by KBergReserve

Talk Report – Sept 2018

Plants and light Chris Whitehouse Living and gardening in the fynbos, we are very aware of the impact of the specific soil conditions of our gardens and the need to provide protection from the wind, but we may not give much thought to the amount of light that various plants require. That is unless your home is close to the mountain, where you are in shade for a large part of the day, particularly during the winter months when the sun is low on the horizon.  Sunlight and its effect on plants was the topic of the interesting talk given on Saturday 15 September by Chris Whitehouse, who runs the Philipskop Mountain Reserve, near Stanford.  Chris began by reminding us why the leafy natural world around us is predominantly in harmonious shades of…
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by KBergReserve

Talk Report – February 2018

Christmas in the Drakensberg (and the hunt for Gladiolus symonsii) By Rea Borcherds Unsurprisingly, gladiolus, with its long, sharply pointed leaves, is named after the Latin word for a sword, hence its common name, ‘sword lily’.  This showy plant and popular cut flower is familiar to gardeners and florists world wide, but what may be less known is the fact that it is hybridized and cultivated from a rather insignificant native South African plant, Gladiolus daleni.  This, and other interesting facts about gladioli, emerged from Rachel Saunders’ talk last Saturday. She kept the audience captivated…
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by KBergReserve

FINDING NEMBA: THE QUEST FOR COMMUNITY CONSERVATION

- Rea Borcherds  It was always going to be a challenge ¨C taking a topic as unappealing and dense as an unwieldy Act of Parliament (in this case NEMBA, the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act,) and trying to make it palatable and intelligible to your listeners.  Tim Attwell rose to the occasion splendidly on Saturday 15th July, as evidenced by the appreciative tributes he received from his audience, who had defied a bitterly chilly night to attend the talk on this daunting subject. Tim sugared the pill by deftly framing his topic into a quest,…
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by KBergReserve

TALK REPORT: MAY 2017

- Rea Borcherds Diamonds or rock lobsters? - A presentation by Allan Heydorn: Saturday 20 May 2017 Dr Allan Heydorn held his audience captive on Saturday evening 20 May when he recounted his role in a historic expedition in 1964 to a near mythical undersea mountain to search for diamonds. Vema Seamount is an isolated flat-topped undersea mountain rising up from the deep Atlantic Ocean Basin to approximately 26 - 30m below the surface. It was discovered in 1959 by the American research vessel ‘Vema’ and lies approximately 550 nautical miles west of Lambert's Bay.…
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by KBergReserve

FIRE IN THE FYNBOS – WHO LOOKS OUT FOR THE SNAKES?

-Rea Borcherds When driving towards Pringle Bay over the past few weeks, the consequences of the recent severe fire is plain and painful to see. What was once flowering fynbos up the hillsides of the Brodie Link, is now a sandy waste of scorched earth. While the fynbos itself recovers fairly rapidly after fire, and indeed benefits from fire - provided it is not too frequent - the creatures, large and small, that inhabited the fynbos do not recover as fast. Much attention has recently been drawn to the plight of baboons in the Western…
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by KBergReserve

AGULHAS IN THE SPRING

- Rea Borcherds The Betty’s Bay Branch of the Botanical Society organised a three-day visit to the limestone and lowland fynbos and renosterveld of the Agulhas Plain. A group of 17 local botanical society members set out on 21 August, visiting the Cape Floral Kingdom Expo at Bredasdorp en route. Arriving at the Agulhas National Park in drenching rain, we gathered around a roaring fire in our Lagoon House accommodation for supper and a comprehensive presentation by Dr Allan Heydorn on why the Agulhas Plain is so interesting: geographically, ecologically, historically, and archaeologically. This is…
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