Home
Mission
Overview of Project
Project Staff
Sponsors
Achievements
Checking, Illustrations
Upcoming Activities
Id and Species Lists
Protea Information
Protea Gallery
Growing Proteas
Interim Dist. Maps
Publications
Afrikaanse Inligting
Grabouw Conebush - Leucadendron globosum
The Grabouw Conebush, like the other Crown Conebushes, occurs on shales. Its natural distribution is the Elgin Valley south of Grabouw. As such it occurs in the prime fruit-growing areas, and is now reduced to a few small populations on the steep-sided slopes that cannot be worked. All the Crown Conebushes are threatened with extinction! The Wynberg Conebush is Extinct! The Elim Conebush is Vulnerable to extinction. The Vyeboom, Caledon and Witsenberg Conebushes are Endangered with extinction. All occur on rich soils suitable for agriculture. Like all Fynbos plants, the Grabouw Conebush requires fire. Unfortunately, fires are not occurring on the small remnants in which this species may still be found. And so the populations are crashing. The seeds are released after ripening and dropped to the ground. Nothing is known about seed storage. Special efforts are needed to manage our remnant stands of Fynbos. Stands that are too old (more than 20 years) need to be burned. Conversely, until they are 5 years old they must be protected from fire. All known populations of the Grabouw Conebush are threatened by alien invader pines and wattles. Without proper management the species in our remnant Fynbos and reserves will go extinct. Unless we monitor and manage our rare species, we will only realise too late that they have gone extinct. Join the Protea Atlas Project and help monitor or rare plants.
Have a look at Type Locality of Leucadendron globosum desecrated for a sad story.
A new population of Ld globosum
I recently had reason to visit the apple farm, Sutherland which is in the Grabouw area. On my approach to the Palmiet River, I got excited when I saw a patch of fynbos on a north facing slope where the Common Conebush – Ld salignum was growing. Why was I excited at seeing Ld salignum? Answer: Because just about every square inch of land has been ploughed up for apple orchards!
I soon came across a steep south facing shale slope that had not been ploughed up. The Grabouw Conebush just had to be there. The habitat was perfect. Ld globosum was indeed there and I counted 24 healthy plants. The site is quite difficult to walk through because it has not burnt for many years, has brambles growing on it and the slope is quite steep. However, it is very easily observed from a track with binoculars. This site is on the south western most extreme of the distribution of Ld globosum.
I informed the farm owner, Chris Watermeyer, what he had growing on his farm and he
expressed interest and told me that they do like to preserve the fynbos. The Ld
globosum site used to have pine trees growing on it but these were chopped down. This
find almost doubles the known number of Ld globosum plants known to be alive at
present. Of course, there are lots more seeds in the soil at other colonies, but the veld
in these is rather moribund. I wish that the farmers would burn their veld!
Nigel Forshaw