Talk on Restoring Sand Plain Fynbos on our Common

Carly Cowell of Kirstenbosch is also the SANBI Project Co-ordinator for the Millennium Seed Bank Project, run by Kew Gardens. Carly has travelled to well-known gardens in Europe, China and Australia and will be giving a public lecture, hosted by the Friends of Meadowridge Common, on “International trends in Restoration and the Meadowridge Common Project".
The talk will take place on Monday 5 October at 7.30 pm at the Meadowridge Library, Howard Street. There is no entrance fee. Any enquires can be directed to Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696 or Caroline Voget on 072 933 4510.

Spring flower walk

A guided spring flower walk was led by Fiona Watson on Saturday 19 September on Meadowridge Common.
Meadowridge Common, our conservation area, is included in the 2009 edition of the booklet, City of Cape Town Nature Reserves, a network of amazing urban biodiversity. We have identified 137 species of indigenous flowering plants on this small 7 ha open space and four of these are in danger of extinction in South Africa. We are working hard to conserve this heritage gem but for a small area where many species are present in very small numbers the challenges are great. Extremes in climate, trampling and dogs’ digging can easily wipe out a species, as has already happened to seven on the Common.

What are doing to meet this challenge?
Propagating plants from the Common to augment their numbers; rehabilitating and creating a seasonal wetland; erecting bollards around sensitive areas.

What to see?
The range of plants in flower varies over the spring months as does the time of day when they are open. More are late risers, opening in the afternoon, hence our walk being scheduled for 14h00. August is the time to view Oxalis species in their bright colour: rose-pink Oxalis purpurea, yellow Oxalis pes caprae, white with red on the reverse Oxalis versicolor (photo below) and a profusion of Oxalis obtusa. Mauve babianas are a delight with their splashes of red and white. The Lampranthus reptans flowers (photo above) glow like golden dollars on their spreading stems. They continue to flower in September.
September sees members of the Romulea genus revealing their deeply-coloured red, mauve and orange species. Dainty white trachyandras drag themselves out of bed to open in the afternoons as do the sky-blue Heliophila africana. White botterblom, Sparaxis bulbifera, yellow daisies, Senecio littoreus, and Ursinia anthemoides provide sheets of colour. In October yellow Moraea fugax comes into its own. These are but a few of the many flowers on display.

Join the friends
Walks are free of charge but if you wish to support us by becoming a member of Friends of Meadowridge Common, receive our newsletters and our full colour broadsheets and attend talks arranged at Meadowridge Library, it only costs R25 for a year's membership. For any queries feel free to phone Mrs Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696.
Photos:
TOP: Lampranthus reptans, the Cape Flats Vygie. Photo: Fiona Watson.
ABOVE: Sugarstick Sorrel, Oxalis versicolor. Photo: Caroline Voget.

A spiny bear's foot on the Common?

You often see these flat, prickly leaves in the middle of the paths on Meadowridge Common. Have you ever stopped to wonder what they are? It is a platdoring, or Arctopus echinatus.
In Greek, arktos is "bear", and pous is "foot" (yes it is!) and echinatus is Latin for "spiny" or "prickly". So a spiny bear's foot! It has an underground stem, and is common in sandy, flat places. It belongs to the carrot family, and male and female plants are separate. The plant above was found Meadowridge Common, and the two below, male (left) and female (right) are from the slopes of the Hottentots Hollands.

How much wood would a woodchip chip?

The question in the minds of four of the Friends who arrived to spread a pile of woodchip over one of the main paths of the Common was how far the chip would go. "It does not look such a big pile to me," said Gordon, "probably cover half the path." His being a retired civil engineer who knows a thing or two about roads, we deferred to his judgement and so began the haul.

What none of us bargained for, however, was a magical pile. Not only was it magically fresh and clean but it was also possessed of the property of not diminishing as we reduced. As we returned with the large tarpaulin we were using to load and drag the chips upon, the pile stood as tall as ever, following the law of undiminishing returns. This was proven by the fact that the half way point to which we had dragged the first load and then worked down from now had to be exceeded and we set our sights further up - eventually covering all but 20m of a 100m path. But as we looked back down the track, our last load down, what did we see? A beautiful river of green, fresh chip now lay where a sandy one had once been.

