This water-wise, attractive and fragrant shrub makes an interesting garden subject and is ideal for those sunny and slightly drier spots in the garden.

I have found some evidence that notes this plant is also called the Apricot Scented Geranium. Beyond being lovely to look at, as with all Fynbos, its functional and provides a great service to the earth around it.

Description
Pelargonium scabrum is an erect, branched shrub, up to 1.2 m, with rough, hairy, 3-lobed leaves. The leaves are lemon-scented and up to 50 mm in diameter. Clusters of white to pink flowers up to 20 mm in diameter are borne from August to January (late winter to summer). The floral tube is 3–12 mm long. The seed is produced in autumn.

Distribution and habitat
Pelargonium scabrum grows on rocky, sandstone slopes, usually in dry habitats. It occurs from Springbok in Namaqualand, along the western coastal region, southwards to Western Cape and to Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape.

Derivation of name and historical aspects
The name Pelargonium is derived from the Greek word, pelargos, which means stork. This is due to part of the flower looking like a stork’s beak. The genus name, Geranium or Pelargonium was introduced in 1738 by Johannes Burman, a Dutch botanist and physician.

There are ± 200 species of Pelargonium. Often, pelargoniums are incorrectly named Geranium, which is the botanical name for a separate genus also belonging to the family Geraniaceae which is comprised of Pelargonium, Geranium, Erodium, Monsonia and Sarcocaulon. The confusion began when all the Pelargonium species were included in one genus, Geranium. In 1789, they were separated into two genera by Charles L’Héritier who was an 18th century French botanist.

The species name scabrum, is derived from the Latin word, scaber, which means scabrous. This name refers to the leaves and stems which are rough. Pelargonium scabrum was originally named Geranium scabrum by Johannes Burman (1759).

Ecology
Pelargonium seed is light in weight and has a feathered tail which is coiled into a spiral. It is adapted to wind dispersal and when it lands on soft soil, the tail causes the seed to twist into the soil thereby anchoring the seed in the ground and preventing it from being blown away. When the rain begins in the autumn, the seed germinates.

Uses and cultural aspects
Although Pelargonium scabrum is one of the scented pelargoniums, no cultural uses have been recorded. Horticulturally, this fragrant and attractive shrub is ideal for the drier garden and will do well in a sunny position.

A perennial herb growing up to 40 cm high with a corm and a branched stem. The single leaf is keeled, trailing and much longer than the stem. The flowers are white, blue or yellow, strongly scented, about 4 cm in diameter and borne in a compact branched flower-head. Usually only one flower is open at a time.

Commonly known as the Soetuintjie (Small Sweet Onion) and comes in the amazing color seen here as well as a yellow and is a species which is featured quite prominently in Khoisan traditions along with the Wild Fig as “food-on-the-go” as it has fantastic nutritional value for the hunter/gatherer crowd. The corms are the part of the plant which the Khoisan were after. The San and Khoe ate many plants that store food underground in roots, bulbs, corms or rhizomes . These plants are called “uintjies”, which means “small onions” in Dutch .

In herbal medicine circles the flowers have also been added to remedies to help calm down patients during therapy where emotional stress plays a major factor in their recovery.

Overall today, another very useful plant to the people who know about it, but I have to put a warning not to go eat every Moraea plant you come across. Most are poisonous, so its wise to take someone or a guide along when you are planning to be out in nature, unassisted, where you may have to forage off the land.

So with that, we conclude this weeks Fynbos Friday post, a beautiful flower with practical application. Bliss. Have a great weekend.

Leucospermum Reflexum is her real botanical name, but the rocket pincushion is apt enough. What a little beauty. Each flower is tube-like and made up of velvety floral parts called the perianth segments on which the anthers are placed. These surround the long style which escapes from the tube to form the ‘pin’ and the perianths then curl away from it. Young flowers are curved to start with, and then bend back toward the stem as they mature. The common name of rocket pincushion is very apt because these downward bent styles look like the fiery tail of a rocket trailing behind it. For the same reason, the Afrikaans name perdekop is a good one as the mature flower head looks like a horse’s head with its mane blowing back in the wind.

The name is derived from the Greek words leukos, white; and sperma, seed. The species names are derived from the Latin words reflexus, bent downwards/bent back on themselves, and luteus, yellow.

A German plant collector, Carl Friedrich Drège, first collected the common orange to crimson colour form of the species in 1830. It has since become a very popular garden and cut-flower plant.

It was only on the fourth attempt, in 1973, to find the yellow-flowered form after first hearing about it in 1970, that a tiny colony of Leucospermum reflexum var. luteum was discovered by John Winter, Curator of Kirstenbosch, together with other Kirstenbosch horticulturists and Dr John Rourke of the Compton Herbarium. They harvested some of the seed from these plants and got 13 seedlings to grow. From these they selected the best coloured plants for mother stock and the cuttings have produced the plants in cultivation today.

