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Breakout of Rare and Local Proteoids

Having stopped and serious-handbrake-started my way up the rocky hairpins in my trusty vehicle, I hopped out (again) on reaching the sandy plateau north-east of Wolfieskop (home to Se stel and Se viri) in the Riviersonderend Mountains. With some serious botanizing potential in the air, as there often seems to be at the end of mountain ranges, I ignored the other atmospheric potential (rain), and headed off to do a bit of pseudo peak-bagging.

The farmer (down at Dasbos) had told me that the Villiersdorp flower pickers who regularly go up there (on a contract basis) had mentioned a "groot protea" that only grew up on the rocks, but that he didn't know what it was. I assumed it was Pr magn, and I was happy to confirm this as I got up to about 1150 m. But almost immediately I noticed a little silvery something (clearly a Spatalla, no forgotten necklace) amongst the restios, and was frustrated to see that it was still a baby, with no sign of adults in the immediate area. Whatever it was destined to be was sure to be interesting, so I dropped down onto the south-western slopes of Wolfieskop, figuring that there might be a better chance of finding something there. Plenty of Pr magn, rocks, restios, and not much else.

As I started to gain some height I hopped onto a rock and wham! - straight into a whole bunch of superb, distinctly adult, and very unmistakably silvery Sp arge. There appeared to be a small population of about 30 plants in the area, but I soon turned up another around the next corner (herbarium specimen taken, NBG). No sooner had I recovered my composure when I spied a gangly number in a gully some 80 m below the peak - the tallest of a small group of Pa adia, half of them having flowered just once, the others still to reproduce. This is probably the highest population known to date, but the area should be searched as Steven Richardson has also turned it up some 4 km to the east of here. I duly bagged the peak, but the up and coming southeaster made sure I wasn't going to hang around, so I chose a steep green gully to the north-east as my descent route.

A few boisterous minutes later I was scanning the immediate surrounds some 150 m below the peak and I noticed another etiolated looking group, this time Conebushes, amongst some dumpy looking Ld laur. By now my mind was in overdrive, having just come across another large group of Sp arge, and I recalled the phrase "have always been found growing in close association with Leucadendron nervosum, a rare species which is also endemic to Jonaskop" (Rourke's revision of Spatalla and Sorocephalus, 1969). A quick bound and a stumble or two, and Ld nerv it was, these 50 or so plants being really old (up to 2.2 m tall) and spectacularly hairy. They could probably benefit from a burn pretty soon as a number were starting to show signs of senescence in this +15 yr-old veld.

On a subsequent visit two weeks later I was able to make a herbarium specimen from this new population, and also turned up another population on the ridge north-east of Wolfieskop, at about the same elevation. This population is actually two populations, as it consists of one on an unburned east slope, and a younger one (about 6 yrs old) on the northern slope, although they are only 50 m apart, with each consisting of about 40 plants. Can it be that all the previous mountain trompers missed these three specials? Elsie Esterhuysen has a collection of Pa adia from Wolfieskop, but quite a bit lower down, and Stokoe, with his notoriously vague localities, made a collection from "Bosjesveld Mts, Villiersdorp side", which could well refer to this area. But it would appear that all have missed the Ld nerv population, perhaps because it's in a steep gully. The nearest record of this species is some 12 km further east on the farm Watervalskloof (near Jonaskop), and given the rarity of the plant this healthy new population is thus of significance. And the association with Sp arge continues, as does the trend that suggests this area to be the core of the Proteaceae diversity.

(Headline news?: Kogelberg fades in race for megadiversity Crown!)

PS: A conservation note: Ha seri is invading the area, but is still at the stage where it could be easily removed. Given the value of this area, perhaps a day's hack-and-poisoning would be in order up here, or would CNC care to help?

Nick Helme (Kalk Bay).

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