This could not have happened without Nic of Afford-a-Fell. Having contacted him after Louise Kinrade of the Friends of Kirstenhof Greenbelt had given me his name, he simply said: "Sure, I've got woodchip - how much do you want and when?" The next thing it was delivered, no charge, and with another question attached: "When can I deliver the next one?" With friends like this we could go far. Thanks, Nic and those who helped bring the path into shape.

Rare frog

A Giant Rain Frog on Kenilworth Racecourse - similar to the ones that occur on Meadowridge Common. Photo: Fayruz Prins, iNaturalist.

Did you know that the rare Giant Rain Frog or Cape Rain Frog (Breviceps gibbosus) has been seen on Meadowridge Common?

Winter flowers on Meadowridge Common

Probably the Common's most important species, this rare and endangered member of the Protea family is the Flat's Silkypuff, Diastella proteoides.
It was once abundant on the Cape Flats, but most of its southern populations have been destroyed and small remnant populations remain - one on our Common! (Click here for the some history of its discovery.) The plant carries a status of 'Vulnerable' in the Red Data book and is likely to be upgraded to Endangered as its northern habitats (it occurs on sandy flats as far north as Mamre) are developed.
The Flats Silkypuff flowers erratically throughout the year, but mainly from July to February and our bush is starting to flower now. Find it near the storyboards on the Common.
The plants do not produce nectar - pollination is by beetles and flies that visit the flowers to feed on pollen. The round white seed is produced two months after flowering. Each flowerhead may produce a single seed, which is bigger than the entire flowerhead. These seeds are collected by ants, which bury them in their nests. Here they are safe from fire and rodents. Germination only occurs after fire. (Info from the Protea Atlas Webpage)


Tortoise Berry, Nylandtia spinosa, belongs to the milkwort family (Polygalaceae) and starts flowering in June. By the end of the month it will be covered in purple flowers. A good plant to grow in your sandy garden! It is named after Pierre Nylandt, a Seventeenth Century Dutch botanist. The species name is derived from the Latin, spinosa, meaning spiny.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who supported the cake sale on Saturday to raise funds for the maintenance and on-going rehabilitation of Meadowridge Common.

Cake Sale for the Common

You will have received a broadsheet compiled by Fiona Watson, our Botanical Officer, on the Moraeas of Meadowridge Common. We hope that you will find it interesting and follow it up with a visit to the Common.
Moraea flaccida on Meadowridge Common. Photo: Fiona Watson.


Restoring the wetland on the Common
If you are not aware of the fact, there have been some initiatives on the Common recently. Firstly a berm has been created between the soccer field and the southern side of the Common. This has now been planted with sour fig on the Common side and buffalo grass on the field side. Unfortunately the grass has not taken too well, but the berm is an improvement on the heaps of rubble that lay there before. Secondly, the wetland area has been extended and more plants put down. This is the reason for this newsletter.
Have a heart. Bring a cake and support the Common on Saturday 20 June
We are having a cake sale on 20 June to raise money so that more can be planted on the Common, specifically in the degraded areas. A successful propagation programme at Kenilworth Racecourse has led to a great number of plants being both available and suitable for our Common. We need to purchase each at R2, which is a minimal amount but as we want to put down about 500 plants, it will cost us a considerable amount. For this reason – the cake sale.
We are appealing to you to support us. What we need most are cakes, jams and biscuits that we can sell. We need to fill two trestle tables with good things to eat and so we are relying on you to help us. If you know of anyone who would be sympathetic to your cause, perhaps you could ask them to bake or make.
If you can assist, please would you either bring the cakes to 5 Faraday Way, Meadowridge on the evening of Friday 19 June, or to the Meadowridge Park ’n Shop before 08h30 on the morning of the 20th.
Roger Graham, Chairman of the Friends of Meadowridge Common

