– Tim Attwell

Botsoc Kogelberg Walk Report November 2016

It’s one thing to go for a walk in the garden, it’s quite another to really look and see what is going on there and begin to understand.

Enthusiastic communicator and passionate about fynbos, Harold Porter National Botanical Garden guide Etienne Smith, welcomed upward of twenty members and guests into his world. In a slow ramble along pathways already well known to many in the party, Etienne revealed secrets they didn’t know.

More than the names of plants, it was the stories that captivated; stories about pollinators, seed dispersal strategies, interactions with other plants and insects, rodents, birds, fungi and bacteria.

A stone dead yellow pincushion bush, Leucospermum concocarpodendron, has Etienne Smith recounting the hazards of disturbed, over moist and marginally alkaline soil as a vector of the deadly soil fungus, Phytophthora cinnamomi, that attacks the roots and can kill an otherwise healthy, full grown Protea bush overnight.

Then there were the human interactions with the plants and the uses people have found for them. This is Etienne Smith’s métier.

Few will forget the picture our fascinating guide conjured up, of Bartholomew Diaz filling empty hours on board ship patiently grinding waboom (Protea nitida) leaves to pulp and release the crystals they contained to make the ink with which he wrote his historic reports and letters to his sponsors back home in Portugal, and to fellow navigators who would follow his route around the Cape.

Then there was the scene of San hunter gatherers, hunger satisfied after slaughtering and eating part of a klipspringer, carefully covering the leftovers with the leaves of lemon scented Pelargonium citronellum to keep pesky flies and other insects at bay.

For a good night’s sleep there’s nothing better than a bed of ‘kooigoed’, fashioned from a number of species of the genus Helichrysum. H. odoratissimum is preferred for its strong fragrance but it’s not all that common in the Kogelberg. H. pandurifolium is, however, and it will do. Fragrant and soft when bundled up to form a mattress (that’s the meaning of the word ‘kooi’), it will also keep fleas and mites away. Tie up a small bundle next morning and set fire to it. It will effectively fumigate your house. An added benefit is that it will expel evil spirits in a jiffy. In isiZulu and isiXhosa it is called ‘imphepho’.

Do you need relief from a headcold? Look no further than the leaves of swamp daisy or belskruie, Osmitopsis asteriscoides. Crush a few leaves in your hand and sniff for instant relief. Better still, make an infusion of them in hot water and inhale the aromatic steam.

How about that fishy smell on your hands after gutting your day’s catch? No problem, find a confetti bush, Coleonema album, of the fragrant buchu (Rutaceae) family and stroke it a few times with the palms of your hands. You come up fresh and fit for company, perfect waterless hand sanitizer. Southern Cape fisherfolk have been doing that since the days of the strandlopers.

Yes, you can eat wild almonds from the wild almond tree Brabejum stellatifolium. Just be sure to soak them overnight in a swiftly running stream, blanch them in boiling water, discard the water, and then roast them, as the Khoi people of old used to do. But be careful. Get the method wrong and the cyanide they produce will kill you in minutes. How did those Khoi folk find this out? Better to just leave them on the tree.

So you’ve collected bundles of restios to thatch your roof. Maybe long, sturdy culms of Thamnocortus insignis if you’re on the Agulhas plain, or shorter but locally abundant Elegia tectorum. How are you going to tie them up? Find a stand of gonna bush, Passerina corymbosa, of the family Thymelaceae. Strip the bark from the stems and plait it together. You can tie anything firmly with the result. Then kindle your cooking fire with the wonderfully inflammable leftovers. Its other common name, ‘bakkersbos’, is not for nothing.

A morning with Etienne Smith has you really believing that it is possible to fulfil your lifelong dream to live “off grid” and free as a bird.

By the way, the Renosterveld bed in the Harold Porter National Botanical Garden is doing well, the Shale Band bed has been laid out, shale and all, and ready to showcase shale band vegetation. And the Disa Kloof walk to the waterfall is open and as charming as ever, complete with Paradise flycatchers.