Two shillings and sixpence Sunday Flower Walk

Yes, that's what Pippa found, lying on the ground exposed by the fire!

Pippa found two shillings and sixpence!

1953 and 1959! Our pocket money in '59 was a shilling a week and you could buy three pink Star sweets or two Wilsons toffees for a penny! If they could only tell a story!

She also noticed a tortoise helplessly stuck between the two railway lines, picked it up carefully, knowing it would 'wet itself' and put it down a short distance away. We looked later and it was nowhere to be found.

Rescued tortoise from between the railway lines

We seem to have agreement on iSpot that 'our' Buchu Agathosma isn't A. betulina as I thought, but A. crenulata. Its 'babies' are doing well.

Baby Buchu's Agathosma crenulata

I noticed a pink hue to the flowers for the first time, but couldn't get the camera to focus on them.

Agathosma crenulata flower

We were happy to see what we think is Gladiolus carneus re-growing nicely. There has been no rain for a couple of weeks.

We think this is recovering Gladiolus carneus

This looks like a Wachendorfia with its pleated leaves.

Wachendorfia, possibly W. paniculata

We keep finding Fire Asparagus Asparagus lignosus:

Fire Asparagus Asparagus lignosus between the rocks

Pelargoniums are recovering well, sometimes straight out of the ground, sometimes at the base of a burned bush.

Pelargonium

Here is what is probably a Watsonia schlechteri which has escaped the worst of the fire. The leaves with the single rib in the middle help identify many more coming up elsewhere.

Watsonia schlechteri

.... but these leaves are much broader. It will be exciting finding out what each one is!

A wider leaf?

In the 'gully' we were attracted to a splash of bright green, probably Lanaria lanata. What is interesting is the way it seems to have shed the burned ends of the leaves.

Lanaria lanata (?), with burned leaf-ends shed

We were disturbed during our walk by a motor bike zooming around, not staying on the tracks, making its own tracks straight up and down hills in the burned veld. The worry is that these tracks might lead to erosion when the rains come. In two places the bike nearly rode over precious Agapanthus walshii plants.

Motor bike tracks, close to Agapanthus walshii plants

I filmed the activity and reported it: https://youtu.be/2afLkbSM-PU and https://youtu.be/zEFNg1o2Z8Q and http://youtu.be/RACJ3B20gTU

:-(

:-( A

Slow Recovery Sunday Flower Walk

Yes, we can't be in a hurry, but it is remarkable how many of the plants are bouncing back, shrugging off the effect of the fire.

But first at the Railway Cottages, nobody is going to dig out the bulbs of this March Flower Amaryllis belladonna, they're right inside a Prickly Pear Opuntia!

Amaryllis belladonna growing inside a Prickly Pear

The Prickly Pear Opuntia has its own beautiful flowers!

Prickly Pear Opuntia flower

Half of this Erica had a lucky escape, this is right at the edge of the fire:

Half of this Erica escaped the fire!

There is lots of this coming up..... we're not sure yet what it is, perhaps Lanaria lanata? The leaves are tough and ribbed and in a vee-shape.

Is this Lanaria lanata?

Pippa is showing how deeply the roots burned!

That's how deep the roots burned!

We probably saw the best of the Fire Lilies Cyrtanthus ventricosa last week, but there are still many particularly on the south and south-east slopes.

Fire Lily Cyrtanthus ventricosa

Some animals escaped the fire, it seems, we followed this tortoise track for about 100 metres, not knowing which end the animal might be!

Tortoise tracks, but which way was it going?

The Wurm flushed out a rabbit at one stage, but it was too fast and agile for her. Luckily neither dog saw this well camouflaged lizard:

Spot the lizard! Luckily the dogs didn't!

We have photographed this magnificent Restio before, the centre is still green.

The inside of this Restio is still green!

This bike trail is unlikely to be used for a while, but the sign survived!

The sign survived, but the path is uninviting.

Just a few seeds to disperse from this King Protea Protea cynaroides flower. There must be thousands of seeds in these enormous spent flowers! As usual in Nature, Fibonacci spirals!

