Hugh Nicholson was born in Ermelo where his father ran the government experimental farm. After a short stint as a teacher, he started work at the Transvaal Gold Mining Estates at Sabie. The lack of forestry training in South Africa at the time encouraged him to try America for training where he undertook a four-year forestry degree course, paying his way through University by working variously as a road ganger, by washing dishes and summer work with the United States Forestry Service.
He returned to South Africa in 1934 to get married to Joyce White. They started married life farming at Allendale near Nottingham Road but he soon became involved in the mining timber business. He worked for the Rand Mining Timber Company and then moved on, forming Mine Props Pty. Ltd. with two partners. Mine Props went on to great success.
Hugh Nicholson and his wife Joyce retired to Skyline in Uvongo in 1962 where they built Skyline into an internationally renowned arboretum. One section was retained for indigenous species where plants from around South Africa were introduced while another section was built up in to a display of trees and shrubs from all over the world.
Attached to Skyline was a botanical library of considerable importance. Another Skyline asset was the herbarium which Hugh Nicholson had built up over the preceding 35 years, a most useful and valuable record of plants from around southern Africa. Both the library and the herbarium were used by people from all over South Africa and have been enjoyed by scientists from across the world. This collection forms the core of the Hugh Nicholson/Tony Abbott Herbarium now housed at Beacon Hill in the Umtamvuna Nature Reserve; Tony Abbott has contributed many additional specimens since starting collecting in 1981.
The once a month botanical gatherings at Skyline whetted the appetite of many a gardener and amateur botanist. His Thursday botanical walks conducted from 1962 until the mid 1990s in the wild areas of the South Coast have taught many people to value and respect the environment. Indeed, they have made their own contribution to the maintenance of the biodiversity of the South Coast. The “Thursday Group” continues to this day to meet every week under the guidance of Tony Abbott.
The creation of the Uvongo Nature Reserve was one of his early interests in the area and it now stands as a monument to his concern for the environment. He was also involved in the reassignment of the Umtamvuna Nature Reserve from the control of the Department of Forestry to the more suitable hand of the Natal Parks Board. Oribi Nature Reserve also received his attention and many new plant discoveries stand to his credit.
He served on the Natal Branch of the Wildlife Society of South Africa.
Hugh Nicholson is honoured in the following plants:
Colubrina nicholsonii No common name
Cussonia nicholsonii Natal Coast Cabbage Tree
Manilkara nicholsonii South Coast Milkberry
In the scientific publication of the tree Colubrina nicholsonii the authors, Prof A E Van Wyk of the Department of Botany, Pretoria University and Dr B D Schrire of the National Botanic Institute took the highly unusual step of including the following citation in the scientific description: “It is fitting that in naming this remarkable plant we commemorate a man who has made an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of the botany of the southern Natal/Pondoland region”.
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| Hugh Nicholson (Tony Abbott) |
In recognition of Hugh Nicholson's contribution to the botanical knowledge of southern KwaZulu-Natal we publish below the address he gave to the Botanical Society of South Africa.
H B Nicholson: Address to the Botanical Society of South Africa at Witswatersrand University
Date circa. 1975
Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It was Dr Mogg of the Tree Society who first put the idea of this hobby into my head. And he has kept right on with his encouragement! When we retired to Natal 13 years ago, it was with Keith Cooper of the Wildlife Society and Capt. Leslie Shewell of the Natal Bird Club that we first stared exploring the countryside. We sent specimens for naming at the Natal Herbarium and here came to know Mr Strey and Dr Eugene Moll. This association widened to embrace almost full-time collecting at times, and participation in many of their official collecting trips. This gave a tremendous impulse to my interest in this fascinating field of study. To have skilled guidance of this calibre in my field companions has been my great good fortune.
