Yellow and Pink Sunday Flower Walk

We always walk past the ruins of the Railway Cottages. These must have been home to keen gardeners in the past, because although the houses are broken down, the garden survives, with deep blue Agapanthus, Amaryllis belladonna, Pelargoniums, many different kinds of fruit tree, and more, like these Acanthus mollis:

Acanthus mollis at the Railway cottages

Dorothy Perkins:

Dorothy Perkins roses at their best

Prickly Pear Opuntia:

Prickly Pear Opuntia

Beyond, a splash of colour along the road came from a fresh flush of flowers on a Many Umbrellas Erica multumbellifera:

Many Umbrellas Erica multumbellifera

We'll watch these flowers, normally they get bored through from the side, perhaps by some insect?

We made our way to the stand of what we think are Gladiolus carnea we found a few weeks ago. At the request of Jessie Walton, we're trying to capture a few seeds.

Seed pods of Gladiolus carnea (?)

Only one stem had turned brown, but that had been kinked. We put that and a still-green one into a stocking:

Stocking to catch seeds

In this area we're normally followed by a Stone Chat or two. I don't have the kind of camera to catch them, but this is the closest I could get:

Stone Chat watching our every move!

Other birds we saw were African Harrier Hawk or Gymnogene as we knew it, doing aerobatics in one small area directly above us, a Jackal Buzzard and another buzzard type with mottled colours which did two flypasts.

The tiny pink flowers are now starting to appear amongst the white fluff on the Lanaria lanata:

Tiny pink flowers on Lanaria lanata

Across the road, 'the other pink Gladiolus', possibly G. pappei is still flowering.

Gladiolus pappei (?)

Flower detail

For years now, we've been watching these Iris type plants. Normally we miss them flowering and find spent blooms and the previous year's dried up flowers. Today we were lucky and found many flowering. This is how the plants grow, and Pippa's hand gives an idea of size:

Bobartia filiformis (?)

It looks like a Moraea, but which one? No! Pat says it's a Bobartia, probably B. filiformis, and adds that the reason we haven't seen them in flower before is that they close in sunny weather! They were open today because it was cloudy!

Flower detail

.... with buds in various stages:

Flower open (it was cloudy)

I was pleased to spot a smaller example of the round-leafed, almost succulent, pea-type we saw last week:

Small pea-type with round almost succulent leaves

More peas, Psoralea pinnata:

Psoralea pinnata

There are still lots of Restios around, Anina says this could be Elegia persistens:

Elegia persistens (?)

We haven't seen Gnydias for quite a while:

Gnidia

Growing in the road, a plant which has us intrigued:

This has us guessing

Is this the same, a short distance away?

The same?

I don't think I'd risk eating this!

Unknown fungus

Some animal has displaced this stone and eaten the bulbs:

Bulbs eaten by animal

Another pink Erica, this one with longer flowers:

Erica

It's a bit late for the 'normal' Mesembryanthemums, this one still has plenty of open flowers:

Mesembryanthemum

We came across several of these Orchids/Disas, every time near the stumps of felled pines:

Orchid / Disa

Most of the Dilatris pillansii are over, this is what the individual flower looks like:

Dilatris pillansii flower

On the way home we found another specimen of what we think is Gladiolus pappei, but the darker pink diamond looks different from the one in the picture above:

Gladiolus

Back home, growing well on the compost heap is Goosefoot Chenopodium or Lambs' Quarters, which Pippa cooked as spinach last week and had me fooled!

Goosefoot Chenopodium

:-) A

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