e-Kapa website on Cape Town's Lowlands

Cape Town’s lowland ecosystems are extremely threatened. Nineteen percent of the critically endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos remains, of which only 0.1% is protected. Education is desperately needed to help people understand and appreciate the value of the small surviving patches of these lowland ecosystems, which have incredible value not only to the citizens of Cape Town but to the world, as these areas contain many extremely threatened plants and animals that are found nowhere else. For example, most of the 65 plant species that are found only in the city limits and threatened with extinction, are found in these patches.
The Botanical Society and the City of Cape Town have produced an education resource called ‘e-Kapa: Cape Town’s Lowlands - A Global Treasure’. Alice Ashwell, an environmental educator, wrote the material and Martin Cocks and his team from the International Ocean Institute Southern Africa at UWC converted the text into a richly illustrated resource. Using the resource’s comprehensive teacher’s guide with its clear curriculum links, teachers may teach many types of lessons, not only in biology but in other subjects such as geography, languages or history. The web-based resource acts as a library of information for the lessons and contains comprehension activities related to the content of each of the ten modules. Although the focus of the resource is the Cape Flats it nevertheless contains a great amount of information relevant to all parts of South Africa.
Although the resource, available in English and Afrikaans at this stage, is aimed at learners in grade 7 - 9, it is certainly very useful to anybody who wants to know more about the natural environment around them. It is being distributed to schools in the Western Cape through the Khanya Project and is also available on CD-ROM from the City of Cape Town’s Environmental Resource Management Department and on the web at http://www.ekapa.ioisa.org.za/.

Common stick insects

An article calling for people to look out for an uncommon stick insect started me re-looking at my population of stick insects in the garden. It turns out that they are all the common or garden alien Indian stick insects, but the Common might harbour the more uncommon varieties. See my article Stick insects in the news. (Click on the highlighted text. To get back again, click on the arrow on the top left of the window.)

These goggas are most interesting, and apparently in some species who live in fynbos, their hard, seed-like eggs are attractive to ants who treat them like edible seeds or ant larvae, or dead ants, that need to be carried into their underground nest, where they are safe from fires and parasitic wasps.

Caroline Voget

African monarch butterflies on the Common

This morning, as well as seeing Maya on the Common (see photo below), I saw lots and lots of African monarch butterflies - mainly on exotic viper’s bugloss Echium vulgare flowers. Appropriately, the African monarch, Danaus chrysippus, is a common butterfly. It is poisonous as its leisurely flight indicates, and lays its eggs on various asclepiads (Apocynaceae) from which it must get its poison. The plant it seems to favour most is Gomphocarpus fruticosus (formerly Asclepias fruticosa), commonly known as milkweed, wild cotton, tontelbos, wildekapok, tennis ball bush and swan plant. It is toxic as it contains a heart glycoside and occurs in permanent and seasonal streams, flood plains and disturbed areas from the Cape Peninsula northwards throughout southern Africa and further north.

Although I didn't notice any on the Common, this is what Gomphocarpus fruticosus looks like. (See also the Plantzafrica site at http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantefg/gomphocarpfrut.htm )
Caroline Voget