Early collecting in Natal
It is surprising how little there is in the literature of our Natal vegetation dealing specifically with southern Natal. C J Ward at the Indian University in Durban has written on the Flora of Isipingo and Esme Henessy, also from the Indian University, on the dune vegetation. Prior to this we have to go back to Dr Medley Wood who collected at Murchison, just behind Port Shepstone, the turn of the century. And several of his type specimens were from this area. Mr Strey, and latterly Dr Brian Schrire, in his historical research on Dr Wood, has been over his tracks from old notes. Most landmarks have been swept away but one or two species have been re-established. Dr Frans Bachmann, the German medical missionary, collected in Natal around 1882 – 1890. His notes (some of them) have been rescued from the archives by Mr Strey, and we have followed some of his journeys from these notes identifying major features of the vegetation as we went along.
Dr Bachmann on one of his notable journeys, traveled from the Ntsubane Mission (now Forest Station) near the Magwa Falls in Pondoland to Durban on horseback, carrying only a few articles of clothing and relying on the native tribesmen along his route for shelter and food. He noted the almost unknown Mateku Falls, plunging almost 600 feet into a cavernous gorge, well off the beaten track. When he reached the Mzikaba River it was in flood, and he was parted from his horse in mid-stream, luckily meeting again safe and sound further down the north bank. Adventures like these are recorded in the most matter-of-fact way.
One other early source of much interesting botanical information was again a German missionary, Rudatis, who worked at Umzinto for many years. Unfortunately his collections and most of his notes were bombed to destruction in Berlin in World War II.
These three, Dr Medley Wood, Frans Bachmann and August Rudatis have left their names indelibly stamped on the botanical records of our south coast region. Mr R G Strey, my mentor, is their modern day successor, as all will testify who have delved into J H Ross’s “Flora of Natal”.
The Umtamvuna reserve
The Umtamvuna River Forest Reserve was under the control of the Department of Forestry. In 1969 the area was transferred ot the control of the Natal Parks Board and we all had great hopes of it becoming a really interesting addition to our Natal Reserves, until this time so largely centered in the northern part of the Province. It was 3664 morgen in extent and we set about exploring it exhaustively with a view to making it into a exciting new wilderness trail area – owing to the inaccessibility of most of it. Barely a year after the NPB took over the axe fell and the bulk of the area was declared a part of KwaZulu. There is still some uncertainty as to how and when this takeover will take place. We hope that the KwaZulu Government will preserve a great part of it under their own Nature Conservation Department as at Ndumu, and as is happening in some of the best forest areas in Pondoland and the Transkei. The 600 hectares left to us are still capable of providing a magnificent slice of wild mountain and forest scenery.
It is here that most of our interesting new records originated; together with, to a lesser extent, the Oribi and Izotsha River gorges. There has always been the carrot of a new find, a new distribution record, or just learning the characters of a hitherto unfamiliar plant dangling tantalizingly in front of us. And this is true of many of the smaller forest remnants. We soon began to realize the astonishing changes that take place as you cross the undulating hills and stream of any coastal farm. Different species show up the whole time with every smallest change in habitat.
To illustrate this: on a piece of ground on my property “Skyline” at St. Michaels I set up a small experiment 10 years ago to study the regeneration of our indigenous coastal bush. Two plots, each 30 m square, were marked out 75 m apart on a hilltop which had been covered with big Eucalyptus trees for 18 years and was quite devoid of any other trees. One plot had a north east aspect and the other a southwest aspect. At the last analysis at the end of 1974 there were over 1196 small trees on the SW plot and 868 on the NE plot. 47 different genera occurred on the former and 40 on the latter. No less than 11 species occurred on the SW plot which did not appear on the NE plot. This small record may be published by the Tree Society in their magazine if Mr Cunliffe thinks it worthwhile – it does show how rapidly these small changes in aspect and habitat are reflected in the vegetative cover.
We have been very lucky in having a keen and knowledgeable plant collector appointed as ranger-in-charge of the Umtamvuna River Reserve by the NPB in the person of W R Trauseld, well known for his book on the “Flora of the Drakensberg”. I hope you will persuade him one day to talk to you on the flowering plants of the area.
