Serruria furcellata restored to North Pine 2010 & flowering 22nd Sept 2011A. Harrower_MG_8256
small, resprouting species with lax,trailing branches, needlelike leaves and a small attractive, pink flower head.
Reduced to 2 plants by mowiing and clearing. As part of a restoration attempt plants were grown at Kirstenbosch and some plants were planted in a demarcated area in 2010.
Some of these still survive and have flowered. Officially under IUCN rules these plants can only be considered to have been sucessfully restored if they survive for 3 generations (i.e. 45 years), so the official population count remains at 1 plant.
7 individuals observed with a few very small individuals
You can't see it in the picture but he has a black tip on his tail.
Plattekloof Natural Heritage Site - first time I've seen one of these.
Flew off a few meters while I was photographing,caught a Four-striped Grass Mouse,flew back close to where it has been perching,and allowed me to get close,within about 5m to photograph with a 18-135mm lens.
Found this adorable little caracal kitten hiding under a stacked pile of Port Jacksons this morning.
You feel almost compelled to pick him up and take him home - hope his mother comes back to pick him up with all the people that had been working around his hideout.
Stinkhorn type fungus on the forest floor, unsure of exact species.
This strange thing is growing on a fallen Quercus nigra. It has a cap and appears to have gills, but none of the specimens opened (kind of like an aborted form of Pleurotus). The split specimen in photograph and others have a fleshy interior that resembles the flesh in an immature puffball, but have a "chewy," not crumbly, texture. There is no prominent odor or taste. They also appear to have something else growing upon them. No evident stipe. Overlapping and individual "caps" present, and many are "prying" their way out from under bark. Sort of resembles images I've found for Hydnotrya, but doesn't have the infolded tissue and the habitat/substrate is wrong. Stereum ostrea was one of the other species growing on same trunk.
A rare polychrome in the Agter-Pakhuis. Most of the 2000 - 8000 year old rock art in the area is monochrome.
Eland were often painted without horns. We don't know why.
Tony Rebelo: "Any chance that they made the horns out of wood and stuck them on? 3D-like?"
Me: "A bizarre thought! Maybe they used acacia thorns [oops! make that sumthin' else thorns] - but of course, we'll never know! They did sometimes put in the horns, but in the WCape hornless animals are more common in the rock art. Maybe the local eland were less horny in those days?"
Rebelo: "Both sexes are horny: prominently so. Seems bizare to have them hornless. Hornless explanations sound hollow. Either they were there in the paintings and have washed off, or they were somehow else included. Perhaps look below for some hoof, or horn or wooden carvings.
The care taken with drawing esp. Eland, does not make sense to have such an important and key feature missing. It must be us missing something significant!"
It is remotely possible that the horns were painted in a fugitive colour, ie one that has faded away.