Flowers, flowers and......

Next stop was the Nieuwoudtville Flower Reserve just outside the town on the Calvinia road where carpets of colour were the order of the day.

With so much to look at one tend to miss hidden gems such as these Moraea ciliata, another member of the iris family.

 

It's very easy to become blase until you notice other people wandering around open mouthed with wonder.

Also obvious is the difference between the pristine reserve and the neighbouring farm where the variety beyond the fence is reduced to a single species of senecio 

Was delighted to be serenaded by this large-billed lark who also appeared appreciative of the colourful surrounds.

In one corner of the reserve is a rocky hillock and on the way to the summit, I happened upon this magical mystery bloom which remains stubbornly unidentified.

The view from the top was slightly disappointing as the colours were not as readily apparent as when you are closer to them........

.....like this..........

............................or this.

The Hantam Botannical Garden beckoned where unless you were aware of them you might overlook things like the Blue Pride of Nieuwoudtville (hows this?) Geissorhiza splendidens, splendid indeed and limited to a tiny area around the village.

Or the Harlequin flower Sparaxis elegans, very elegant.......

.....................just look at the marvelous detail in the center.

There was an enormous area smothered salmon coloured Moraea miniata......

......another member of the iris family with tiny flowers.

Finally it was back to the B&B in Vanrhynsdorp which is close to this mighty buttress and an afternoon drive in the area..........................

.........................produced a whole array of different species.

A small group of Sparaxis bulbifera, so different from the Harlequin flower that it's hard to understand how they are related............................

................and clumps of lampranthus interspersed with daisies.

Next morning was a bit chilly and the Koue Bokkeveld was living up to it's name with the escarpment draped in cloud.

Decided to see what was along the road to Calvinia but as it's mostly farmland there wasn't much apart from this bi-coloured field.

Returning to the Nieuwoudtville environs led me to another species of babiana which has also resisted all attempts of identification ...................

.................................and a little patch of Cape Town blues.

Upon learning that the Beast would not be ready for another week, I had to scramble to find accommodation and ended up in Citrusdal for a few nights.

Here the flowers were mainly confined to fallow fields and were mostly...................

..................of the Ursinia family that is generally referred to as Namaqua daisies.

Due to an acute attack of "oldtimers" disease I ended up going all the way to Kamieskroon for a weekend where I planned to unload the bike and do the whole of the Namaqualand Reserve.  Sadly there was not not a single member of the human race anywhere near Arkoep, the farmhouse that I was staying in. So the bike remained on the bakkie and as all the roads were atrocious I ended up having a relaxing time op die plaas.

This is kokerboom or quiver tree country and I managed to find a large specimen fairly close by.  The hollowed out branches of Aloe dicotoma were used by the San to carry their deadly little arrows in days gone by, hence the common name.

There were flowers but again mostly confined to fields.

Near the house was this little wreath of vygies or carpobrotus if you prefer.

Did an Atlas card for the area around the house and ended up with a grand total of 14 species for the weekend, of which the most exciting was this larklike bunting!

The N7 skirts the little village of Kamieskroon, which in common with most other karoo dorps, features a massive church and very little else.

Not sure who Kamie was but the Kroon or crown part is after this koppie behind the village.

A vivid splash of pink beside the road brought me to a halt and it turned out to be a pelargonium of some sort but it's one more that will remain a mystery.

Here's another example of massive stupidity and disastrous money wastage, a resort that was built to provide the locals with employment but has apparently stood empty since completion. The government provides the money but not the skills required to run the place, so it very quickly comes to a standstill.  Sad.

On arrival back in the Mother City I realised that I'd left my toolbox 550 km back at Arkoep, the joys of getting old.  There was a happy ending though, the lady who looks after the place found someone who brought it to Cape Town, which saved me a trip.

A bouquet of flowers

In order to fully comprehend the magnitude of the problem of identifying fynbos flowers one needs to be aware that there are at least 8500 species and the book that I use covers 1100 of the more common ones.  So even if the picture resembles what I'm looking at, it is quite likely that there are half a dozen others that look similar.  Nevertheless I will endeavor to do my best.  In the last post I included a picture of a field of these pretty little daisies which I was unable to name because the book was in the Beast who was being repaired, but even though we are not yet reunited, I have managed to secure said book and can thus tell you that these are Livingstone daisies Dorotheantus bellidiformis.