My interest has always been centred mainly on the trees and shrubs, but one can not help becoming involved with the whole of the plant world when others around you are collecting and describing what is found. Bill Trauseld has assisted me materially in collecting a small series of slides, to bring this Umtamvuna area a little more alive for you tonight. The map perhaps also assists in giving you some idea of the broken nature of terrain, and this is typical to a greater or lesser extent of most of the forest remnants we have explored. This South Coast area is the northern part of the superb TMS (Table Mountain Sandstone) coastline giving us the peerless beaches, sea coast, rivers, forest and waterfalls of Pondoland. North of us the TMS swings further inland and culminates short of the Tugela River, north and west of Durban.
My collecting efforts
My first thrill was finding a straggling ericaceous plant on a streambank on the eastern cliffs above the Bulolo River, its mass of white flowers guiding me to it, Raspalia trigyna – Bruniaceae. The genus is described as belonging to the SW districts of the Cape (up to Riversdale) and this is a strange distribution record. J H Ross in his Flora of Natal cites one specimen collected by Dr Medley Wood at Murchison. All our efforts to find more plants have so far been unsuccessful. We owe it to Bill Trauseld that this one specimen survives. He carefully ringed this small kloof with firebreaks and with the exclusion of cattle since the establishment of the Reserve, we may hope that this one plant will survive and perhaps multiply, as it flowers freely each year. [This small population persists in 2012. Other plants were found in the Eastern Cape, and the local nursery Indigiflora has cultivated the species. Further plantings have been made near one of the trails in the Umtamvuna Nature Reserve. Ed.]
Rhynchocalyx lawsonioides – Lythraceae is a rare tree known only from a limited area in Alfred County, Natal (Port Shepstone). I think that it had been passed over for so long owing to its similarity to the common Umdoni, Syzigium cordatum, especially in its earlier growth stages. Once our curiosity had been aroused by the first sterile specimen collected in 1966, flowering material was obtained in the following year and botanists were able to describe the tree properly. Fruits had not been collected until we sent these in in 1967, and only an incomplete description appears in Phillips’ Genera of S.A. Plants. Its finely fissured bark with a pale pink colouration on younger trees separates it from Syzygium in the field, and it handsome sprays of white flowers are now quite familiar to us from many areas in the region, many more than are described in the article which appeared in Vol. 34 of S.A. Journal of Botany, Part I, January 1968 (R G Strey & O A Leistner). The tree was first described by Oliver in 1895 from Dr Medley Wood’s specimen from Murchison in 1894. A gap of 82 years.
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| Rhynchocalyx lawsonoides (Tony Abbott) |
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| Eugenia erythrophylla (Tony Abbott) |
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| Eugenia erythrophylla fruits (Tony Abbott) |
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| Pseudoscolopia polyantha (Tony Abbott) |
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| Joan Smith, member of the "Thursday Group" with Pseudosalacia streyi (Graham Grieve) |
The main river, rising in the Impetyne Forest on the slopes of Mt. Ingeli, only about 120 kms from the sea but subject now to heavy flooding from eroded native lands has a much more damaged fringe vegetation, unfortunately too now being invaded by exotic species mainly Solanum mauritianum and Acacia mearnsii.
History of Alfred County
In an effort to learn more about the past history of the area I succeeded in tracking down Mr Koch who had been in charge for 22 years for the Department of Forestry. The control of the area had been a burdensome task for the forester at Weza, inland on the Ingeli range, and the stream of Africans from across the river in Pondoland at about six different crossing places was always a thorn in his flesh. These paths have been closed by the Natal Parks Board but poachers are still found cutting Vitellariopsis marginata and Mimusops obovata. They come in small groups with hunting dogs and camp in the most inaccessible places. The trees are cut down and hewn into sections suitable for making walking sticks. Later on the women are sent in to carry the wood out and the sticks are sold to tourists, often at the Umtamvuna Bridge. Mr Koch told us that there were no Podocarpus in the Umtamvuna forests. He must have meant “exploitable Podocarpus”. In one most inaccessible kloof there is a large concentration of P. falcatus , including one giant tree at a stream confluence which we have measured to be 33 m high and a d.b.h of 1.5 m. We have prolonged its years of dominance in this deep hidden gorge by cutting away the roots of a strangler Ficus natalensis which had rooted around its base from a whorl of branches almost 15 m from the ground.
