)

Elated, we walked on, staying off the road, eyes peeled! There are masses of Pelargoniums in flower; at this level the flowers are almost white with red veined markings:

Pelargonium flowers

It was nice to see big fat berries on the Teedia we had seen flowering. We remember PT = Pink, Teedia; WO = White, Oftia. They are difficult to tell apart the rest of the year!

Teedia berries

Lanaria lanata are making their cotton-like balls of fluff, but there is no sign yet of the tiny pink flowers which are seen later in the fluff.

Lanaria lanata

For the record, the Lobelia are still flowering, this one we think is L. tomentosa:

Lobelia tomentosa flowers

It wasn't long before I spotted some more pink!

Another Gladiolus carneus?

This was again one of those with the finer leaves, G. carneus?

Growing pattern

And standing up from taking that photo, even more!

More!

Here I had the opportunity to take photos of the flowers to compare, while Pippa sketched.

Flower detail

It's difficult to tell the two flowers apart (to a mechanic, anyway!), but the way the plant grows is very different, and these have a reddish base to the leaves.

Leaf detail, red at base

The Helichrysums are coming into their own. The pink centres of these Cape Snow Syncarpha vestita are already changing to a dark red and soon they'll be black:

Cape Snow Syncarpha vestita

This plant is proving to be difficult to pin down. Most are past their best, but this one stood out:

Unknown flower

Flower detail:

Flower detail

More in Part 2!