A blooming nice display at Van Stadens

 

The West Coast and Namakwaland is famous for their spring flowers while a number of reserves in the southern Cape, one of these being the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area, are UNESCO World Heritage Sites as it is where the Cape Floral Kingdom occurs.  Living in Port Elizabeth it's not always possible to do the trek west to go and view flowers but a few weeks ago I realized that it's not  necessary.

About 40 kilometers west of Port Elizabeth is the Van Stadens Wildflower Reserve, a 500 hectare open space next to the Van Stadens River gorge.  The reserve covers the gorge's southern wooded slopes, a large plateau to the east and the northern river banks, each with its own vegetation types.  The reserve is covered in various hiking trails ranging from a short 500 meter trail to longer ones up to 11 kilometers.  Some of the trails are also suitable for mountain bikers while there are also gravel roads accessible to cars in the plateau section.  The flowers, especially the flowering proteas, in the reserve is stunning at the moment.  Enjoy the display. 

More information about the reserve can be found on their listing with Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism or with the Friends of Van Stadens.

Langkloof protea

The Langkloof may be a "less desirable" tourism destination than the adjacent Garden Route, but it doesn't mean that its less beautiful.  It may not have the breathtaking coastline or inspiring indigenous forests of the Garden Route, but it doesn't have to stand back one step when it comes to scenic beauty.  Framed by mountains in the north and south, the predominant vegetation is Fynbos, interspersed by farmland and summer fruit orchards.  A little detour on my last trip up the Langkloof to get a photo from a higher vantage point led me to this...

African Blogger Awards - Photography runner-up

I am currently exploring the Wild Coast a bit while on my way to #Indaba2015 in Durban and have had very periodic internet access.  On checking Twitter yesterday afternoon I saw a tweet announcing that The Firefly Photo Files has taken the runner-up spot in the Photography category of the African Blogger Awards.  Say what?  It took a double take and a quick check at the other tweets announcing the different winners and runners-up before it dawned on me.  I actually took second place in the African Blogger Awards!  It hit like a ton of bricks. Well, actually like a totally unexpected message on Twitter but you get the idea.  The one thing that struck me though (except for that proverbial ton of bricks) is the fact that the category was my second choice, Photography.  I actually entered the blog in the Travel category and it gave me an option to choose a second category as well.  So there it is.  Always keep your options open because sometimes it pays off to have a little backup in place. 

I don't normally enter blog competitions because often the winners are chosen on popularity by seeing who can get the most votes.  These awards used Webfluential's social media tracking to measure blog traffic as well as social media engagement so I gave it a shot.  Apparently a shot was all I needed. 

The African Blogger Awards aims to acknowledge the top African talent in the world of Bloggers, YouTubers, Facebookers, Tweeters, and Instagrammers. These awards provide an opportunity to the most successful online influencers in Africa to be recognised for their hard work in growing and keeping their communities active and engaged.  Reading this makes me really proud of the achievement and recognition that this blog has received.  Now all I can hope for is similar recognition from my peers and those making use of bloggers  in their campaigns or just to create content.  To my regular followers, thanks you for sticking around and enjoying what I have to share.  I may not be a professional photographer or writer (well, hopefully at some stage in the future I will make some money from doing it) but I do it because I have an absolute passion for travel and really enjoy sharing what I see, discover and experience with you.  This one, is for you.

King Protea - South Africa's National Flower

South Africa's national flower is the King Protea.  The King Protea (Protea cynaroides) is the biggest flowering protea specie and forms part of the Cape Floral Kingdom (Fynbos). Protea cynaroides is a species of protea in the huge family Proteaceae which comprises about 80 genera with about 1600 species.  The name of the plant family Proteaceae as well as the genus Protea, both to which Protea cynaroides belongs to, derive from the name of the Greek god Proteus, a deity that was able to change between many forms. This is an appropriate image, seeing as both the family and the genus are known for their astonishing variety and diversity of flowers and leaves. The King Protea grows in a harsh environment with dry, hot summers and wet, cold winters.  Several adaptions include tough, leathery leaves, which helps to prevent excessive loss of moisture, and a large taproot which penetrates deep into the soil to reach underground moisture.  Like many other proteas the King Protea is adapted to an environment in which bushfires are essential for reproduction and regeneration.  The King Protea is also the symbol of South Africa's national cricket team.  

Proteas on the mountain

The Montagu Tractor Trip, one of the premier activities to do when visiting the Klein Karoo town of Montagu, takes place on a farm called Protea Farm about 35 km out of town.  When we arrived at the farm I didn't really notice any proteas, but as we travelled up the mountain they started to appear in the surrounding vegetation.  The surrounding mountains and valley made for some excellent backgrounds to photographing these proteas. 

Protea bugs

Caroline posted a picture of a protea with a bee in it over the weekend and I thought I should try and go one better.  Not the picture itself, but what is in the protea.  In this case not just one better, but many little flying insects.

Mountain Proteas

Whenever we went for a walk on one of the trails around the campsite and started climbing up the mountain side across the rolling hillsides, we would pass through a protea belt.  I was always under the impression that proteas, being a plant in the Fynbos (Cape Floral Kingdom) biome, only occurred in the Western and Eastern Cape, but quite clearly there is a protea specie that thrives at high altitude in the Drakensberg.  I'm not too sure what the specific specie is as most of the flowers have dried already, but I can imagine that the mountain would be even more beautiful when they are in full bloom.

UPDATE: As said in the comments below, this protea is a Sugerbush.