Proteas never cease to amaze me with their natural beauty and it’s clear to see why we at Haut Espoir are fanatical about them.

Have a great weekend out there, from the Team here, we wish you only the best.

Back for another week, and today we are going to be talking nitrogen, soil erosion, etc etc.

But firstly, did everyone go out and get an Erica Versicolor this week?

The Otholobium family are shrubs and herbaceous perennials. Belonging to the Sweet Pea family, we at Haut Espoir are fond of the Otholobium for 2 major reasons:

1. Through their nitrogen fixing capabilities, Fabacea species (Otholobium are part of the Fabacea species) are essential for fynbos growing on nitrogen poor soils. Bacteria in the roots of the plants take nitrogen out of the air and turn it into a nitrate supply for the host plant. This in turn means that all the fynbos in the area bloom and that makes us very happy indeed.

2. Soil Erosion is a major problem where we are. Our farm is situated on an extremely steep slope, where the wind likes to blow the roof off the buildings, and where we are in possibly the wettest corner of South Africa. We want to leave this farm in far better condition than what it came to us, so soil erosion is right up there on our list of critical things. Otholobium happens to be an amazing plant when it comes to preventing soil erosion and does the job better than almost any other.

The combination of these two factors means you will find quite a bit of this amazing plant on Haut Espoir.

To boost its appeal, its also such a beauty…

Morning All. Today we are back with the Erica series, as we are so crazy about them. They just buck the belief that fynbos is boring, don’t they. Their bright colors, tubes and applications destroying convention. Here is a quick recap on the Erica family:

Erica (practically meaningless; probably not from ereiko, to break, as commonly stated). Ericaceae. Heath. This is the genus that the gardener usually means by “heath.” The heath or heather of English literature and history belongs to the closely allied genus Calluna. The next most important group of cultivated “heaths is Epacris, which, however, belongs to a different family.

Ericas are perennial woody plants from 6 in. to 12 ft. or more, usually much branched: lvs. in whorls of 3-6. very rarely flat, usually 3-sided and with revolute margins that are sometimes connate with the under side: infl. usually terminal or sometimes axillary, very seldom actually, though often apparently, racemose; calyx free, 4- parted; corolla hypogynous, white, rosy or sometimes yellow, usually early deciduous, variously shaped, the commonest forms (in cult.) being bell- shaped, tubular and ventricose, usually 4-lobed; stamens 8; ovary sessile or rarely stalked, 4-celled, rarely 8-celled, with 2-∞ ovules in each cell: fr. a 4-valved caps., with minute seeds.— About 500 species, mostly from South Africa.

Great. Today we are talking about the Versicolor. Another beauty, isn’t she just.

Erica versicolor is a strong, robust shrub – growing up to 2.5m tall with a spread of 2m.

The tubular body of the flower is red with green to whitish coloring towards the tips. Versicolor flowers all year around and enjoys a position of full sun.

This is a strong grower, suitable for difficult gardens and is also lovely as a cut flower.

Today, we are going to move away from the whole scientific angle, and going to expand on the Fynbos Friday concept a little, hopefully to spark a little something. I could go on about the Erica Versicolor for days here, but today I want to see if I can inspire you to take fynbos out of the “bush” and into your homes, your gardens, and into your lives.

Fynbos is not boring. Look a the Versicolor. It flowers all year, it stands quite high and would be an amazing addition to any garden. It’s tough and will make an amazing array when you grow it in its natural state, which you can see an image of here.

A full growing guide can be found here so really there is little excuse not to have at least one of the Erica family in your home. As something you should be truly proud of as a South African (considering 90 percent of the worlds Erica’s are from South Africa) its a fantastic way to show your “Ayobaness” this year.

With our Football World Cup just a few months away now, let’s show the world something that is truly South African.

I feel so inspired I am off to the nursery this morning. Being the web guy, I do not have the advantage of living on the farm, instead I have to grow my own, like you.

More beautiful images here for those who are now inspired as well.

The Protea Repens is a true sugarbush and this sturdy, dense shrub produces fairly large flowers ranging in colour from cream to deep red either during summer or during winter, depending on the variant grown. It is an excellent addition to any “wild-life” garden as the large amount of nectar produced by the flowers attracts birds, bees and other insects. The plants are tolerant to a large variety of growing conditions but will show frost damage at temperatures below -4 degrees Celsius.

The amazing variety in plant size, habit, flower size and colour of the genus Protea was the reason it was named after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape at will. The species name of ‘repens’, meaning ‘creeping’ is misleading as Protea repens is an upright, much branched shrub, which normally grows to a height of 2.5 metres but can reach a height of 4.5 m.

