The Forest Drive runs down a valley in the Woodbush Reserve, starting high in the mountain and ending in the Lowveld. I remember riding it 50 years ago sitting on the roof-rack of my father’s Opel Record Caravan – my first memory of my mother’s vertigo where her children were concerned.
But Flea, my father’s caretaker and my adopted sister who helped me nurse my mother, had never been there. And as it is only a few kilometers from Sequoia, that is a shame. So at the end of February – high summer – we rectified that.
I think she enjoyed the trip…
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Tall trees tower over one – but one also looks down on them due to the steepness of the terrain. And the verges are rich with plant life. Above is a plant which also grows on Sequoia, Scadoxus puniceus, in seed. It is also known as a Blood Lily and impressive enough to be on the cover of Elsa Pooley’s authoritive ‘A Field Guide to the Wild Flowers Kwazulu-Natal and the Eastern Region’. It stands among white Begonia dregei which feature again in the photo below. I’ve written before of Eve Palmer and her wonderful identification guide to the Plectranthus clan. If I studied it I might be able to tell you the name of the beauty on the left… Another of the beautiful begonias is the bright orange B. sutherlandii which I intend growing in my new greenhouse – about which more soon – where I will be able to give it the frost-free conditions it demands. It is a beauty! |
The delicate beauty of the white form of Bergenia dregei, which tends to hide in the deepest shadows against near vertical cuttings contrasts with the extrovert orange of the Sutherland Begonia.
Our old friend Crocosmia aurea, which I’ve posted about in a previous Wild Flower Wednesday post, was there, as was the ubiquitous but ever lovely local Bizzy Lizzy, Impatiens sylvicola.
All of these come to you courtesy of Wild Flower Wednesday, the fourth Wednesday of every month, and started by Gail of Clay and Limestone.
