Hoekwil forest

On a back road between George and Wilderness, just past a small settlement of low-cost government houses, there is a dirt road marked "Big Tree". It doesn't look very promising, but only a few hundred metres down the road, the dairy pastures and dusty stands of weeds give way to a cool green cathedral of Afrotemperate forest. On this late Sunday afternoon leaves were glowing stained glass, the streams murmured quiet prayers of thanks for last week's rain and the forest provided a silent sermon on the nature of time.

It's March again.

On the sandy floodplain south of De Hoop vlei, this Haemanthus flower is pushing up. Only later the two broad, dark green leaves will appear, flat on the ground.



It's interesting that Amaryllidaceae have recalcitrant seeds. This sounds like it means they are stubbornly resistant to growing at all. Botanically, it actually refers to seeds that are not able to dry and will germinate immediately when ripe. This explains why Amaryllids all over the world flower just before the rainy season of their native habitat. Unlike most plants, the ripe seed could not survive even a single dry season.  Here in the winter rainfall areas of the Western Cape, that usually means the many and varied Amaryllidaceae appear in early March, often pushing up out of hard, dry ground.

I'm not sure why this species is named H. sanguineus, but I'd like to think that it was presumed sanguine to be waking right at the end of summer, confident that the winter rains will be along shortly. A good word that, sanguine. One doesn't see it nearly often enough any more.

for Rosie

who is altogether lovely, a spring daisy.

Bontebok National Park
(Swellendam, Tuesday, on way back from a different Nature Reserve meeting). 

It turns out that despite the lack of any indication on signboards or permits, you are NOT allowed to walk amongst the flowers in Bontebok National Park. I was told to get back in my car. The man said: "imagine if everyone did this". I did. I smiled. The man was not amused.

happy sad Gladiolus

Last night a gentle rain fell all night. And in the morning everything was soft and wet and fresh. And Gladiolus tristis, whose name of course means the sad Gladiolus, was positively radiating contentment. And although it's normally only scented in the evening, on this overcast morning it is strongly perfumed.
Despite how delicate it looks, this Cape lowlands geophyte is tough, and from a handful of bulbs I bought way back from Adriaan Hanekom at the Caledon Fynbos Nursery, I now have several overflowing pots full, have given more away, and still have plants popping up in any soil that ever hosted them.