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SHARKS AND FLOWERS AMONG THE WHALES
Sept 15, 2006
The whales came late this year. Though apparently they are appearing all over the place, including unusual numbers gambolling among the seals and Great White Sharks in nearby False Bay. Our own Great Whites Sharks are decent enough and retiring enough to stay mainly beyond Walker Bay and close to Dyer Island where all the seals are.
The whales appreciate this, for they are gentle and lovable and hate creatures with sharp teeth, or harpoons.
Our hinterland, is not so gentle I learned today.
Visiting the annual Hermanus Botanical Society Flower Show, I discovered something few people know - including many experts and botanists. It is this:
Our famous Cape Floral Kingdom has the the biggest carnivorous plants on this planet. The largest is Roridula dentate, and it grows two metres tall with leaves that are covered with hairs. You could have a bad moment being wrapped up by it, for it is very sticky. The plant is capable of capturing small birds.
The Fynbos region is the richest of all floral regions on Earth, with more varieties of plants in a small strip at the tip of Africa than are found in all of Europe and North America.
Though no-one has counted all our varieties lately, there are known to be 8,578 plants that make up the Cape Floral Kingdom. There must be many more to be identified. My friend Frank Woodvine, and others, are working on it right now.
The crimson pin-cushion Protea outside our gate, which visitors stop to stare at in Spring when its blooms blaze enough to make the lilies turn whiter, and the Red Hot Pokers in the bushes across the road to blanch. . . the name of this dazzling burning bush is Leucospermum Cordifolium.
This dramatic species is one of countless protean forms of proteaceae, and though L C is sensational enough to stop tourists dead in their tracks, our specimen isn't even in the King Protea's court.
Meanwhile, as you may read elsewhere in these scribblings, the fynbos habitat to which these great blooms are confined, is a deadly jungle in which 8,000 species of flowering shrubs are fighting for domination or survival.
It's a vicious world out there among the wild flowers and white sharks. . . but fortunately in this particular diary category, we are writing only about kind, gentle whales. And a dolphin or two.
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