Succulent plants are somewhat rare in fynbos, especially compared to the Karoo to the north. But the stonecrop family, Crassulaceae, has a number of fynbos species. Most of these produce small flowers, pollinated by bees or even smaller insects. Two species though, Crassula fascicularis and Crassula coccinea, have large flowers…
A curious aspect of living amongst the Cape Flora is that we sometimes forget how special some of our commoner plants actually are. A case in point is Saltera sarcocolla. This species is found widely across the whole of the Klein River Mountains. It is found both at low and…
Erica corifolia is commonly known as the Dark-tip Heath. This is a reference to the pink flowers, which quickly fade from purplish to blackish brown at the tip soon after opening. But it does not stop there, for the whole flower quickly loses its colour and turns brown. This does…
There are many pretty species of Erica but only one truly bears the name: Erica pulchella. (“Pulchella” is the Latin diminutive for beautiful, i.e. pretty.) It forms low branched shrubs with numerous dense spikes of small purplish red urn-shaped flowers. It grows from the Cape Peninsula to Kogelberg, and along…
February and March are the months for April Fools at Phillipskop. Or to be more helpful, they are the months when two different species, Haemanthus coccineus and Haemanthus sanguineus, come into flower. Both are commonly known as April Fools, though the name is not especially apt as they are frequently…
In the shimmering heat of summer, the spikes of Watsonia schlechteri appear as beacons amongst the fynbos. Often producing a single spike of up to 30 large trumpet-shaped lurid orange-scarlet flowers, the individual plants can be spotted from considerable distance across the mountain slopes. While this certainly attracts the attention…