Talking of the wild side…and the Meadowridge Common

Baboons on the Meadowridge Common! What’s so surprising about that? For those who have ventured on to the Common for the purpose of ridding it of litter, far wilder and woollier things have crossed our paths.
Every three months the Friends of the Common organise a clean-up. Arranging this proves a point: if you do not want the locals to go down to the woods today, just pop them an invitation to join the clean-up. After reading this, they may not even want to look in their postbox.
Baboons are small fry compared to what one can find in the odd bush or two. Not even an Alpha male would venture there for he knows that the khakibos that he knows from his experiences of the bosveld, has been replaced here by the kakkibos. Strangely enough, these bushes are known to exercise a strong attraction over some very pedigreed dogs whose owners may suddenly break off a conversation and head for a bush shouting, “Bowser, out of there!”
But other things lurk: in fact a whole world awaits you. Let’s start in the hardware department… . What can we interest you in? A vacuum cleaner, a set of sprinklers, a window squeegee? There’s also no end of bricks and half-bricks which some considerate neighbours kindly donate to the verges of the Common. Venture further in, though, and you may find something to your liking with a technological touch. What about a laptop, a computer monitor, a television set with the back removed so that you can be the star of the show? (If you prefer the old methods, there was once even an abacus). The automobile trade has its representatives there, too: where else could you find a motor car seat, complete with its metal runners, riding in a bush?
What about the softer side of life, the bedroom with all its accoutrements? Apart from some of the most risqué lingerie yet seen in the Southern Suburbs, a range of cosmetic samples has been found under various Brazilian Pepper Trees of the Common. But if you are into the real thing when it comes to the bedroom, the hedge between the Bowling and Tennis Clubs did produce two books when last cleaned up: Sex Manners for Men and Black Beauty.
Moving to the bush kitchen we have a variety of goods on display, with condiments taking first place: fortunately many a herb bottle ends up here, for they tend to impart a more pleasant odour to the rather dubious goods which tend to still be in the pot, a veritable moving feast. A coffee maker has been found, though, showing that there is life after the meal. Other exotic beverages are also drunk, plenty of them, but this is not limited to the kitchen and are found in bottles and Chateaux Cardboards far and wide.
The sports department also comes to the party: a golf-cart, golf balls and a fishing rod have been spotted, and if you are looking for something in the recreation line, then there has been the occasional deckchair. Which tsunami the surfboard which we found in a bush came from we have not been able to find out, but it was there alright.
There are also places where one can get personal: ID books, driver’s licences and bank cards have been found in some bushes, discarded by some thief. More bizarre was coming across a most beautiful photograph album which held snapshots of holidays at the most prestigious of destinations in Europe of the early 1900s.
Though the Common is largely a place where discarded things sometimes find their way (even a dead cat thrown under a bush after being hit on Edison Drive) not everything that is found there is stale and past its sell-by date. A little over a year ago a sharp mewing from the top of a tall tree revealed that two beautiful Persian kittens had been dumped on the Common the night before. They were rescued and taken in by a neighbour who found them a home in a penthouse at the Waterfront Marina where they are much loved.
When our large hairy interlopers paid us a visit the other day, little did they know that their footprints would be just one of the many that make the Meadowridge Common unique. So if you really want a walk on the wild side, come clean the Common.

P.S. In case you are thinking that the Meadowridge Common is not in good shape, let me assure you that the Common is one of the cleanest areas you will find to walk and exercise your dogs. The items mentioned above are a selection found over a period of six years of regular clean-ups. Because of these we maintain the Common well and are pleased to say that some of those who walk there pick up litter and deposit it in the bins we have provided.
Roger Graham

The Cutting Edge

The AGM of the Friends of Meadowridge Common took place in the Meadowridge Library last night. After an overview of the year's events by Chairman, Roger Graham, and a fascinating report on the flora (mostly) and fauna of the Common by Botanical Officer, Fiona Watson, Trevor Adams, Collection Nursery Supervisor and Kirstenbosch Plant Propagator took over.

Trevor is an enthusiastic and skilled horticulturist who obviously knows all the tricks of the trade when it comes to propagating our indigenous flora. Wielding his Felco secateurs (the best he reckons) he demonstrated various techniques of taking cuttings, as well "layering" from a living tree. (The photo shows Roger Graham helping Trevor with the layering technique.)

Trevor handed out some notes and an extremely valuable Vegetative Propagation Year Plan for Indigenous Species which synthesizes years of trial and error by the Kirstenbosch horts. This is like gold for any gardener doing their own propagating!

And for the lady who wanted to know how to propagate her bougainvillea, click HERE for a good website.

If you missed Trevor's demonstration, he will be giving another talk at Kirstenbosch on 8 April 2009 on the PROPAGATION OF INDIGENOUS PLANTS for the Wednesday Talks at Kirstenbosch presented by Room to Grow at the SANLAM HALL at 10.30 am. Enquiries: info@roomtogrow.co.za or tel: 021 4656440/072 2012535/021 797 8975.

Fiona Watson's article in Veld & Flora.

Meadowridge Common Veld and Flora Sept 07

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