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A Typical Month of Midweek Atlassing

What do we do on the midweek trips? Are they worth the investment in time, petrol and effort?

The purpose of the Protea Atlas midweek trips is to visit areas that atlassers do not seem to be targeting. These are identified as under-atlassed grid squares containing species missing crucial phenological data for the month. Generally areas more than two hours drive from Cape Town are not suitable for midweek walks – but that still leaves a huge area that can be covered.

The best way to outline what we seek to do is to look at a month of midweek trips. Take, for example, the month of February.

• Wednesday 09: Hopefield to Redelinghuys. The main purpose of this trip was to get phenological data for Ls arenarium and summer data for widespread Sandveld species. For obvious reasons not many people visit the West Coast during the heat of summer. An unusually small team of Ruth Smart, David Louw and I departed at 06h00 to beat the heat. A quick stop to get seasonal data for Ld cinereum, Ls tomentosum and Se decipiens near Darling started off the day. Se fucifolia, Ld stellare, Ld foedum, Ld loranthifolium, Ls hypophyllocarpo-dendron were atlassed around Aurora, with Platberg just north of Aurora yielding an 11 species plot (including a Ls hypo c X Ls rodo cross) for tea. Fortuitously we stopped to atlas the population of Ld stellare/brunioides flumenlupinum intermediates documented by Ion Williams while obtaining our data for Ls aren.

Lunch under a Rooikrans on the hill at Arbeidsgenot saw the thermometer edge to the 40^oC mark. Shortly afterwards we found Ld brun f – and Bingo! – the documented intermediate is not an intermediate, but the southern-most form for the subspecies. It remains to return when the species is flowering to confirm this conviction, but it seems clear that all populations north of the Piketberg are Ld brun f, with Ld stell confined to west of a line from Piketberg to Aurora to Elands Bay. This boundary probably also applies in the case of Ld foed vs Ld procerum, but we were unable to visit two of the problematic populations in our database on this trip.

Thereafter we extended the distribution range of Ls aren to the northeast by 3 km, a modest increase, but amounting to a 40% increase in its distribution range in the NE/SW axis! And, unfortunately, the entire area is located within strip-ploughed land. Reluctant to deflate the tyres to return up a steep dune, I elected to wait for David and Ruth to catch up the 1.5 km to the car while explaining the project to the farmer. This proved Ruth’s undoing: it took a rest, a long, cold drink and a beer to bring Ruth to a more delicate shade of pink and to cope with atlassing. Still, while gingerly exploring a graveyard on the banks of Verlorenvlei she discovered what is now the western-most known population of Ld proc. A beer at sunset on Uitkykkop overlooking Verlorenvlei, and Elands Bay rounded off the day with 105 SRS – a midweek record, topping our previous 96 of some months earlier. Ruth, however, sneaked an additional Se fuci in the gloaming on the road to Rocher Pan. These amounted to 276 species records of 19 species. Some 6 species were new distribution records based on blikbrein’s 12X12 km monitoring squares.

• Friday 11: Langeberg & Naudesberg. Billed as a trip to get data on Ls spathulatum and Ld cordatum, our purpose was really to close a gap on the top of the Langeberg which got rained out in August and to check on the identity of Pr magnifica on Naudesberg. (Could it be Pr holosericea?)

We (David, Ruth, Lyn McCullum & I) departed at the respectable time of 07h00 and shot through the Worcester and Hex River Valleys, and approaching Koo from the north, looked for proteas en route. The first proteas were on the Rooihoogte Pass, but only David did not already have Ve obtusata obtusata (only 20 km from where Pat Rebelo and Nigel Forshaw obtained a major range extension [of over 30 km to the SW] to Ve obtusata albomontana in August) or Pr sulphurea.

After delicately skirting around some "neighbourhood difficulties", we ascended the road to Naudesberg, and a world of 8-14-species’ plots containing Ld cord, Ls spat, Ve obtu o, Pr canaliculata, Ld  comosum comosum. The summit track took us almost 7 km along the top, where the contrast between the shale and sandstone slopes was striking. Pr magnifica was everywhere (on the sandstone), and it transpired that Sawedge Peak and Rabiesberg – and every single plant of Pr holo - had burned out in a double whammy – lightning and labourer’s fire - the week before. We did not find Pr effusa, but found some intermediates between Ld barkerae and Ld cord.

We stopped early at 17h40 (I must point out that this is not normal, but we elected to start for home early as it was the weekend), and returned via Montagu and Worcester. However, we will definitely be back to try and figure out the pollination of Ld cord – it must be pollinated by rodents with its flowerheads all born upside down just above ground level! But what is the reward and how does the plant overcome the problem of separate sexes? We only managed 61 SRS, amounting to 292 species records for 22 species. Some 15 new distribution records of species were obtained!