The Sugarbush was one of the first proteas described by Carl Linnaeus (in 1753), who originally called it Leucadendron repens. Alas, he based his description on Boerhaave’s confusing illustrations, and retained the name for what is now Protea repens: the “creeping” protea (from the Latin repere “to creep”, hence repent). Thus Carl Thunberg’s later, more appropriate, name, Protea mellifera, the “honey-bearing” protea, which was used for almost 200 years, is incorrect. However, both names are better than Pr scolopendriifolia, which is the name we would have had to be using now, had Linneaus not made his mistake and mixed up Boerhaave’s plates..

So how, looking at the size, color and height variance, do we know that it’s Protea Repens? The shape of the flowers is very distinctive, chalice-shaped, and forms an inverted, brown “ice-cream cone” seedhead.

For 200 years Protea repens was South Africa’s national flower. It was not officially proclaimed – it had just grown to that status. On 19 February 1976 Protea cynaroides was proclaimed the official national flower of South Africa. The Sugarbush was usurped from its rightful role, gained through popularity, utility and appeal, by a plant with a bigger flower head.

Few other plants are as well ingrained in our history as is Protea repens. In the words of Fred Michel, a Cape Town dance-band leader, who while picnicking amid Sugarbushes on Lion’s Head composed the now world famous song: “Suikerbossie ek wil jou he” (Sugarbush, I want you!).

The Blushing Bride is part of our local folklore: few plant species can have had as much conflicting information written about them. One thing is certain, however! Botanically Serruria florida was officially discovered by Carl Thunberg in the Franschoek Mountains in 1773. It then disappeared from the scientific annals for over 100 years. From then on authorities differ in their accounts. However, it appears to have been generally accepted by botanists of the day that it was extinct.

According to Conrad Leighton (Cape Floral Kingdom, 1960, Juta), the Blushing Bride was rediscovered at the French Hoek flower show in 1914, by Professor Harold Pearson (then director of the one-year old Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens), in the company of Dr Rudolf Marloth and Rt Hon. G. Brand van Zyl, who collected a few seeds from which “all the thousands of plants grown at Kirstenbosch subsequently, distributed as seed to members of the Botanical Society and the horticultural trade, and now grown commercially in South Africa and introduced to other countries” are derived.

So today’s fynbos specimen is a bit of a comeback story. Whilst this is a theme for 2010 in general, and very much a part of the lives of everyone at the farm (the dam being rebuilt, personal goals and other up and coming exciting events all around comebacks at Haut Espoir in 2010), I personally loved this story, and it made my week.

When Rob commissioned me to write this post, I was immediately intrigued by the name, Blushing Bride. There had to be a story behind it, and as a storyteller by nature, I went digging to find out what was going on here. It was way better than I thought.

Historically it is reputed that French Hugenots farmers would approach their girlfriends with a S. florida flower in their lapels when about to ask for their hand in marriage. The common name, Blushing Bride, apart from the obvious inference of the flowers colour, derives from the fact that the suitor’s intention was apparent to all who met him, much to the embarrassment of his bride to be. The deeper the pink colour the more serious the intentions of the suitor.

How romantic. I guess the idea that to wait for the flower to reach it’s most pink can draw comparisons to love, and how sometimes, it comes best to those who are willing to offer patience.

There was an interesting article placed here on the Botanical Society’s web presence where 30 avid FB’ers (Fynbossers, not Facebookers) took a beautiful walk to observe this fine species, which draws mystical appreciation for its comeback from the dead.

I personally have two thank you mentions to get out today with this particular species, the one has to go to Glenwood Wines, who took special care to restore their fynbos with a plethora of Blushing Brides, and then a special thank you to Fiona Powrie of Dragon Plants who is the angel who helped us do our species lists and helped plant out the fynbos section on Haut Espoir. She is our personal guru in Fynbos.

Before the article gets out of hand in length, I wanted to put one more link out there which I found, to show you how beautiful this plant gets. The page is called Skirted Spiderheads, and you can find it here. Please enjoy.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Sources:

1, 2 & 3

So it is no secret I am a big fan of the following plant family, Erica’s, and this week is a really rare flower we are focusing on.

First, I think it is best to let you all know how special the genus Erica is…this from Dolf Schumann and Gerhard Kirsten, from their amazing book, Ericas of South Africa:

For sheer diversity the genus Erica is the most outstanding of all the many genera that make up the fynbos biome in the south-western and southern corner of South Africa.  It numbers some 650 species, many of which are quite exquisite in the shape, colouring and delicacy of their flowers. Some are very rare, and others are on the point of extinction.

And some stats for you:

Outside of this country- only 76 species occur naturally.   South Africa has well over 650!

Onto the specific Erica of this week.  The Erica lerouxiae.

This plant is named after Miss E. le Roux, who brought the species to the attention of Harry Bolus in 1887.