Just a few seeds out of thousands left to disperse

This Fire Lily Cyrtanthus ventricosa was worth going off the path for!

Fire Lily Cyrtanthus ventricosa growing between the rocks

The fire is still smouldering in this area, but look at the Fire Lilies!

There are six Fire Lilies in this photo, and the fire is still smouldering!

In one normally wet area it's already starting to green up!

Regrowth in a flood plain.

:-) A

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Long Week-end Saturday Flower Walk

Other plans meant a short walk on Saturday afternoon in a brisk North-wester, so we took in an area we hadn't visited for several months. But first, an explanation of something that's been worrying us for several weeks, what was happening to the seed pods on the Agapanthus walshii? Last year they dried up on the stalk and we were able to come away with about a dozen tiny seeds, leaving the rest to scatter. This year, the whole pods were missing. We took just two whole pods, before they were fully dry and brought them home in a tissue and opened it a couple of days later: Agapanthus walshii seeds eaten We had seen a hole in one of the seeds a couple of weeks ago, now we know! Back to this week, the Lobelia tomentosa, which I see means 'hairy' or 'felt-like'. It really looks as though this flowers year-round, adding deep blue splashes to even the barest veld: Lobelia tomentosa Here and there, examples of the Lobelia with the paler, smaller wider flower and the fine tangled stems can be found, sometimes entwined in another plant. We're still looking for a name! This Restio shows how strongly the wind was blowing! Our farm is in the medium-green part on the extreme left, before the built-up area, which shows how close we are to this natural garden. Restio Stoebe spiralis are still making pale yellow dots here and there. The tips of some of the florets are just starting to turn brown: Stoebe spiralis The whole plant looks like this: Stoebe spiralis A darker green bush which looked 'out of place' caused us to walk a short way off the road: Liparia splendens The clue is in the middle at the top! Liparia splendens, or Mountain Dahlia! See how it's growing up between the stump and bark? However, the flowers were few, showing us how 'splendens' the other example is which we have seen! There are still many pink and mauve Ericas; this looks like pulchella, with the dark red sepals: Erica pulchella And this looks like Erica multumbellifera or Many-umbrella Heath, we don't find many of them: Erica multumbellifera The whole plant: Erica multumbellifera A different one with pale sepals, yet not as pronounced as those on the coriifolia: Erica spp This one grows on taller stalks: Erica spp And another with longer, finer, denser flowers which we see lots of: Erica spp The Tritoniopsis lata aren't finished yet! In one place we found a shallow water-course which had spread the seeds effectively all down its length. The plants were well established: Tritoniopsis spp Tritoniopsis spp Detail of a flower: Tritoniopsis flower detail Here's a strong example of Psoralea pinnata, the flowers long spent. It has been hacked at, but it doesn't seem to have suffered much from it: Psoralea pinnata The spent flower which would have been blue, looks like this now. One can see where then name 'pinnata' comes from: Psoralea pinnata flowers Last week, Alison suggested the plant with the red berries we saw might have been an Osyris speciosa or Colpoon speciosum. It didn't match the iSpot photo, but does this? It doesn't look like it in this view above, but the spatula-shaped leaves are slightly red-rimmed, as can be seen below. The (few) berries can be seen at the bottom. In the March issue of Veld & Flora, Heather D'Alton has written about the effects of over-harvesting of wild flowers; in her case, on the Agulhas Plain. I have seen bakkie-loads of Brunias being driven out of our valley recently. Here's an example of one which is thankfully re-growing: Brunia regrowing after flower harvest In the middle it has been 100% harvested, which would have killed other Brunias, according to the article. http://www.flowervalley.org.za/ A few weeks ago we saw that this Leucadendron was showing signs of dying back. Now it's a goner :-( It has a very thick stem, so it's been there for many years. Leucadendron spp We're still looking for a tortoise to photograph for the experts to identify, but we didn't even know which way this one was going! Tortoise footprints This delicate creeper was growing amongst an Erica, any ideas? That's it for the week.... unless something else crops up! :-) A http://sundayflowerwalks.blogspot.com/