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Afrikaanse Inligting
Drakensberg escarpment south of Lekgalameetse – 9 & 10 September 2000
Pieter
Winter (a botanist of the University of the North), Clare Bell, Norbert Hahn, Joop Loeve
and I set off from Heanertsburg early on Saturday the 9th of September for the Drakensberg
escarpment south of the Lekgalameetse Nature reserve in the Northern Province. Joop and I
were in search of the very scarce Ls saxosum
Escarpment Pincushion, which has last been sighted by conservation authorities 15
years ago. Pieter was fortuitously also in search of the scarce Gladiolus vernus (its
specific name refers to its spring flowering habit) in the same area.
I put my little RAV4 to the limit of its abilities as we climbed up a steep, rocky "track" to gain as much height as possible. At an altitude of 900 m, we could drive no further, and started to hike.
It was interesting to see the change in protea composition with the change in altitude. At the bottom of the escarpment (at an altitude less than 700 m) Fa saligna was plentiful. Between 700 m and 900 m we found extensive stands of Pr gaguedi Savannah Sugarbush that were starting to come into flower, together with Fa rochetiana Broad-Leaf Beechwood. Thereafter Pr gaguedi disappeared but Fa rochetiana continued as the almost dominant woody element to a height of about 1200 m, where one also starts to find Pr roupelliae Silver Sugarbush. At 1400 m and above we started to find small (up to 40cm) Protea bushes, which continued to defy identification even to Pieter, the professional botanist amongst us. Although the plants had an affinity to Pr caffra Common Sugarbush, they didn’t quite fit any of the recognized subspecies.
Just as we crossed the escarpment, Pieter’shrieks of delight alerted us to the fact that he had found Gladiolus vernus. There was a population of several hundred plants in full bloom on the rocky west-facing slope of the escarpment, a beautiful sight indeed at such a dry time of year. Here we also found the first Pr rubropilosa Transvaal Sugarbush trees.
After the joy of finding the Gladiolus, we set off for the more mundane task of finding water, heading in the direction where the Escarpment Pincushion had last been recorded. After two hours of walking, we struck it doubly lucky: next to a strongly-flowing stream the red inflorescences of Ls saxosum stood out clearly. This pincushion seems to prefer these moist streamside habitats, where it occurs on the edge of and even inside the riverine bush. We estimated the population at more than 50 plants, more numerous than the population at the Blyderivierspoort Nature Reserve, where there are only about 30 plants. Luckily fires do not seem to kill the pincushion plants as they have huge underground rootstocks from which they resprout after burning.
The next day we decided to explore another stream valley for Ls saxosum, unfortunately without success. We did, however, find Fa galpinii Forest Beechwood along the way as well as the scrambling Rhoicissus laetans, (related to the common forest grape) that was thought to be an Mpumalanga endemic.
The unidentified small Protea continued to taunt us all along the way. This is the same Protea that I had seen a year earlier in the Wolkberg in similar habitat. At the time I had thought it to be a Pr simplex X caffra hybrid. Here, however, P simplex was nowhere to be seen, although we did find a few Pr caffra ssp. rhodanta trees of normal size (more than 2m) in the same area. This may be a good opportunity for Gail Reeves to do some genetic detective work to see whether the mystery plant is indeed genetically different or only a local morphological adaptation to specific habitat conditions.
We returned home very satisfied, with eight proteas and one unknown/unidentified species within a confined geographical area under our belts. Our atlassing also left us with the clear impression that of a lot of work has yet to be done to demystify the identification conundrums in the Protea caffra complex.
Reuben Heydenrych, Pretoria
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