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Published: October 2nd 2007
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Subtle colors
Almost missed these but look closely and see hundreds FYNBOS
“The Cape Fold Mountains, which lie at the southern tip of Africa, are home to the Cape Floral Region - one of only six Floral Kingdoms in the world. More than 9,000 different plant species grow naturally in this small area and nearly 70 per cent of them are found nowhere else in the world.” (“Fynbos” by Paterson-Jones and Manning)
THE SIX FLORAL KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD
Boreal region is the world’s northern region covering 42%!o(MISSING)f the earth, includes most of the northern hemisphere.
Paleotropical region covers 35%!o(MISSING)f the earth, and includes most of Africa south of the Sahara, India, South Asia, Indonesia and the South Sea Islands.
Australian Region covers 8%!o(MISSING)f the earth and includes Australia and Tasmania.
Neotropical Region covers 14%!o(MISSING)f the earth and includes South and Central America.
Antarctic or Patagonian Region covers 1%!o(MISSING)f the earth and includes Chile, Patagonia, New Zealand and Antarctica.
Cape Fynbos region, also called the South African region or Fynbos Biome, covers just 0.04%!a(MISSING)nd is at the southern tip of Africa. With its 8,500 species this region has the greatest number of species per acreage in the
Too much!
A cluster of jewels world. 30% of the 1500 genera are endemic to this area. (from the Botanical Gardens in Stellenbosch)
We drive north but the sky is not promising.
The optimal viewing conditions should be bright and sunny. The wildflowers, just now erupting after the winter hibernation, are promised to open wide and warm themselves like winter-weary sunbathers on a spring beach. Apparently carpets of them cover hillsides father north of here, but we are going to Darling, about an hour from Stellenbosch by car, where there is a small reserve of virgin grassland, and a promise of flowers.
The vineyards and the mountains disappear with little transition, that is to say, there are vineyards and suddenly there are no vineyards. It is open grassland, not unlike the Dakotas or parts of Texas. Black Holsteins, sheep and ostriches graze behind wire fences. There are heavy clouds on the horizon.
In the crossroad town of Darling we eat outside in a simple café - eggs, sausage, ham, bread, cheese and marmalade. The owner comes out and drops a big clear awning on three sides of us. The wind rises and a light rain falls. Across the
Beyond yellow
Words are inadequate street is a small general store, and next to it a bar that looks as if American cowboys might come flying out of it into the street on a Friday night. There are no horses tied up outside, but there should be. A sign on a chalkboard in the restaurant says, “Don’t feed the dogs.” A German Shepherd pads in among the four tables, circles, then lies down in the lee of a low wall not far away.
We drive the last six kilometers to the Tienie Versveld Wildflower Reserve. There are four cars pulled off to the side of the string-straight and empty road. We are in the middle of nowhere.
Behind a fence there is a small sign that tells us about Mr. Marthinus Versfeld. We stand under the brightening sky and read:
“This renosterveld wildflower reserve was originally a part of the farm ‘Slangkop’, owned by the Versfeld family of Darling. The Versfelds came to Darling in the 1830’s from Klaasenbosch, Constantia. In 1958 the owner, Mr Marthinus Versfeld (known to all as Oom Tienie,) donated this 20ha piece of his farm to the National Botanical Institute due to
Draws you inside
Dancing in the wind its conservation importance. The reserve has never been ploughed but is sometimes used for grazing by the Slangkop cattle.”
In front of us there is a rolling field of waving grasses and tightly bunched ground cover. In the distance is a lonely, white, broken down building. Perhaps once it held a family of black farm workers. Now the windows are open and the dark mullions show like burnt bones in the gaps. Without our noticing, the sky above the renosterveld wildflower reserve has cleared. It’s like we are in the eye of a storm, except that there is no storm; just dense cloud cover gathered all around us, but not above us. Above us there is only clear blue. The sun streams down, warm and bright. The wind is soft, making the longer grasses dance and sway.
There are six people out strolling in the reserve. Dark irregular shapes against a subtle burlap background. They look so insignificant standing in this infinite expanse. We begin to walk into it, over boardwalks made of round peeled logs, then onto soft moist ground, our shoes sinking a bit and making wet sucking sounds. Then I see them. They look so
Not a portchulaca
Tiny, delicate, amazing tiny, and I see only a few at first. Then slowly, like I have entered a dark room and my pupils are drinking in all the light possible, they begin to appear all around me.
To try to describe the flowers with words is impossible. I will leave that to some poet or artist or mystic. I could call them electric yellow, or brick red, or brushed orange, but that would slight both the words and the flowers.
The miracle here is not merely the color and the dense variety. These seem almost insignificant after making a close examination of these delicate wonders with my reading glasses (I must bring a magnifying glass nest time). The structure of these little creatures is so complicated, so balanced, so sexual that they seem to move beyond the physical into the metaphysical.
We walk onto a thin trail and stop by a small shallow patch of water. Two ibis are feeding and an African spoonbill is grooming herself. We circle the field and beyond a fence there are black cattle. A donkey brays. There is a musty smell traveling on the wind. Sometimes it is there; sometimes it is not.
Raw power
What it lacks in color it makes up in detail A stand of grasses wave. Some of it is round, stiff, striped, and as thick as a seagull’s leg.
The trail circles the big field and we follow. An hour later, before we get back to our car, the opening in the sky above us has closed. Gray clouds struggle to hold back the light.
Millions of flowers shiver in the soft wind.
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