Spring Sunday Flower Walk

Hello all,

I've loaded last week's walk on the blogspot www.sundayflowerwalks.blogspot.com

Spring? Well, it must be:

Almonds in blossom, Compagnesdrift

Almond trees on Compagnesdrift, alive with bees! The orchard rows are lined with these...  Romulea tabularis?

Romulea tabularis?

We were keen to get back to the place where I found the pink flower among the mosses along the track. We picked out several of them, once we found the first and they certainly look like Drosera, or Sundews:

Sundew Drosera?

Sundew Drosera?

Sundew Drosera?

This one below looks as if it is pushing a flower up! The seed was quite firmly stuck in its grasp! One can see how poor the soil is, just coarse sand. The plant is said to catch insects and draws nutrients out of them instead of the soil.

Sundew Drosera with flower bud?

Lobelia tomentosa still add spots of deep blue to the veld. According to the books, they shouldn't be in flower now, but they are!

Lobelia tomentosa

A Gnidia, not sure which kind, with many clusters of buds at each stem end:

Gnidia ornata?

In this picture the leaves can be seen to be hairy. Many are described as hairless. The description that best fits it is G. ornata, but that's supposed only to be found east of Hermanus.

Flower detail of above Gnidia

This looks like a pink Erica with a white one behind. But it's the white flowered plant which has had us guessing for a long time. The foliage looks like that of a Deodar Cedar.

Pink Erica with unknown plant with white flowers

The white flowers are tufts at the end of what looks like plaited green. What is it?

Flower detail of above plant

Some weeks ago I posted a picture of these bushes, mentioning that they looked slightly different as if one was male and one female. Well, this one has set berries:

Unknown plant with berries

... and this one has not, even though the remains of the flowers are still there:

Similar plant nearby, spent flowers, no berries

We have seen this Struthiola before, it's difficult to miss now! We think it's S. ciliata.

Struthiola ciliata?

At last! The first Wachendorfia paniculata bud! It will form a candelabra of yellow flowers.

Wachendorfia paniculata with bud

This bokkie has been dead a long time, the dogs didn't even pick up a scent. Head bashed in :-(

Skeleton of small buck

I thought this might be two Leucadendron plants, m & f, but it's all one. Just the bottom left has set flowers.

Leucadendron laureolum?

Flower detail, L. laureolum?

Flower detail from lower left of above plant

At a casual glance this looked like yet another pink Erica, but is it?

Is this an Erica?

These yellow Irises seem to flower and be over and done with without us catching them.

Yellow Iris

But this one has a bud, if we can find it again!

Bud on Iris above

At last, buds on the Oftia or Teedia to help us distinguish which is which! If the flowers turn out mauve, then it's likely to be a Teedia lucida.

Teedia lucida? 

This looks like an Elegia persistens female. There appear to be seeds along all of the flowers.

Elegia persistens female

Anina has kindly confirmed this is Elegia persistens and adds the following: "The little dark things under the golden spathes are actually the flowers. They are obscured by the dark brown bracts that enclose them, and the only hint you will see that they are flowering is when the anthers in the males or the styles in the females come popping out. The anthers are cup-shaped to hold the pollen until the wind disperses it. The styles of the female flowers are often feathery (to better catch the pollen) and can be quite dramatic in colour – cream, red or purple. Interestingly, there is quite high specificity in the pollen-style interaction – probably due to the shape of the pollen of an individual species and the corresponding style of the same species. One seldom sees the pollen of one species on the style of another, which is quite amazing as wind pollination is so random. For this reason restios do not hybridise."

Which is this Palmiet Tetraria?

Palmiet Tetraria, but which one?

Flower detail:

Flower detail of Palmiet above

This grey-green bush is covered with white flowers.

Unknown plant with white (spent) flowers

On closer inspection, it looks as if they are spent as there are a few pink flowers left. Maybe we missed it this year?

Single pink flower on plant above

The last bud on the Protea cynaroides; a laatlammertjie.

Last Protea cynaroides bud for the year!

More Baroe Cyphia volubilis:

Baroe Cyphia volubilis

.... and a bud:

Baroe Cyphia volubilis bud

Good Night!

Sunset in the road outside!

:-) A

Sunday Flower Walk through the Week

We had a Christmas in July party today so I'll have to pick out what we found in the week. I had a job on at Karweyderskraal and although I didn't have time to stop under the Eskom powerlines for the Protea compacta, Bot River Protea, which are at their very best at the moment, there were interesting flowers in the farm-yard.

