muisvoel's Favourites

This is the Outramps CREW 100,000 obs and we celebrated it with Tilla who is the Head of the Threatened Plants Programme and the CREW Programme. It represents our involvement with plant monitoring from 1992 to 2021. It has been a joyous ride. So thank you all for so many years of fun, laughs and learning. Keep going!

Normally only hear these, or occasionally lucky to see one as it flies off having been disturbed. But this one kindly flew off and then sat on a rock not far away rather than disappearing deep back into the fynbos.

Our hardest-won find of the year: Protea holosericea (EN), the Saw-Edge Sugarbush.

Climbed about 1200m with @muisvoel and @wernert95 on a bone-dry mountain in a heatwave with this as our objective. We wanted to bail, but we were too far in. We cried, we laughed, we persevered. We set up camp in their habitat: "Steep, harsh, arid, and extremely rocky areas." We woke to find ourselves shrouded in thick mist, but with renewed determination. Up we went, towards the peak, and found precisely ONE plant, flowering, though with no heads in their prime. (There were a few skeletons around.) Still, we were stoked. Inspired, we bagged Rabiesberg, which is just as well cos we're not rushing to go back. (Note to self: routes that look perfectly do-able on Google Earth are imperfectly do-able on real earth.) The prospect of a cold one at Saggy Stone made for a speedy descent.

Cuttings from the plants on RCCA. Provenance: Bofors Circile/Epping CA - where I hear they have gone locally extinct. We planted 150 in the burn area. Compliments to Mashudu Nndanduleni. Those with insulating jackets of Seriphium plumosum are doing much better than those exposed.

This spot had many plants, some forming mats of up to 2 metres in diameter. Many flowers, buds and spent flowers but some plants had only dead flowers which looked as if they had flowered much earlier. Seems to have a very long flowering time.