A POSTER COMPILED BY MY FATHER, THE LATE PROF. ALLAN F P J HEYDORN, FOR AN EXHIBITION BY THE BETTY’S BAY WILDFLOWER SOCIETY IN ± 1970

Alan Heydorn

(This text was prepared by Allan Heydorn at the suggestion of the Kogelberg Branch of the Botanical Society of SA, February 2016)

The comments below are written from memory and the date ± 1970 might not be absolutely accurate. What is correct is that my father, who was an electrical engineer by profession, was a great nature lover with a very special interest in plants and their distribution in relation to habitat type.

Where did this interest originate? In the early years of his professional life, my father worked for the electrical engineering firm AEG in Johannesburg. Because of his interest in plant ecology, he sought the advice of two professors at the University of the Witwatersrand. The one was Prof Philips, who headed the Department of Botany and the other was Prof Gevers, head of the Department of Geology. My father assisted Prof Philips during a number of field excursions in the veld surrounding Johannesburg. It was during these excursions that his interest in Botany developed into a life-long passion.

In 1945 my father accepted a position as Professor of Electro-technical Engineering at the University of Stellenbosch. At the time Betty’s Bay was in its earliest stages of development but this coastal environment, with its fynbos-dominated mountains, fascinated him. He bought a plot in Plateau Road and designed a simple holiday house which was built in 1946 by the famous Jock van Niekerk. Very soon my father became friendly with Harold Porter and they scoured the mountains and coastal plains of Betty’s Bay together – excursions on which I frequently accompanied them, sometimes a little unwillingly as I would have preferred playing on the beach or swimming in Malkopsvlei. However, we witnessed the early development of Harold Porter’s Shangri-La, which eventually became the Harold Porter National Botanic Garden.

Almost immediately my father began recording plant successions in the dune environment in the vicinity of his house and this resulted in an article: ‘Plant Succession on the Sea Dunes of Betty’s Bay’ under his authorship in the September 1975 issue of Veld and Flora.

Blesberg Climbing Dune 1938
Blesberg Climbing Dune 1938

The poster shown below represents part of his preparation for this paper and also a contribution by this intrepid electrical engineer to an exhibition of the Betty’s Bay Wildflower Society. What is intriguing is the amount of detailed handwork which this poster contains – there were no computers in those days. It reflects my father’s love for nature, his dedication and his tenacity.

Poster