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Savage sharks? Or civilised flowers?
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[IGNORE pic. It will be changed to appropriate one |
Which excursion would you make if you had only one opportunity to visit the tip of Africa:-
** An undersea cage visit to watch Great White Sharks off Dyers Island?
** Or a walk on the mountains above the sea at Hermanus? |
You will not understand my choice unless you have an inkling of my experience today (Tuesday, 5th
December 2006). The walk on the mountain turned into am exploration
of a different universe of beauty, politics, conflict and sex. With our backs to the sea we went up a partly hidden protea-covered path, climbing parallel to the Fernkloof Valley of the Three Dams. The route, known as Droekloof (Dry Ravine), was the once the way of thye shepherds, bringing their flocks over the mountains to graze along the coast. It took us back up the mountain along the ridge separating two valleys; around the red-rock cliffs folded into the mountain top, and across the brow of the range until we gazed again upon the sea, looking eastwards upon the blue lagoon and the miles of white beach stretching around Walker Bay at our feet. Then we zigzagged our way under the ‘blue-sky’ window in the kraans, and down the precipitious mountain-side to sea-level.
On this spectacular walk we saw neither a soul, nor a footprint, nor a single white scrap of litter. We gazed at waterfalls, sparkling in the wilderness of the main kloof, and at the arc of gentle peaks which smiled upon acres of blazing wildflowers.
Yet none of this unforgettable spectacle was the highlight of this day’s hike.
The highlight was being guided by Frank Woodvine into a world unbeknown to me – or rather unnoticed or deliberately brushed aside by me as I rushed past it for 70 years and more. It is impossible to describe it to you unless you have been there already. All I can do is hint at a few of its exhilarating features pointed out to me by Frank .
Frank is only a few months younger than I am – and as sprightly as the klipspringer of which I shall speak in a moment. He was born in the north of England but in the 1950s emigrated to “Rhodesia” where he spent two decades as a forester in the wilds of the Zambesi Valley and the eastern highlands before accepting the post of manager of Fernkloof Nature Reserve in the 1970s. Retired now, in the 21st century, his enthusiasm for the multimillion-year-old world that still displays itself up here in the mountains is as strong as ever - and instantly infectious.
Frank stopped at a mountain stream to tell me about the flowers that reached head-height beside us. They were decorated with seedpods and bright green baubles soon to transform into sprays of white petals. [Brunia albiflora of the family Bruniacea says Frank; "Coffee Bush" to you and me, for its crushed leaves smell of our breakfast ambrosia]
“Sought after in Europe,” he said. “As are those. . . and those . . . and those …”
He kept pointing. The floral varieties seem endless.
As we reached a rocky outcrop on a ridge high above the three dams, he stopped to examine a multi-coloured collection of flowers and plants clinging to its surface. The thin blue heads of a wild lobelia danced in the breeze. Bright daisies, with nothing to cling to but a cleft in the bare rock, cascaded down the tower of stone. .
“And that flat, green shrub there, hanging on to survive, is a plain, common little thing found all over the country. Centella triloba - there are 50 species of it in southern Africa. No-one is interested in it – except a university student I brought here who devoted two years of study to it, and her revision of the genus was acclaimed as one fof the best ever submitted to R.A.U."
We climbed a long ridge above Fernkloof’s most spectacular gorge where few men have set foot. We looked down on thin, sun-sparkled waterfalls and crevasses in the cliffs, thick with trees.
“It’s a wilderness,” said Frank, “a rarity that must be protected. . . . I’ve been there only a few times in 25 years . . . on one trip we found, in just three hours of bundu-bashing!, two species not known in this area.”
What else might be in there we wondered.
In the next hour, as we strolled across the mountain-top through acres of flora, Frank pointed out examples of the social structures developed among plants and animals over three million years in this area. He showed me some of the “contracts” worked out for rival species of plant-life, or between plants and animals, in the interests of their mutual survival.
Standing alone up there among the mountain peaks, with no sign of humanity from horizon to horizon, it was possible to appreciate palpable instances of the balance, as well as the beauty, that Nature has wrought.
“Almost every bit of vegetation you can see for miles around has developed its own form of highly protective defence against predators,” said Frank. “:Notice the absence of ants? The absence of soft-leaf grasses, and the bladeless restios in its place? The remarkable lack of moths and butterflies? Their paucity is due to many plants having tough, leathery leaves which caterpillars cannot digest."
He showed me delicate blooms protected with sticky coating; beautiful flowers ringed with prickles; blazing proteas and brilliant leaves as tough as composite rubber.
He showed me the different fire patterns – which allowed zebras and antelope and other grazers to feed off newly-recovered burnt areas. He compared this with the adjoining robust, established fynbos beside it, which offered no comfort and no nutrition to ‘giant’ predators, or even to locusts or swarming beetles or ants.
