The bright pink Ixia stricta, with its contrasting yellow anthers, appears towards the end of the season of spring bulbs in the Overberg. The stem is very thin and delicate, like most Ixia species, yet it holds itself quite upright. From this habit it gets its name, “stricta”. Stricta is…
It is not just animals that are nocturnal, some flowers also come into their own as dusk gathers. Hesperantha radiata is one of these flowers. During daylight hours, the dark red outer petals are closed firmly around the anthers and style. The flowers are almost invisible to a passerby and…
Many bulbous plants are stimulated to flower following a fire. However, for many of these plants, they do not require a fire as such but for the surrounding vegetation to be cleared. In which case, while the species may flower most profusely after a fire, individuals can often flower where…
Autumn sees the appearance of small white candles of Bulbinella trinervis scattered through the fynbos. Their slender columns of starry white flowers top a leafless flowering stem that looks just like the surrounding restios. The open flowers belie the genus’s close relationship to their bold bright cousin, the red-hot pokers,…
Clearing alien vegetation from the land is important to prevent further spread, but there is also the hope that somewhere beneath the impenetrable thicket some semblance of the native flora has remained intact. In the few places where aliens do grow on our land, they are not very thick. But…