We are used to the white Metalasia here, so a pink one was a novelty: M. erubescens?

Metalasia erubescens?

Near it in the yard was a Lobelia, also different from the ones we know here. To the right behind is a white Erica:

Unknown Lobelia

This bush with yellow flowers caught my eye, possibly with a pea-type flower.

Unknown plant

The triangle at the turn-off to our Country Club is looking impressive at the moment. These Proteas are a bit hidden behind the billboards:

Proteas at the Country Club turn-off

A distinctly paler one near them:

More Proteas at the Country Club turn-off

Leucadendron with yellow flowers, L. laureolum?:

Leucadendron laureolum?

And the red one! Leucadendron 'Safari Sunset'. This one obscures the signboards and has to be cut back every year, but it seems to thrive on it!

Leucadendron 'Safari Sunset'

It was too wet to do our 67 minutes for Mandela at Max Harris Park yesterday but I popped in to see what was in flower. The Japanese Flowering Quince Chaenomeles speciosa started flowering a couple of weeks ago. It was severely cut back at our first Gardening Day, so it should be fuller than it is. Nevertheless it is striking with its deep pink blossoms and no leaves:

Japanese Flowering Quince Chaenomeles speciosa buds

There is a single pink bloom on the otherwise white Camellia:

A single pink Camellia flower on an otherwise white bush

If you ignore the rubbish and tangled fencing under them, the Aloe arborescens are stunning. The NGK spire is having a face-lift. They're wasting their time looking for eggs under the cock!

Aloe arborescens

This bush has looked familiar all along; now that its colours are coming through, it looks like a Fiddlewood Citharexylum quadrangulare. The word 'guitar' can be picked out in the Greek!

Fiddlewood Citharexylum quadrangulare?

There are still lots of Proteas to come, with several buds like this:

Protea bud in Max Harris park

Is this a Blue Daisy, Blue Marguerite or Felicia amelloides?

Blue Daisy, Blue Marguerite Felicia amelloides?

So easily overlooked are the Crassula ovata or Jade Plant flowers! The leaves of this one are riddled with holes and it looks quite scruffy, but up close the flowers are exquisite!

Crassula ovata flower

We did go for a short walk yesterday. I took this picture of a white Metalasia to compare the foliage with the pink one. This one certainly has the 'axial tufts' referred to in some of the guides. The M. erubescens above (if that's what it is) has plainer leaves, more like a rosemary plant.

White Metalasia flower showing foliage

Here is an Erica we're not familiar with, we found several in one patch only:

Unknown Erica

Here's that plant with the red flowers again!

Unknown plant with red flowers

Amongst it and nearby is a tough-growing plant with almost Cedrus-type leaves, now covered in round white flowers:

Unknown plant with white flowers

In the middle of the road, right on the track was this unusual tiny plant. Felled trees had been dragged across the road on both sides of it, could it be something special?

Tiny plant in road, growing from corms

The Retios are numerous, impressive and complicated. At first they all look the same, until you look up close. The flowers particularly are beautiful if you study them closely, each one very different! Anina has kindly identified the three specimens in the photos below: 'This one is a Hypodiscus aristatus male flower'.

Hypodiscus aristatus male flower

Anina says of this below: 'Possibly another Hypodiscus aristatus male, but a younger flower. The female flowers are similar, but usually only a single inflorescence. (Yes, these are a whole inflorescence with lots of little flowers hidden by the spine bracts) and slimmer'.  

Younger Hypodiscus aristatus male flower?

Again, thanks to Anina, 'Thamnochortus lucens male.'

Thamnochortus lucens male flower

The much-hacked Buchu, Agathosma betulina has come back with a bang! We have to be careful where we stand near it, for its numerous babies! Two can be seen coming up at the bottom of the picture.

Buchu Agathosma betulina with babies

On the way home we found the remains of a Bolete (?) with scaffolding!

Old Bolete?

And close by, some impressive orange Cinnabar brackets, Pycnoporus spp?

Cinnabar Bracket fungus Pycnoporus spp?

On the subject of fungi, on the driveway at home we have been watching this Fairy Circle:

Fairy Circle at home

The bare ring is where they were growing and the grass in the middle was mown at the same time as the rest around but has grown vigorously in comparison with that on the outside of the ring!

:-) A