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| Podocarpus falcatus Mr. Nic. (Tony Abbott) |
Beilschmiedia natalensis [Dahlgrenodendron natalense] is our rarest find of recent years, and we still have much to do in tracing its distribution, and learning about the strange pattern of insect life surrounding it. One large tree was passed by for years on our excursions to Umdoni Park Reserve. No one could satisfactorily name it from sterile material. Seven years elapsed before flowering was evident, and, when these specimens were sent in, Dr Moll and Mr Strey insisted on sending the specimens direct to Dr Ross, who had just assumed duty at Kew. We had to wait four anxious months whilst searching for fruits. In the meantime we found a small kloof on a farm near Port Edward with quite a numerous scattered population of the tree. Here fruits were finally obtained, and these are the only ones we have discovered so far despite our noting occasional but very sparse flowering on some trees. It was a genuine thrill when Dr Ross wrote to tell us that this was a new generic record for South Africa. Dr Vari of the Transvaal Museum is working on some interesting entomological facts connected with this tree. We can pick the trees out in the field by the unique leaf galls which occur invariably as the new leaves develop. Dr Vari says that he has found a new species of butterfly associated with Beilschmiedia and its larval stage seems to give rise to these extraordinarily well-marked galls. Outside of these two localities Mr Keith Cooper found a few trees in the Kloof Nature Reserve and there is one record, some ten years earlier, from Ngoye Forest in Zululand, but these were both sterile specimens.
Celtis durandii [Celtis gomphophylla] has been found in a few scattered localities on the South Coast, never as common as it was in the Pondoland Forests. It grows to a huge size and has a more spreading form than its better-known cousin, C. africana. In C. durandii the leaves are mostly quite entire and considerably larger that in the White Stinkwood.
One of the very ornamental trees of the region is Alberta magna, which bears sprays of blood-red flowers almost throughout the year. It likes the higher cliff edges above the Umtamvuna River and its tributaries, and is much more common here than anywhere else in its range as far as we have observed. An odd tree can be seen along a tributary of the Uvongo River, a few in one spot overlooking the Oribi Gorge, and I know of a few in the Karkloof Forest in the Natal Midlands. Generally it is little known except in gardens and parks, and tree lovers who come here gravitate to these to see them, often for the first time, growing in their natural habitat. We still do not know how to obtain a reasonable germination from seed we collect. We succeed with the odd one or two, and gather that this is the general experience even of skilled nurserymen to whom we have sent seed.
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| Alberta magna (Tony Abbott) |
Dr Raven, Missouri Botanic Gardens, St. Louis
Mr Herklots, Wisley
Ton Muller, Botanical Gardens, Salisbury
Los Angeles Fire Department, California
Bachmannia woodii is a little-known, but interesting small tree under the forest canopy throughout our region. It has large swollen storage roots and bears clusters of mauve flowers along its stem and branches and has clearly distinguishable five-foliate leaves. (Capparidaceae)
Duvernoia adhatodoides (Acanthaceae) is an outstanding small but ornamental species restricted to our coastal forests. Many of you may have seen the carpet of purple flowers under the trees in shady parts of the forest in mid-summer.
Turraea streyi (Meliaceae) is a small herbaceous species, bearing the unmistakable many-chambered fruit of the genus, which was previously known as Nurmonia pulchella. This plant is practically unknown, and, as far as we know, practically extinct. A few straggling specimens remain in one locality only, under the shade of the dryer forest on the tillite shales south of the Umzimkulu River. A strange plant indeed amongst the tall trees of the Mahogany family.