• Monday-Tuesday 15-16: Still Bay & Blesberg. We planned to visit Blesberg to collect more material of Pr venusta for Gail Reeve’s DNA work. However, when I phoned David Osborne to plan the trip on Monday 07, he invited us up with him on his maintenance visit to the automatic weather station. Of our midweek team, only Lyn could make it at such short notice (even so, we fitted it into a batch run report and advertized it on the web). Nigel Forshaw could not miss the opportunity and elected to join us.
• Monday saw us atlassing Se acrocarpa alongside the N2 at Niekerkshek south of Suurbraak. After Heidelberg we headed south to Vermaaklikheid, to resolve the identity of the pincushion en route to Puntjie – Ls truncatum or Ls praecox? Although not in flower, the plants certainly resemble Ls prcx rather than Ls tctm. More amazing were the extensive populations of Pr lanceolata along the Blombos road to Still Bay. Although the atlas range extensions to Robinson Pass and Potberg were known, the impression has always been that this was a sparse, rare plant. This is definitely not so in Wankoe. Our arrival at David’s house at 18h00 was too late to allow us to explore Windberg (where Au umbellata resides), but David had too much to entertain us with anyway. Our tally was 65 SRS, and 119 species records for 9 species. Four queries solved, but nothing really new.

Blesberg is the highest peak in the Cape Flora east of Meiringspoort – at 2084 m it commands stunning views of the Great Escarpment to the north and Outeniquas to the south, with the endless Swartberg chain hemisphering the vista. And there is a road to the top. A small population of Pr pruinosa guards the summit, and below on the south side extensive populations of Pr venusta (in peak flower), Pr montana and Pr rupicola draped, hid and surmounted the rocky landscapes. The Pr punctata, Ld dregei and album, Sp confusa and other species merely added a backdrop to the carpets of venusta flowerheads. Words do not suffice – enough said. We resolved 24 out of 28 identification queries, completed 46 SRS amounting to 138 species records for 18 species.

• Thursday 24: Riviersonderend. Our goal of obtaining seasonal data for Ls harpoganatum was stymied when the farmer refused us access (but we are welcome in April – so book your trip now), so we set more modest aims on the hills northwest of McGregor. We decided to start in the Witteberg Quartzites of Gannaberg. This was a "Virgin" square with no herbarium data or atlas records. The idea was to quickly confirm that there was nothing exciting there and then move on to the more exciting areas around Poesjenels River and Poespas Valley. Needless to say, we never left.

Adrian Mohl, Ruth, Lyn & I started off with a brief exploration of the southern banks of the Breede River, and found a track into the Gannaberg through a large herd of eland. A low hill covered with red sand and what looked suspiciously like a grey-silver pincushion far in the distance, saw Ruth and Adrian dispatched while Lyn and I explored the opposite end of the valley. Thus the empty square yielded a range extension of Ls rodolentum into perhaps its southernmost and easternmost extant population! Some 5 SRS down and 1 species are hardly the stuff to base dreams on, but by tea time we had only added Pr laurifolia to the species list, with a hint of a pincushion on a ridge top. Adrian forsook his tea to investigate and disappeared until lunch. The rest of us explored the kloofs, gulleys, plains and then the slopes, yielding nothing more exciting until just before lunch.

Unfortunately, the highest peaks of Gannaberg were burned out and so we returned to the northern-most foothills. A slope promising (binoculars are an indispensable plant-atlassing tool, even more important than the X20 hand lens) Ls utriculosum and what looked like Ld rubrum, turned up the burned-up remains of a cone that could only be Ld comosum or teretifolium. Alas, none of the above could be found. Only lots of Pr laurifolia, a few Ha sericea and Ld eucalyptifolium. Before you yawn, let me point out that four years ago we extended the distribution of Ld euca westwards to the hills NW of McGregor (almost losing Lyn in the mists at the time). This population is a further 25 km westwards, bringing its western-most range to almost south of Worcester. A second range extension for an unpretentious square.

At the summit Ls utri and Pr humiflora provided some additional variety. And at the base on the shales were some Pr humi and Ld tere (so solving the Great Cone Mystery). In fact, Ls utri turned out to be present (at low densities) on all the upper north-facing sandstone slopes, and in splendid flower too. A single previous atlas record from near the Villiersdorp’ road, stops this from being the western-most record for this species, but suggests that this species is present on all the hills south of the Breede River with a quartzitic cap (which no one has seen fit to atlas yet). It is therefore not nearly as rare as previously thought. Apart from a single Pr repens plant and a single Ld salignum plant (for the whole day!), no other species were seen in the grid square. The road ended up on one of the more spectacular 4X4 routes we have been on, along the summit ridges of the Ouhangsberg, with views of Jonaskop and Stettynsberg to the south and of the DuToitskloof, Hex and Langeberg Mountains to the north beyond the Breede River. Before returning home we determined that the Ls rodo population extended westwards to be almost continuous (vineyards and pastures prevent it) with the known Kwaggakloof population south of Worcester. The red sands continue to the east and should be explored.

Some Ld brunioides brunioides provided an additional species before the sun set, limiting us to 56 SRS for 73 species records of 9 species. But the trip did yield 9 new locality records of species, including two decent range extensions!

That is it for the hottest month of the year. Already March is underway and midweek trips to the Groot Winterhoek and Hex River valleys have also yielded surprises and exciting new data. The problem is that there is still far too much excitement for this stage of the project. With the project scheduled to close in 2001, we should be plugging boring gaps, with all the exciting areas already visited. The fact that so many range extensions and new records can be obtained so late in the project suggests that the Protea Atlas project should be prolonged for a little while longer.

Tony Rebelo

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