testing verloren

We came to live in  Porterville to be nearer the West Coast spring flowers.  Namaqualand is a little further north.  Along roadside verges, at the edges of fields, and in abandoned fields. Winter rains came? Right time of day, 10 to 4? No breeze or cloud to close the fair weather daisies? You have your back to the sun, looking into the flower’s faces? Oh YES!!!

Come thru the gate with us. In a good year the rain daisies are spread so thick they look like a snow drift. Just to confuse you, bottom right is a sand dune. Dimorphotheca pluvialis

We visited Moutonshoek, where a tungsten mine is planned. This is 60% of the catchment area for Verlorenvlei, verloren meaning lost. A Ramsar wetland. In my ignorance used to think it wasRAMSAR, an acronym for a conference or an internationalagreement on wetlands. Ashamed when I discovered it is a place name. Ramsar lies on the Caspian Sea. There are hot springs, really hot, radium, uranium and thorium hot! And the residents live long, healthy lives. Here you will also find the vacation palace of the last Shah. Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran.

Verlorenvlei

Vygies, succulents come in every size and colour you can imagine. Creeping along the ground,  on low or high shrubs.

Wild melons. There is a traditional Afrikaans speciality --  Waatlemoenkonfyt – melon preserve. Only once in Porterville did I find out that isn’t made from watermelon rind, but these tsamma melons. Citrullus lanatus. This plant is essential to wildlife further north in the Kgalagadi, as the principal source of water between the rainy seasons. An annual with a long trailing stem. The melon is 90% water. Melons were grown as a crop by the Egyptians four thousand years ago. Your watermelon is descended from this South African plant.

I like to call these Lemon Butter Flowers. The yellow has an acidic touch of green – lemon. And the petals shimmer – butter.Grielum humifusum with a white centre. A distant West Coast cousin within the rose family.

Remember my daisies? Euryops? We have 2 this is the large third. Euryops speciosissimus – Clanwilliam daisy, but ranging to Piketberg. The exuberant yellow flowers are carried proudly, high above the bush.

Up into the hills and on sand plains. Fynbos. Proteas are in bloom. Leucadendron pubescens. Flowers are covered in silver down. One of the proteas whose seeds are dispersed by ants.

Wadrifsoutpan – old wagon crossing on the salt pan, the Wadriffarm is still there. The salt pan opens on the coast, crosses under the railway line (Wednesday), and then winds up the second valley. Avocets, ducks, and a drift of flamingos. The ostriches are farmed animals, too hot and dry for cows here.‘The only genuine wild ostriches occur in Northern Namibia and the Kgalagadi. All others are descended from hybrids bred for the feather trade’ --- from Sasol Birds of Southern Africa by Sinclair, Hockey and Tarboton.  

Pictures by Jurg and Diana, words by Diana of Elephant's Eye