Cryptocarya wyliei is another small tree, perhaps better classified as a shrub from this interesting group of lauraceous trees. Its grey-backed leaves (olive green) and bright red berry-like fruit 4-5 mm in diameter are very handsome. It is easily propagated from seed, and with the frequent collections we distribute it should be fairly easily obtainable from nurserymen in due course. The Zulu name for the various species of Cryptocarya is “Mtungwa”, not to be confused with “Amatungwa” which is Bequaertiodendron natalense [Englerophytum natalensis], a very common species in almost all our forests. The Beilschmiedia natalensis which was described earlier was familiar to our Africans under this name, accurately placing it in its correct botanical place.
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| Cryptocarya wyliei (Graham Grieve) |
Loxostylis alata is perhaps the loveliest of our indigenous trees. It is of widespread occurrence on rocky TMS escarpments at the edge of forests, with a few larger trees in the forest. Its dainty compound leaves, white flowers in summer following the bright red growing tips shown in spring, with sprays of terminal fruiting heads with the bracts enclosing the wheat-like seeds turning colour from russet to brown as they ripen in early winter.
The Schotias are of course well-known ornamental trees and the common Boerboen, Schotia brachypetala of the drier thornbush areas is quite widespread along our South Coast areas. Less common, however, is the fine leave S. latifolia, which seems allied to the S. afra, further south. Another Schotia sp. With larger leaves that S. capitata, but with pale pink flowers has been found in Pondoland on one of our trips. Mr Strey is concerned at present with the correct identification of this species, and Dr Ross whilst at Kew said he had not been able to match it with any other known species.
Rhus pondoensis [Searsia pondoensis] was a long lost species of this widespread group. This was recorded by Dr Medley Wood, but not seen since the early years of this century. We now know of a few small specimens growing along a rocky ridge running up from the valley floor of the Umtamvuna River.
The Kiepersol or Umbrella Trees of the genus Cussonia are always interesting for their individual form. Several Natal species have not been accurately described in the past, and Mr Strey has now contributed a major revision of our Cussonias in a recent article in Bothalia Vol. II, Part I. Two new species resulted from this work and, since publication, another new species is awaiting confirmation. This latter species occurs, apparently only in the E. Cape, and Mr Strey and I had to make a special trip down to the Gamtoos Valley outside Port Elizabeth, to collect good flowering material for the first time about a year ago. This species will be called C. gamtoosensis.
We see C. spicata scattered throughout the region, mostly in open situations, with a notable group of large dominant trees in a densely forested slope above the Umtamvuna River. Our typical forest Cussonia, C. chartacea has been renamed C. sphaerocephala, a typical forest species from Port St. Johns to Kosi Bay. C. krausii is split into two species, the one, C. nicholsonii, typical of the drier coastal regions, especially in the southern districts, and C. zuluensis, a small tree of similar habit, is found mostly from Durban to Mozambique though odd trees occur in our region (and as far south as the Nahoon River mouth near Kei Road). The characters of the fruits separate these two species easily. The work of W.F. Reyneke at the University of Pretoria with the electron microscope shows that the wax layers on the leaf surfaces have different forms, supporting these new species classifications. The seeds of these Cussonia spp. appear to be only viable when quite fresh. Seeds in the fleshy capsules which turn purple are viable. Most remain green and wither away.
Embelia ruminata (Myrsinaceae) is a vigorous fleshy creeper in bush along the coast, often seen, little known. It bears rich crops of dark-red, berry-like fruits in good years, and with its very dark green, shiny foliage it would make a good garden subject.
Gerrardanthus macrorhizus is a most curious plant, (Cucurbitaceae), with an immense swollen rootstock, as its name implies. Some of these can easily be mistaken for rocks in the hilly drier country where it occurs, and the bigger ones must weigh several hundred pounds. It sends out long creeping stems in the manner of the better-known Dioscorea, of which several species occur in the same habitat. The Baobab is often said to resemble a tree growing upside down, this Gerrardanthus does genuinely do this. There is a specimen on top of a large rock in the Oribi Reserve which we had walked past for years not recognizing its camouflage. The root is high and dry up there, and its long running shoots hang down over the edge stretching 3 m down to the ground and away into the bush with a few sparse leaves on them.
