Author: JRT contributor
The Underground Trees of Buffelskloof
One of the growth forms of our woody plants are as underground trees – ‘trees’ whose closest sister species are normal trees, but whose woody mass is all subterranean. These plants typically flower and fruit within one season after fire but never develop an above-ground trunk. We have 10 species of underground tree on Buffelskloof,…
2019 flowers in Spring
Spring has sprung but with a dreary weariness brought about by a few seasons of drought thathave sucked the moisture from the soil. But, by month-end, there were some colourful pockets ofveld flowers on Buffelskloof, some of which are illustrated below.
Flowers before leaves
August is traditionally one of the dreariest months of the year on the Highveld. The recently burnt veld has not yet started its spring flower show. So here are four trees that push out their flowers in a pre-spring display, with red predominating, and keeping the sunbirds happy! Transvaal Bottlebrush (Greyia radlkoferi, Greyiaceae) provides bright…
A new plant species
Dr Nicola Bergh (left) and Zaynab Shaik (right) Buffelskloof has a new species of Seriphium (‘Slangbos’), described by MSc student Zaynab Shaik from the University of Cape Town. She and her supervisor, Dr Nicola Bergh, visited Buffelskloof in July 2017 as part of her country-wide fieldwork towards her study of the genus Serphium (Asteraceae). In…
Publications update -August 2019
Burrows, J.E. (2019). Moraceae. In: C.L. Bredenkamp, A Flora of the Eastern Cape Province. Strelitzia 41, 2: 1235–1238. SANBI, Pretoria. Shaik, Z. (2019). Species delimitation and speciation process in the Seriphium plumosum L. complex (Gnaphalieae: Asteraceae) in South Africa. MSc. Thesis, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town.
Bews Herbarium
The Bews Herbarium (NU), formerly called the Natal University Herbarium and named after John William Bews, is part of the School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). It is located in the John Bews Building, B-block, Room 201, on the Pietermaritzburg Science and Agriculture Campus. The facility was founded in 1910 and currently houses…
A and B – Asparagus and Berkheya
Prof. Eileen Campbell from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, arrived at Buffelskloof at the beginning of July with a suitcase full of Asparagus specimens from the University Herbarium (PEU) and spent a few days tapping the vast knowledge and understanding of the genus that Sandie and John have accumulated over the years. John and Sandie were able…
2019 Publications update
Publications featuring Buffelskloof or BNRH Boon, R.C. & van Wyk, A.E. ‘Reinstatement of Dovyalis revoluta (Flacourtieae, Salicaceae), with an updated key to the species of Dovyalis in southern Africa’ in Phytotaxa 409 (2): 053– 065 (2019); https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.409.2.1 N.B. Sandie contributed the botanical illustrations to this article. Crouch, N.R., Martínez-Azorin, M., Burrows, J.E., Lötter, M.C. and…