Veld fires, by restarting different stages of development, trigger a vast variety of responses from vegetation. The process is part of the balancing network.
So are the floral parasites.
“See those tall plants there, standing above all the proteas? A child once asked me ‘Why are they so high?’. It was a good question. She was curious about that strange clump of plants which tap into the surrounding proteas and sap their nutrients. They do no work to feed themselves, so have no need of leaves. They just stand, tall and well fed, with a single flower to attract pollination."
“Why so few? Why don’t they dominate?” I asked.
“ Because if they did, they would ultimately have nothing to live on. It’s a ‘stand-off’. The result is that the proteas can’t dominate either. No single species is dominant in this floral kingdom . . . not like the many mono-cultures elsewhere in the world - for example the vast areas of almost barren northern pine forest.”
We stopped at another plant that displayed interesting little blue buttons. It reminded Frank of the late Dr. Ion Williams (a founder of local nature conservation) who gave him its botanical classification.
Frank had replied, “I’ll never remember all these Greek names.”
“This one you will,” grunted Williams. “It’s metalasia - so remember 'I never met a lazier‘ man than you'.
If only I were 75 years old again, I would emulate Frank and apply my mind to Graeco-Latin botanical terms, I told myself unconvincingly. What pleasures - what marvellous insights - people like me are missing.
Further on we compared several proteas, some of them two metres tall, others hugging the ground; some broad-leafed, others that appeared to the casual eye to be thin little ericas.
“That’s why they were called ‘proteas’ – they’re protean, like the Greek Proteus who adopted all shapes and sizes.”
* * *
The memory of three flowers make up the key to my conscious entry into those lively, almost garish, gardens of the gods.
The first is a strange, ground-hugging protea (Protea cordata, named for its heart-shaped leaves.) It has teamed up with an odd partner for their mutual survival. (Most proteas make partners of the endemic Sugar Bird, or with sunbirds, and - while they don't have flowers to accommodate the bird’s scimitar bills - they razzle-dazzle them with their dramatic blooms). But the ‘ground-protea’ prefers a more pedestrian way. Its store of nutrients is held at the very basement of the plant. And it sends out a scent of yeast - which keeps a tiny mouse scurrying to its storeroom. Thence, with pollen all over its greedy little face, the mouse hurries on to another store of ground-level protea nutrients . . . and the sexy business of cross-pollination is completed.
The second is a strange one within a peculiar species (See “Carnivorous Plants”). It has the usual sticky trap and a single flower above. But this one (Roridula gorgonia) is different from other carnivores in that – while it catches a large number of insects in its trap – it devours none of them. Why, then, does it bother to catch them?
The plant traps and displays its prey in order to attract its ‘pet’ beetle which arrives to gorge on the feast, and stays to browse around and defecate. In this way the plant gains the nutrients it needs from the beetle, gives it some pollen, and sends it off to pollinate a similar crafty flower.
The beetle and flower have a very special relationship, though, for the beetle has adapted to running around the plant's extremely sticky leaves with impunity - while the plant's leaves are adapted to absorbing the beetle's droppings as a source of nitrogen - and so flourishes on nitorgen-poor soils.
R. gorgonia is found only in this small, wild corner of the world. It's only relative is R. dentata, living in the mountains above Tulbach. Imagine! Just two species, compared with the orchid family's 25,000 or so relatives. And R. dentata, up there above the traditional winelands lives an even wilder life, for it hosts not only the Hemiteran bettle - but also a green spider. What a strange, triangular relationship.
The third plant which captured the imagination during our walk is the is the ‘Porcupine Daisy’. “Porcupine’, because its leaves form a formidable barrier of sharp points – a single leaf if placed in your pocket could do you grievous harm, especially if you are foolish enough to put it in your pants pocket.It is aptly named Berkheya barbata.
Above the daisy’s little tower of thorny green hell, the plant sprouts a number of bright and luscious yellow blooms. The shy but nimble klipspringer loves these flowers. It nips off the nutritious heads and eats them avidly. . . but always leaving a few blooms so that the plant will survive.
Frank showed me an example. Sure enough: seven heads missing - neatly clipped, just above the vicious green barbs - but two yellow daisy faces left behind, beaming up at us.
Isn’t Nature, with its balancing acts and social partnerships, wonderful?
The more so because Nature doesn’t mind one little bit if some of its delicate balancing arrangements go awry – because new arrangements will automatically develop within the next ten thousand years. Or even sooner.
For the latest s on the dramas unfolding in the fynbos, read the accompanying news under the headlines - 'Food, Sex, Conflict and Carnivores. |