This very pretty species seems to be confined to the western part of the Franschhoek valley where, at altitudes between 400 and 700 m above sea level, it grows on steep slopes in or near streams. It flowers in August and September.
To put that into perspective, here are the spots where Marc from next door says they are on Boekenhoutskloof, and where I have found plants on the mountain..

Discovered on Boekenhoutskloof, and endemic to Scherpheuwelberg, which is the mountain behind both properties, it occurs naturally nowhere else.   That is quite a scary prospect realizing that we are the custodians of a species which; if we bugger it up, doesn’t exist anymore.   Constant source of inspiration for us to get up into the berge and chop out all that alien muck on a regular basis.    Which makes this following shot from the fire two years ago even more scary…. 

I remember when I first moved into the valley permanently, and I really struggled to find this particular Erica up in the mountain.  Now it seems to be doing very well as a species, the indicator I use is that whenever I am out on a Fynbos Walk, these days, I seem to find a new plant.  It is high time I did some proper recording and dating of said individuals….

On a sadder note, with the recent injury to Dr Paul Cluver, and all the damage to fynbos the Overberg has experienced from their recent fire, here is an exert from Pendock Uncorked:   ‘Some species which were thought to be extinct have only recently been rediscovered in our mountain fynbos – in particular the Erica patens. We hope we have not lost this rare flora’, said Paul Clüver IV.”

It fills me with such pride to be part of an industry so committed to the preservation of the countries Fynbos.  If you want to make a difference, please download the BWI wine list here.

And finally, a smattering of poetry, this is from the opening of the book that got me hooked onto this amazing little fynbos wonder:

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower- but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is

The voice and the Peak

Alfred Lord Tennyson

For those valued readers  as well as all the concerned Franschhoek residents,  one of the more recent posts I wrote about a very strange fire up on Keerweder nek last week.  For those of you who missed that thrilling instalment:  catch it here..

Back to the lekker little plantjie… I was having what some people might call a rough day in the office,  pity poor sod who gets to take a quick walk out and a few minutes later is staring this in the face:

This absolute beaut’s scientific name is Erica cerinthoides, in Afrikaans the rooihaartjie, and commonly referred to as the Fire heather.   They bloom throughout the year but it is this time of year when their colour is utterly magnificent.   Hence the photo.  No spice; this was taken on my walk today.

Some botanical vibe for you from PlantzAfrica..

” Their ability to survive and respond to fire and to freely produce seed is a major factor in their success as a survivor of adverse growing conditions.”

The whole point of this little botanical journey, is the following.   Fire is a destructive element, it tears through our fynbos, destroying habitat, burning nests and homes and impacting on the biodiversity greatly.   Yet once the destruction is over, rebuilding and re-growth occurrs on a massive scale.  This plant is a pioneer in this regards, teaches us all to always have that positive outlook and grow.   Regardless of what environmental kick backs we receive.

Just by the by, the Erica’s happen to be one of my personal fynbos favourites,  so much so I  married an Erica.  And a quick tidbit of useless botanical mutterings, Ericas are very well known to Scotsman.  They are the typical heathers one finds in the highlands where they make all that delicious single malt we all enjoy so much, and haggis and one of the more erratic rugby sides.    Apparently one of my great great great great great Grandfathers lifted an injured king off his horse in battle, hence the title Armstrong.   Also one of the last people to be hung in Scotland for stealing sheep, was an Armstrong.   Must be why I love my wife, rugby and single malt so much!

Last week we had the King Protea, a magnificent part of the Fynbos family.

This week we move onto The Protea Scabra, which is possibly one of the most fantastic looking plants I have ever seen. So we turn our attention to the man with the knowledge, Rob…

This week’s installment takes a quick turn away from the medicinal fynbos aspects (although I am serious need of a few buchu brandies to help the babelas today)

This week we are looking at Protea scabra, from a group called the Dwarf-tufted sugarbushes, we have a very nice stand of the scabra flowering after a fire which ravaged the area almost two years ago.  What is interesting or unique about this group of proteas  is that they have underground stems, tufts of leaves sprout around where a flower head will come up, so not your typical flowering protea head.  As you can see quite distinctive.

These two flowering now look pretty different to the pics I have online and those in my books, what I think has happened is that mice have gone in and ruffled the feathers ( so to speak).  I can’t for the life of me find where I read it but these are pollinated by rodents as far as I can remember.   What is surprising to me is that the reference books I have refer to the habitat as montane, which we are certainly nowhere near.   It has been great to see the response this stand has had after the fire, they are flowering like crazy at the moment and putting on quite a show.  Which is also quite rare, as we are used to seeing them flowering around July to October.  Testament to the wet and cold winter we have had that they are flowering later than usual.

http://www.livingfynbos.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=3294

http://fernkloof.com/species.mv?146