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Channel-leaf Featherbush Aulax cancellata ON TABLE MOUNTAIN: UPDATE!
The newly discovered colony of
Aulax cancellata - Channel-leaf
Featherbush on the front face of Table Mountain
was counted on 13 June 1992. Some 12 plants were seen comprising 6 male, 1
female and 5 plants which had not yet flowered. Since our last count done in
April 1992 one very large female plant, which was growing on the edge of the
path, has disappeared. Coincidence or not, the Pines and Albizzia that had
threatened the colony had been cleared in the interim.
This colony was discovered by Barbara and John Knight in March 1992, when they stopped to investigate "some funny looking pine trees", and then, as Botanical Society A-team members of long-standing, recognized the significance of their find. On Saturday 13 June 1992 the Kirstenbosch Branch of the Botanical Society of South Africa held a hack to remove the Acacias which are a minor threat to the plants, the pines having been cleared a few days previously.
The last recorded reference to Au canc on the Cape Peninsula (excluding PAN) is in Adamson and Salter (Flora of the Cape Peninsula, 1950) where it is stated "This genus has almost certainly been exterminated". Therein is a reference to this species formerly occurring on Muizenberg Mountain, being recorded there in 1889, but no reference to Aulax on Table Mountain at all.
However, the traveller Burchell took a herbarium specimen "on Table Mountain", probably in January 1811 on the occasion that he and a party walked up Platteklip Gorge to the summit, and he recorded that they lit a fire to warm themselves. The firewood was Mimetes hartogii (now Mi fimb), Cliffortia ruscifolia and Aulax pinifolia (now Au canc). He also lists Au canc among the plants to be found on the summit. I cannot draw any conclusions as to the size of the population from one specimen and a passing reference to fire wood. But both the Hairy-leaf Pagoda and the Channel-leaf Featherbush probably suffered in the repeated fires that have left Platteklip Gorge without any trees: neither species can be found there now.
Then came the Victorians. Pine plantations were planted to adorn the front face of Table Mountain. These were felled in about 1950 (the stumps are still visible), and the area was described by veteran climbers as being "dead" at that time.
That the Channel-leaf Featherbush survived is a miracle. Considering the obstacles that have already been overcome, I am optimistic .... provided that human beings stand back from the process. Ann Steele
We disagree that the Channel-leaf Featherbush will survive! Quite apart from it being cleared as a pine tree, its survival is stochastically impossible. We suggest that you play the game in PAN 4 page 15 - you will be in for a surprise! Without a rescue programme, both Aulax cancellata and Protea grandiceps (PAN 13.5) on Table Mountain are doomed: we require volunteers to help with a rescue project. Please contact Chris.
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