Watsonia schlechteri Sunday Flower Walk

Well, it was difficult to decide which flower was most impressive today, but after keeping us waiting quite a long time in the burnt area, the Watsonia schlechteri are out, with many more on their heels by the look of it!

Watsonia schlechteri with Eikenhof Dam and the Country Club

Here is the flower up close.

Flower detail

Another we found will make a nice advertisement by next week for Oak Valley Flowers, whose hot-houses are in the background!

Watsonia schlechteri about to open

While many of the Corymbium glabrum var. glabrum are over, we're still finding them here and there, this was the most impressive, with buds still to open:

Corymbium glabrum var. glabrum

The five petals can be seen on the flowers here, and the ubiquitous bottle-blue bugs!

Flower and bug

Here is a huge five-toothed Baboon Cabbage Othonna quinquedentata, it's about 6 feet tall and as wide.

Large Othonna quinquedentata

For all that, the flowers are tiny! It can be seen below that it's a Daisy.

.... with tiny flowers!

It was distressing to see that irresponsible four-wheel-drive vehicles have once again gone straight up the hill where late Brian du Toit and I made drainage run-offs to prevent washaways. There is now no control over access to the forest, the gates are left open. I suppose for some people, this is 'just another sand dune to be conquered'? It certainly does nothing to make me support either Westvaal or Isuzu!

Unauthorised driving of 4X4 vehicles :-( 

Not far from the one we found last week, here is another small plant completely covered with these lilac five-petalled flowers. The stigmas are long, forked and 'recurving'. We just can't find a name for it! Could they be the endangered Merciera azurea?

Could this be Merciera azurea?

Another view:

Flower detail

Despite showing this plant on last week's blog, none of you seem to have rushed up there to find something to smoke! Cannabis sativa?

Cannabis sativa? 

Purple Powder-puff Pseudoselago serrata are to be found all over, this was the most impressive!

The most impressive Purple Powder-puff of the day!

This was the only Chincherinchee Ornithogalum thyrsoides I saw, it still has many flowers to open.

'Chink' Ornithogalum thyrsoides

We wanted to go back and check the Curlygrass fern, also called 'Comb fern'. It's easy to see why! Schizaea pectinata.

Curlygrass fern, Comb fern Schizaea pectinata

We don't often stop for a yellow daisy, there are so many. But this was particularly dark and the flowers were closing.

Deep yellow Daisy, closed

From the side:

Flower from the side

And the whole plant. Any guesses?

Whole plant

The plants which are really coming into their own now are the rare Agapanthus walshii!

Agapanthus walshii flowers, polleniser view

More A. walshii

They don't often have as many florets as this, the buds are full!

Abnormally full buds on these!

We've never seen so many! This particular group is close to the 'red road' recently deforested. We would definitely have seen them before, but for the trees having been cut and the fire which followed.

More!

The leaves don't amount to much but the stems are tall. These are more 'normal' flowers

.... and more!

So maybe I should have called this issue after the Aggies? :-) A

Corymbium glabrum Sunday Flower Walk

There's always something interesting in the derelict garden of the railway cottages! At the moment it's a splendid stand of deep oraange Day Lilies growing amongst Acanthus mollis:

Day Lilies and Acanthus mollis in the derelict garden of the Railway Cottages

Today we went looking for a group of Watsonia schlechteri we remembered in the unburnt area just above the railway line.

Watsonia schlechteri

Then Pippa remembered there was a plant which we had never identified before, growing right there. Here is a bunch of spent flowers:

Aspalathus callosa? 

For the first time we've found flowers still on it, another yellow pea! Possibly Aspalathus callosa.

Flower detail

This gives an idea of the size of the plant, it must have been impressive with many of the flowers open!

Whole plant

We're sorry to have missed this little plant flowering.

An Aristea? 

The spent flowers or seed pods looked familiar:

Spent flower up close

Later in the walk we looked at the Aristea bakeri we have been watching (below), and found very similar pods. Could this (above) be Aristea racemosa, or A. juncifolia? It was past 4pm so it might have flowered this morning.

Spent flowers of Aristea bakeri elsewhere

Our first Therianthus this year! Growing here amongst Pseudoselago spuria which have nearly finished flowering. On the right are more about to open.

First Therianthus!

Here was an interesting plant, easily overlooked, but I spotted tiny flowers on the tips.

Untidy red plant, lying down, with tiny pink flowers at the tips

Flower detail

Here is another plant, not so far advanced:

Les advanced plant, upright and greener

We were aiming for the stand of Agapanthus walshii we have been watching open gradually for a few weeks.

Agapanthus walshii

The way the flowers hang sets them apart.

Ten Agapanthus walshii flowers or buds on one plant!

We counted 45 buds or flowers in this small area. Not bad for an extremely rare plant!

Agapanthus walshii flowers

A little way on, while watching a pair of black crows, Pippa noticed a splash of deep pink. Corymbium glabrum var glabrum, unless there's another variety with this deeper pink.

Deep pink Corymbium

We were making for the Curlygrass fern Schizaea pectinata we had found before, to find the fans of the flowers more fully developed and greener than before:

Curlygrass Schizaea pectinata flowers up close

I spotted what I thought was yet another Purple Powder Puff Pseudoselago serrata, but this was growing too close to the ground. Close up it was something completely different!

This looks familiar, but we can't remember what it is! 

The flowers are deceptively long trumpets, and if you look carefully you can see long forked stamens coming out of some of the flowers. The closest we get is Merciera, but this grows too close to the ground for them.

Flower detail, long trumpets and longer stamens!

We found another Corymbium, further advanced and much paler than the previous one.

Paler Corymbium

Up there we found this Purple Powder Puff Pseudoselago serrata, definitely the biggest of the day!

The biggest Powder Puff we found today!

We wanted to check on the offspring of the burnt Pagoda flower Mimetes cucullatus which would have been in flower now. The babies are looking well!

Baby Mimetes cucullatus

These have clearly grown from seed scattered from the parent close by. Also in the Protea family, where we were disappointed that the re-growth we had seen at the bases of Protea cynaroides had shrivelled up, we are now finding seedlings close by:

Baby Protea cynaroides

What I thought last week was a Tar Pea Bolusafra bituminosa was identified by the experts as Rhynchosia because its leaves were in threes and pointed. This is more like it, with rounded leaves! We forgot to check if it was sticky!

Tar Pea Bolusafra bituminosa

It's late in the year to be finding Albuca. The latest in the books, up to November is A. cooperi, otherwise A. juncifolia would be a contender.

Albuca, but which one? 

The leaves look like this:

Albuca leaf

We stopped off at the Watsonia borbonica from last week, looking as good as before!

Watsonia borbonica

And near it a sea of Combflowers, Micranthus:

Combflowers Micranthus

On the way back, this 'Weed' looked a bit out of place!

The 'Weed'

How did it get there?

Leaf detail

:-) A