Various Artists
The Grootbos Florilegium
Plant: Leucospermum patersonii |
Artist: Lynda de Wet
The silver-edge pincushion is endemic to the limestone soils of the Cape South Coast, occurring only from Kleinmond to Agulhas, but it has become well known as a flagship species in the large protea family. The characteristic flowers that are cultivated and harvested for the cut-flower trade, vary from yellow to red and are borne conspicuously on top of the bushes. Sugarbirds, Promerops cafer, find the flowers irresistible and can extract the sweet nectar with their long beaks and tongues, carrying pollen from one plant to another and so pollinating the flowers. Eventually seeds form and drop to the soil where they are quickly collected by pugnacious ants, Anoplolepis custodiens. The ants carry the seeds into their underground nests and feed on the edible seed covering (eliosome), but leave the seed itself unharmed. The ants effectively “plant” the seeds underground where they are safe from rodents that would otherwise make a meal of them. The seed can spend years underground in a dormant state, but eventually a fire comes. While the mother plants are killed by the fire, rain will leach fire-related chemicals into the soil, triggering sprouting of the seed. The continued survival of this beautiful plant species, is thus dependent on birds, ants, and fire.
Plant: Protea cynaroides |
Artist: Jenny Malcolm
South Africa’s national flower, the King Protea is well known and highly-prized as a cut-flower. What we think of as its flowers are, in fact, a cluster made up of hundreds of flowers. A single protea flower is very simple and may not look like much, but the plant presents them together in a spectacular bouquet known as an inflorescence. The arrangement of tiny flowers is surrounded by modified leaves called bracts that act as petals, advertising the presence of nectar to the plant’s pollinators which are mainly sunbirds and sugarbirds. Many insects also visit the flowers, with the beautiful emerald green protea beetles, Trichostetha fascicularis, featuring prominently. While the blooms are spectacular, the plant itself is also resilient. Like many fynbos species, it is adapted to surviving fire. The roots are covered with a thick cork-like layer which insulates the important rootstock against heat. While the plant’s branches may be scorched in a fire, the plant can survive and resprout rapidly from these specialised roots.
Plant: Disa lugens |
Artist: Jenny Hyde-Johnson
The blue bonnet disa is a rare plant in the orchid family. Orchids are highly adapted and many are pollinated in a very specific way. Unlike the more well known Disa uniflora that grows in permanently wet conditions, this plant grows in dry sand. It deals with this by storing moisture and nutrients in an underground organ (corm) during winter and by going dormant in the hot, dry summer. The plants are often found growing inside of restio tussocks, where the dense restio rhizomes offer the corms protection against foraging animals. The beautiful flowers emerge in spring and can be quite variable in colour. Flowers all have a “lip” – a petal that acts as a landing platform for visiting insects. In this species the lip is highly divided and fur-like. Although monkey beetles have been found visiting the flowers, its true pollinator remains a mystery. While this plant was formerly widespread through the Southern Cape, it is now extinct on the Cape Flats, surviving in scattered populations further along the South coast.
Plant: Brunsvigia orientalis |
Artist: Martine Robinson
The candelabra lily is a spectacular plant that is wide-spread throughout the Western Cape. Adapted to surviving the hot, dry summers of the Cape, the plant has a large underground bulb. During the rainy season, its leathery leaves push competing plants to the side and it makes the most of the available sunshine to produce starches that are stored in the bulb, along with a considerable amount of water. When summer arrives, the plant goes dormant and the leaves die off. The plant seems to disappear from the landscape, but in late summer, all the resources stored in the bulb are put to use and a large flower spike rapidly emerges from the ground. In the parched landscape, the deep red flowers attract sunbirds and are pollinated rapidly. After seeds have formed, the flower spike dries and is eventually dislodged by wind. As the round structure tumbles over the landscape, seeds are released far from the mother plant. While we tend to think of plants as static entities, their seeds often afford them the opportunity to travel.
Plant: Erica coccinea |
Artist: Gail de Smidt
Out of the 900 Erica species that occur in the world, nearly 800 species are endemic to South Africa. With such a great diversity, they come in a large variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Some have tiny bell-shaped flowers that are pollinated by bees. Other species, like the tassel heath, Erica coccinea, have tubular flowers that are brightly coloured and adapted for pollination by birds. This erica has also adapted to growing on different substrates. Limestone formations occur in the landscape of the Cape Southern coast. The soil on these formations is highly alkaline and plants need to be specially adapted to surviving in this habitat, as opposed to the more acidic sandstone soils common in the Cape Fold Mountains. While most plants are specialised to surviving in one or the other soil type, Erica coccinea occurs in both. On Grootbos, a yellow form occurs on the alkaline limestone soils and a red form occurs on the acidic sandstone soils, usually at higher altitudes. As is characteristic with other erica species, the leaf margins are folded in under the leaf. The top surface of the leaves is coated with a waxy cuticle and the pores are concentrated on the underside of the leaf, inside of the groove created by the folded margins. This limits water loss through evaporation, a useful adaptation in the dry summer months.
Plant: Lobostemon curvifolius |
Artist: Lucilla Carcano
Around the world people have relied on plants for food, medicines and many other uses. To this day many people still rely on herbal medicines. South Africa has a rich tradition of medicinal plant use and many indigenous species are now being studied scientifically. In the Cape, Lobostemon species are known as agtdaegeneesbossie (Afrikaans: eight-day healing bush) and they are revered as important medicinal herbs, mainly used for treating wounds and skin conditions. Recent studies have found that the plant contains compounds that have anti-oxidant activity. The flowers vary in colour, but are most commonly blue with pink stripes, giving them their common name “pajama bush”. Insects find the flowers highly attractive and a profusion of bees and beetles can be found visiting. Pictured here is a species of solitary bee (Allodapula sp) and a monkey beetle (Heterochelus sp.).
Plant: Babiana nana |
Artist: Ann Norris
Archeological evidence suggests that the Cape South Coast may have played a vital role in the development of modern humans. Records of human habitation in caves along this coastline go back many thousands of years. Early humans found proteins, in the form of small game and shellfish, readily available, but carbohydrates had to be obtained from other sources. Many plants have underground storage organs that are rich in starch and plant remains found in some of these historical sites show that a variety of edible corms and bulbs were gathered and utilised by early humans. These plants could have provided much of the carbohydrates needed as food and may have played an important role in the survival and development of the human species. Babiana nana with its attractive lilac flowers and underground corms is one such plant. Many animals also rely on plants like these as a source of food. Cape mole-rats (Georychus capensis) burrow beneath the ground, collecting and eating corms and tubers as they go.
FEATURED ARTWORK
The Grootbos Florilegium, 2025
FEATURED EXHIBITION:
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