Orchids. We have so far had 59 species in 24 genera of ground and epiphytic orchids identified from this region. I think one of the loveliest of the is Disa tripetaloides, which is also one of the most common. Too see a mountain stream in springtime, with its banks fringed with drooping white flowering heads of this species, is a fascinating show. Another very graceful species, Herchelia baurii [Disa baurii], chooses an occasional year to flower, scattered singly over the thickly grassed upper slopes above the Umtamvuna River. It has not been seen elsewhere at all. It has a wonderful appeal with its small, single, nodding mauve to purple bells.
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| Disa tripetaloides (Graham Grieve) |
It is not often appreciated how the habitat varies over short distances in this southern region. We have our coastline, subtropical in climate, due to the warm Mozambique current with the ground inland rising in a short distance of 120 kms to the peak of Mt. Ingeli 2268 metres high and often snow-capped in winter. Here, in the Impetyne Forest on its seaward slopes the Umtamvuna River rises running through Ecca and Beaufort shales at first, passing on through Tillite shales, granites, and finally to TMS near its mouth.
We have been so much engaged in the coastal forests that there has not been sufficient opportunity to explore the rich indigenous forest areas of the Ingeli range, or eastern Drakensberg escarpment. There are some exceedingly interesting forest remnants here: one long mountain slope, facing the damp sea winds, has a mature stand of dominant Podocarpus spp. and one could ride on horseback underneath their magnificent canopy. What is especially interesting is that all three of our Natal species, Podocarpus latifolius, P. falcatus and P. henkelii occur in a well-mixed stand. Ocotea bullata is still being cut here and one sees a few trees over 30 cm in diameter being marked for felling. This must be one of the last areas where Stinkwood can be utilized. I cannot leave the Impetyne Forest without describing to you one of the finest sights yet encountered anywhere in these forest wanderings. A long, leaning tree in the high forest at the foot of the mountain with a ridge of scarlet flowers for 10 or 12 metres along the topside of the trunk, which was at least the same height from the ground. Cyrtanthus epiphyticus in its natural home. I wish it had been possible to photograph this scene. Other species of Cyrtanthus are all showy members of our flora. C. brachyscyphus bright red in burned grassland, often preceded by sheets of the tiny yellow-flowered C. breviflorus (the old Anoiganthus). C. sanguineus has the largest flowers of the genus hangs shyly over rocks in shady places, and C. mackenii, a white flowered species with grass-like leaves occurs in some scattered groups along the rocky bed of the Umtamvuna River.
In the Umtamvuna reserve we have the forests in the kloofs and the rolling grassland on the heights above, which gives the area a diversity of habitat not available in any other protected area that we know on the south coast, except of course on the higher slopes of the Mt. Ingeli range. There are also quite extensive areas of swampland draining these heights with their 1400 mm rainfall and there are at times some magnificent sweeps of wild flowers to be seen, especially when burns have occurred at the right time. I know of two special occasions of this nature. In the spring of 1973 a burn swept through the western slopes and in one boggy piece of ground about 2 hectares in extent a solid mass of Scilla natalensis [Merwilla plumbea] burst into flower together. It could be seen 15 km away and made a glorious spectacle. The flowering heads were up to 70 cm high, deep purple. Once before I saw a similar show on the northern slopes of the Umzimvubu River at Port. St. Johns. It is worth traveling a long way to see these Scillas at these times. Another spectacle almost as brilliant was a field of some 12 hectares on the eastern slopes above the Bulolo River, where, again, a burn had taken place in the early spring. Here the small Watsonia neglecta [Watsonia densiflorus] about 30 cm high, with pale pink flowers had flowered en masse, interspersed with were just as many of the delicate Sopubia simplex, with its mauve flowerheads (Scrophulariaceae). Hundreds of thousands of these two ornamental species were a splendid show.
Another area where a floral spectacle of note can be seen is in a small kloof on the escarpment facing Port Edward just outside the eastern boundary of the Umtamvuna Reserve. Mackaya bella is of fairly widespread occurrence in the shadier portions of our forests but here, for some reason, it dominates the understory over a whole kilometre of rocky kloof and, in a good flowering year, can give a remarkable show of colour. The plant can become a semi-climber in places and grows up to 6 m high where the support of smaller trees is afforded.
