After the Rain Sunday Flower Walk

First, some colour from during the week to liven it up! I think this is Aloe ferox, it's outside our Post Office at Elgin Station. More important, it's completely covered in bees! Even the broken-off flowers on the ground had bees on them!

Aloe ferox at the Station

A trip to Karweyderskraal is always interesting. I hadn't realised the veld had burned there too. This was under the Eskom power lines which in the past has been worth stopping at. It's a reminder of how vast our floral variety is; there was little that I recognised! Just look at the twist in these (single) leaves!

Single twisted leaves?

This has grown very fast. At first glance I thought it was a Campylostachys, but now I doubt it.

A fast re-grower

Another fast-grower!

What is this?

Here at least was a familiar one, not in the burned part, Phaenocoma prolifera.

Phaenocoma prolifera

I came back over Highlands from Kleinmond side. I don't recommend the road itself, but it was worth it for the flowers! (and the views!)

Proteas and the view down to the lagoon

Is this the Bot River Protea Protea compacta?

Bot River Protea P. compacta (?)

Long Leaved Sugarbush Protea longifolia:

Protea longifolia

Is this another Protea compacta?

Metalasia:

Metalasia

Unfortunately now past its spectacular blue flowering, Nivenia stokoei:

Nivenia stokoei

There was quite a lot of rain forecast for the weekend and I was worried about the 4X4 tracks from last week straight up the sandy part of the burned veld. So Brian and I went up on Saturday morning to make some diagonal cross trenches. The route had already been changed, I just moved the sign to the middle of the track. The first diagonal can be seen behind.

Bottom of last week's 4X4 track and the first diagonal trench

Brian knows how it's done! It needs more sand on the lower side, a rake is ideal. Then it needs to be stamped firnly on the lower side. The end of the cut must go far enough not let the water flow back into the road.

Brian showing me how it's done!

While I was up there, I thought I saw a snake!

'New' plant I thought was a snake!

No! Another 'new' plant we haven't seen before with fleshy leaves! There were several of them, just in that area.

Leaf detail, it's fleshy

The rain did come, we had 17mm here in a few hours last night. On our walk today we were keen to see if the trenches had worked. This one needed deepening at the upper end; some water had got past straight down the hill. I reinforced it. Most of the water (and sand) had gone off to the right.

After the rain, the upper end of the cross trench wasn't quite deep enough

The rest held nicely. We had made about ten:

The rest worked well!

Here's another of the 'new' plants, with a number of thinner, roundish leaves with a red tinge, growing more upright.

Another 'snake' plant, with thinner more upright leaves

Is this what I saw on Friday (above)?

Is this what I saw on Friday?

We were keen to check on re-growth on a stand of King Protea Protea cynaroides which had been burned.

Pippa at the burned Protea cynaroides

We were not disappointed!

Re-growth at the base!

What we thought last week were re-seeding Proteas now look more like Othonna, perhaps O. quinquedentata:

Probably an Othonna, not a Protea as we thought last week

Here is one that is well established already!

Othonna quinquedentata, growing well!

The re-sprouting Protea I checked on last week has put on more growth in the meantime.

More Protea re-growth

And another!

And another!

Encouraged, I went to look at the Pagoda Flower Mimetes cucullatus, and found this at its base. Could it be a baby?

Could this be a baby Mimetes cucullatus?

In the immediate vicinity there were other plants, maybe more?

Could these be more?

We'll certainly be back to check!

Finally, the Magnolias are out at the Auto Electricians!

Magnolia in the Village

:-) A