Likewise a species encountered on Bainskloof Pass that I very mistakenly thought to be an erica, is in fact a Blue pea Psoralea affinis

Moving on to some new delights, I found a little patch of these Yellow-eyed sorrel Oxalis obtusa, by the side of a back-road near Melkbos and think they have to be one of the most beautiful flowers that I have seen.  Only about 20 mm diameter and standing all of 40 mm above very sandy soil, the colour combination is simply perfect.

 

As the Beast was due to go in for repairs I headed into the Cederberg Mountains near Clanwilliam and spent a night a Traveller's Rest on the fringes of the Karoo.  The area is not noted for them, so when you provide a couple of stout fever trees, the weavers couldn't be happier.

Here the flowers weren't arrayed en masse but move 10 m in any direction and you were bound to find something new, for example, a Wild violet Monopsis sp..........I think!

Desert primroses Grielum humifusum or Pietsnot in Afrikaans which even if it's not what I think it is, is a pretty disgusting name.

How about Painted petals, Lapeirousia fabricii......

.................or Lady's hand Cyanella orchidiformis............

.................or Persmalva (don't ask) Pelagonium magentium............................

......................or another Ruschia species, it's just mind-blowing.

An afternoon birding drive took me to the top of a pass overlooking the Doringbos valley, with the endless reaches of the Karoo that were unbelievably verdant.

A plant which is common in the Karoo is the Yellow milk-bush Euphorbia mauritanica but I had never seen them absolutely plastered with blossom.

The cottage I was in was away from it all and bathed in the silence that only the Karoo can provide, while the stars in night sky felt as though they were within touching distance.

On a chilly walk the next morning I happened on a clump of the weirdest flowers I've ever laid eyes on. It is one of the 70 species the twinspur family Diascia. The open part of the flower was about 25 mm diameter with a pair of backward facing tubes 40 mm long that contain an oil which is collected by a genus of bees that have unusually long forelegs and probably evolved with the plants. Thought the dew drops were a nice touch! 

And 5 paces to the left, a perskalkoentjie Gladiolus venustus! The literal translation is press turkey and may have arisen because some of the group have red petals which dangle like pendulous turkey wattles but the exact reason seems lost in the mists of time.

The Cederberg Mountains are rugged in the extreme and there are literally thousands of rocks which appear to be one little nudge away from toppling.

With a bit of time to kill, I took the R363 from Klawer to Vredendal along the Olifants River, on past Lutzville and then the R362 to Strandfontein and the sea.  Presumably the run-off from the road assisted these Gazania krebsiana and ......................

........and others such as ursinia and felicia to bloom as they were far more prolific on the verges than in the scrub-land.

Some of the colour combinations were elegant enough to have been laid out by a fastidious gardener.

There is a huge caravan park at Strandfontein where I spent almost a month 5 odd years ago and just up the beach from there, the Olifant's empties into the Atlantic.

Have mentioned previously how the flowers become almost invisible as they follow the sun and this was glaringly obvious on my return when I was gob-smacked by this lot.  The petals of Ruschia caroli are so shiny that they reflect the sun and after much consultation, it was decided that the colour was deep magenta - trust Nick to come up with an app, thanks buddy.

As usual, the more you look - Gousblom or Dutch gold (the colour varies) Arcototis hirsuta ...................

......................Parachute daisies Ursinia cakilefolia, often referred to as Namaqua daisies but there is no such thing in any of the books I have.........................

.....................and a stretch with hundreds of bushes of euryops, another member of the daisy family.

The next two nights were spent in a very comfortable self-catering establishment in Vanrhynsdorp at the foot of this massive buttress that is the gateway to the Kouebokkeveld.

From near the top of Vanrhyns Pass, it is all too evident that the devastating drought that has afflicted this region for many years has left vast swathes of the country desolate.

There is an area called Oorlogskloof Nature Reserve just outside Nieuwoudville which I have tired to find on a number of occasions without much success.  There were fields covered with little daisies of senecio family......

.........and a tarn where black-winged stilts foraged in freezing water.................

............ a spot where Cape Town blues Felicia ameliodes were slowly unfurling................

.......................while nearby was one of the family known as bobbejaantjies, Babiana ambigua.  A rather magnificent species of lily, whose flowers spring directly from the bulb but quite why they are called little baboons is a mystery, as is the whereabouts of Oorlogskloof.