Another showy plant in the forest is Dermatobotrys saundersii. It is quite a game picking out specimens, with binoculars, sending out a shower of blood-red flowers from plants usually growing from the fork in the stem of a large tree and often well up out of reach.
Two species of Clivia always draw attention when flowering. C. miniata occurs in large masses usually on broken rocks below cliffs and in the forested kloofs. It is the largest and most showy, with its pink to almost white flowerheads up to 22 cms in diameter. C. gardenii has orange and green flowers hanging in clusters.
The other group often providing splashes of colour in the forests is Haemanthus. The white H. albiflos is in the coastal bush, H. puniceus [Scadoxus puniceus] has large round heads of tightly packed flowers bright red in early spring. H. multiflorus var. katherinae [Scadoxus multiflorus var. katherinae] grows up to 1½ m tall in really wet boggy ground and full shade, its pink flowers are loosely arranged. H. puniceus has also been seen in the lower Umtamvuna gorge, with tight heads of bright red flowers, and long leaves with wavy margins from a dense rootstock.
A special group of plants, well adapted to their peculiar habitat, grow around the edges of the flat sandstone rocks fringing the miles of cliffs overlooking the Umtamvuna River. When conditions suit them we find an amazing diversity of tiny plants at the edge of the water pools and in crevices adjoining. Some of these are: Schizea pectinata (1 South African species), a neat fern, with heads like a woman’s hair comb.
Utricularia prehensilis, yellow (Lentibulariaceae).
U. livida with tiny mauve flowers on stalks 2 cm high in shady clefts.
Elsiea sp. [Ornithogalum sp.]white flowers, 3-4 cm high.
Triglochin sp. Erect wispy stalks to 10 cm high.
Marsilea macrocarpa a very fine leaved grass, for all the world built to match its liliaceous associates.
Ornithogalum sp. white flowers, 6-8 cm high.
Craterostigma nanum [Craterostigma plantagineum] – Scrophulariaceae. Most colourful blue flowers from a rosette of leaves flat on the ground.
Psammatropha myriantha
Anthospermum rubricaule [Anthospermum hispidulum] – Rubiaceae
And a tiny Brachystelma only recently named by Dr Dyer, B. tenella not listed in J H Ross “Flora of Natal”.
Litanthus pusillus [Drimia uniflora] is, we believe, the smallest of the lilies and these minute plants send up their tiny white flowers after good spring rains and make a showy fringe like a pearl necklace around the pools. Stalks are about 2 cm high, and the flowers 2-3 mm in diameter.
There is a tiny-leafed Crassula, C. lineolata [C. pellucida subsp. marginalis], and a new species, C. streyi, with thick succulent leaves, purple underneath, growing on wet rock ledges, so far as we know only in the Umtamvuna so far.
Forest Grasses. Seven species make up the common groupings in the shady conditions of the forests.
Panicum heterostachyum, P. laticomum, Oplismenus hirtellus, Prosphytochloa prehensilis, Olyra latifolia, Setaria chevalieri, Dactylotenium australe.
Lianes and climbers are well developed as in all forest regions. Some of them are striking and colourful.
Derris trifoliata, showy red flowers. Oncinotis inandensis [Oncinotis tenuiloba], swollen lenticels. Dalbergia armata, D. obovata, Dioscorea dregeana, D. cotinifolia, D. quartiniana, D. sylvatica, D. diversifolia, Ipomoea mauritiana, I. plebia, I. cairica, I. crassipes, I. obscura, Hewittia sp., Merremia sp., Smilax kraussiana [Smilax anceps], Acacia ataxacantha, Entada spicata [Adenopodia spicata], Caesalpinia decapetala, Gloriosa superba, Littonia modesta [Gloriosa modesta], Sandersonia aurantiaca, Acridocarpus natalitius – the showiest of all on the tree tops, Strophanthus speciosus, Ceropegia woodii [Ceropegia linearis subsp. woodii], C. sandersonii.
