by KBergReserve

WALKS PLANNED FOR 2017

Botsoc Walk 21 January 2017 The route for the January walk is still to be determined. Meanwhile, save the date. As always, we will meet at the Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens parking area at 09h00 on Saturday, 21 January 2017. Enquiries: Tim Attwell 082 343 2501 Barbara Jenman 082 338 4109 Rea Borcherds 072 238 8144
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by KBergReserve

TALKS PLANNED FOR 2016 (and 2017!)

Saturday 10 December AT 10 AM: Margot and George Branch on “Creatures in the fynbos”. Children welcome! Please note the time (in the morning, and not the usual evening meeting). Nivenia Hall, HPBG. Saturday 21 January: Cuan McGeorge, Senior Field Ranger, Stony Point Seabird Breeding Colony, Cape Nature, on “Adaptability of endangered species – The birth of Stony Point Seabird Colony”. At 18h00 – Nivenia Hall, HPBG. Saturday 18 February: Brian Huntley on his time on Marion island as a young man. At 18h00 – Nivenia Hall, HPBG. Note: Botsoc Walks and Talks are always…
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by KBergReserve

PRINGLE BAY HACK REPORT NO 119

- Chris Geldenhuys, Convenor On a scorcher of a late Spring morning on 27 November 2016 the Pringle Bay Hack Group gathered at Droster’s Gat and moved to Clarens Road, where they cleared plots 513 and 514 from some serious Rooikrantz. These two plots, besides the Rooikrantz threat to the Fynbos, posed a serious security threat to the neighbours and also a very big fire threat to the surrounding buildings. Due to the ever increasing temperature we started at 08h00 and by 11h00 a vast area, more than 80% of these plots, was cleared. Jolly…
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by KBergReserve

THE BATTLE OF BETTY’S BAY: HACK REPORT 643

- Frik Potgieter, Convenor We had ideal weather for hacking and the troops responded by clearing a long stretch of Porter Drive verges. Barry Manicom summed it up beautifully when he remarked that this hacking is like creating a garden! This surely is what it is all about. Betsey Joubert provided the sandwiches and Merran Silberbauer the tea. Thank you ladies! Also thank you to Penguin Place for donating the bread for aforesaid sandwiches. Those gathered for tea were: Ulli Niemann, John Whitehead, Frik Potgieter, Carole Roberts, Jan and Betsey Joubert, Shen Liknaitsky who always…
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by KBergReserve

OCTOBER WALK REPORT

- Tim Attwell Botsoc Walk 15 October 2016 It was as we expected and much more. Twenty members and guests piled into high clearance vehicles at the Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens and set off for Kasteelkop Nek in the Kleinmond Mountain Nature Reserve. Today we would not be toiling up rocky mountain paths, but ambling down a jeep track to see Western Coastal Shale Band vegetation up close, interpreted for us by renowned botanist and botanical historian Dr John Rourke. Starting at a spot with splendid views of fold upon fold of mountains in…
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by KBergReserve

AGULHAS THANK-YOU GIFT

- Merrilee Berrisford Our expedition to the Agulhas National Park was a great success and to show our appreciation to the staff, especially Emmerentia de Kock, we collected a sum of money for a suitable gift. What seemed most suitable was a collection of children’s books on the environment for the Park’s library; they have various programmes which are offered to local schools on visits to the Park. Ulla von der Heyden made the brilliant suggestion that her daughter-in-law, Prof Sophie von der Heyden of US (she has given a talk to the Branch) be…
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by KBergReserve

ALL ABOUT WITCHES BROOM

- Tim Attwell Thank you to Henriette Botha for an interesting article about Witches Broom in a thirty-one-year-old issue of Farmers’ Weekly, 3 January 1985 to be precise. So what is Witches Broom? Nothing to do with Halloween, you’ll be happy to know. Regular botanical ramblers in the fynbos often see what appears to be a dense, brush-like appendage on protea bushes, exactly where a flower should be. For all the world the brush-like appendage looks like a parasite, only it’s not a parasite, it’s very much part of the affected protea, the product of…
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