We have been fortunate in having visits from time to time from well-known experts in their own fields, South Africans and from overseas, which has helped us materially in correcting and understanding our collections.
Dr Melville from Kew spent three days with us mainly in the Umtamvuna area, covering many precipitous places with astonishing agility where any cycads were in the vicinity. Encephalartos natalensis is scattered on most of our steep cliff faces, and some large specimens are found in the forests below these cliffs. Dr Melville spent one whole morning digging and photographing Stangeria eriopus, which obliged by showing male and female cones in profusion over a wide rocky field at the base of some cliffs overlooking the Bulolo River, a tributary of the Umtamvuna where many of our most interesting finds have been made. E. ghellinckii, E. villosus, E. caffer.
Frank White from the Commonwealth Forestry Bureau at Oxford University analysed all our Euclea and Diospyros species with painstaking accuracy. We are still in correspondence with him, and watching a few specimens from which he requires further material.
Dr O M Hilliard and R L Burtt from Edinburgh have spared us a day on several occasions, and their field work is a model for any amateur to contemplate. Dr Hilliard has been through our collection of Compositae, and has of course marked down our species of Streptocarpus. One of the most interesting of these is S. trabeculatus, “Little Beams”, referring to the prominent veining at the back of the leaves. At a distance the tightly-bunched inflorescences look like small heads of Agapanthus – violet streaked with white. It is found hanging on cliff faces from Dumisa in the Umzinto district down to the Mtentu rover in Pondoland, a range of 120 km. I have collected it only at its type locality at the Izotsha Falls, near Port Shepstone. Our other species area as follows:
Umtamvuna Reserve. S. primulifolius subsp. formosus, S. porphyrostachys, S. polyanthus subsp. polyanthus, S. haygarthii, S. rexii.
Oribi Reserve. S. haygarthii, S. trabeculatus.
Ingeli Reserve. S. rexii, S. baudertii, S. gardenii, . S. johannis, S. sylvaticus.
Izingolweni, in dry thornbush. S. confusus. Eleven species in all.
Dr Gordon Gray of the University of Natal has corrected the names of many of our collections of Graminae and Cyperaceae.
Mrs Davidson of the Moss Herbarium and Mr R Ward from the Indian University in Durban have done several field trips with us in the Umtamvuna and Oribi reserves and their excellent field knowledge of our native plants has helped greatly in keeping our enthusiasm alive.
Dr Codd has come down on several occasions to check on some of our doubtful collections. He has revised the names of our collection of Plectranthus species in particular. Of the 22 species we have collected seven are not recorded by J H Ross in his “Flora of Natal”, but on Dr Codd’s authority we retain these, as named in our collection. Dr Ross has 25 species recorded for the Natal region as a whole.
For the past six years a group of people interested in our indigenous flora have been meeting every Wednesday morning at my home as St. Michaels. We collect all the information we can, and welcome any newcomer or interested person. The reason we meet at the same venue is that a small herbarium of pressed and named specimens is kept, and we have a fairly well-stocked botanical library to assist us in widening our knowledge, as identifications of fresh specimens are received from the National Herbarium in Pretoria. We extend a warm welcome to any of you to join us on any Wednesday morning when you may be visiting our south coast area. We still look forward to some new books on our trees. Prof A W Bayer has his book almost ready which he hoped to publish after his retirement 3 years ago. Dr Eugene Moll also has his material ready for an enlarged edition of his much-used “Forest Trees of Natal”. Keith Coates-Palgrave from Salisbury, the co-author of “Trees of Central Africa” has an impressive set of card-indexed notes and photographs for another wide-ranging book on the “Trees of Southern Africa”, and has recently completed a tour of the Republic to bring his material up to date. [The herbarium referred to above has been moved to a facility in the Umtamvuna reserve, and is curated on a volunteer basis by a number of local residents. Work is currently (2012) underway to capture this collection in digital format. Ed.]
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