Pin Cushion

Closeup of a Pin Cushion Protea

Broad-leaf sugarbush

The Protea eximia or Broad-leaf sugerbush as its commonly known as, are quite widespread throughout the mountains of the Southern Cape, stretching from the mountains near Worcester through the Langeberg, Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma Mountains as far as Lady Slipper outside Port Elizabeth.  The Protea eximia flowers mainly from August to October and gets grown on Protea farms as they make a very good cut flower.  This one I photographed at the Van Stadens Wildflower Reserve near Port Elizabeth. 

For more information on this beautiful member of the Cape Floral Kingdom (Fynbos biome)visit SANBI (South African National Biodiversity Institute, South Africa)'s PlantZAfrica website.

King Protea

The King Protea (Protea cynaroides) probably the best know protea of all the different species and its very hard to not to see why.  The King Protea is also South Africa's National Flower and has pride of place on the chest of all sportsmen (and women) who represent the country.

The King Protea is one of the widest distributed of the Protea species and occur all the way from the Cederberg into the Eastern Cape east of Port Elizabeth.  The flowers grow on a woody shrub that normally grows about one meters high, but this can vary depending in the environment it grows in.

The King Protea is beautiful right from the time its a flower bud through to when it dries up.  The flower bud of the King Protea looks very similar to the globe artichoke vegetable.  The Latin name of the artichoke is Cynara scolymus and this lead to the botanist Linnaeus to give the species the name Protea cynaroides.

For more information on the King Protea or any other South African flowers, I find the PlantZAfrica website very useful.

Protea bug

When I was doing a bit of research for the post on Pin Cushion Proteas, I found the following information: "Proteas aren't self-pollinating and depend on the small scarab beetles and the birds for pollination."  Now I don't think this little dude sitting on the King Protea is a scarab beetle, but if he does the job who am I to question what he's doing there.

Pin Cushion Proteas

We headed out to the Van Stadens Wildflower Reserve west of Port Elizabeth the other day and found lots of Pin Cushion Proteas (Leucospermum cordifolium) in flower.  Caroline has pointed me to the PlantZAfrica website which has great information on South African plants and flowers. Pin Cushion Proteas are part of the Cape Floral Kingdom, better known as the Fynbos biome.  The Cape Floral Kingdom is indemic to South Africa and found mainly between the Cape West Coast area and Port Elizabeth. 

The Leucospermum cordifolium is a rounded spreading shrub up to 2 m in diameter and about 1,5 m high, with a single main stem and horizontally spreading stems, hard green leaves and 1 to 3 large inflorescences borne at the end on the stem.   The interesting part is that what we see as a flower is actually a large collection of small flowers.  Each of the pins of the "pin cushion" is the pistil of an individual flower.  The bright red, orange or yellow (depending on the colour of the flower) pointed end (stigma) is the female organ of the plant.  The flowers are not self-pollinating and depend on the small Scarab beetles and the birds for pollination.

As was amazed at the colours ranging from reddish to orange and yellow.  How fortunate we are indeed.  The most amazing part of the protea plants are that the hard nut like seeds are normally collected by ants, stored in the soil, and germinate only after a fire has killed the mature plants and returned the nutrients back to the soil.

Van Stadens Wild Flower Reserve

The Van Stadens Wild Flower Reserve is situated about 40 kilometers west of Port Elizabeth.  The reserve is 450 hectares in size and includes both pristine fynbos along the plateau and coastal forest in the gorge.  There are several hiking trails through the reserve and one of them will take you to the spot from where the Van Stadens Bridge is visible.  One of the magnificent flowers that grow in the reserve is the King Protea, South Africa's national flower.

Heather (also Erica)

Erica flowers are also commonly known as Heather or Heath.
Bursting forth in splendor, the Erica with its upright plumes of brilliant blossoms can be described as simply elegant. The colorful blossoms vary in size and shape (depending on the variety) from tiny to several inches in length but all the blossoms are exquisite in shape and detail. Ericas are native to South Africa with many species originating in the Southern Cape .

King Protea

A post or two ago I posted a pic of a King Protea bud and a couple of people asked me what it will look like when in full bloom. This past Sunday we spent most of the day in Settlers Park (of which I will still post more pics) and I found a King Protea in full bloom. The King Protea is South Africa's national flower and is part of the Cape Floral Kingdom (Fynbos biome) which is a UNESCO World Heritage Natural Site. A nice big King Protea can be about the length of a standard ruler (30 centimetres) from side to side.

Protea blooms

While waiting for Chaos Boy at trampolining the other evening (or actually late afternoon), I strolled around the church gardens to see if there were any flowers in bloom (what with it being spring and all). The light of the setting sun on the proteas were just perfect and I couldn't resist getting the camera out for a couple of shots. Both of these are about to blossom into full bloom, but isn't quite there yet.

King Protea

Pin cussion protea

Protea farming

In the area to the west of Port Elizabeth there are several protea farms, especially in the eastern part of the Tsitsikamma. Proteas (more here and here) form part of the Cape Floral Kingdom or Fynbos biome. There are 8500 different plan species in the Fynbos biome, more than all the plant types in the whole of Britain. It is the world's smallest biome and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site (natural site) a couple of years ago.

On this farm they grow many different proteas as they flower at various times of the year and there is a demand all year around. This specific picture is the buds of the King Protea , South Africa's national flower.

All the flowers are picked by hand by the staff and transported to the shed where it is sorted. This specific protea is not really a flower but can be described more as coloured leaves. These are called Safari Sunsets.

In the shed they are sorted, pruned and stored in cold storage. From here they get packaged and most of them are exported. The biggest export markets are the flower markets of the Nederlands as well as Britain. One of the places that sell proteas from this specific farm is Harrods in London. Not too shabby.

King Protea

Sticking to the Protea theme of yesterday, I decided post a pic of South Africa's national flower. This the the King Protea and is one of the most awesome flowers you'll ever see. This one I also photographed in the Van Stadens Wildflower Reserve west of Port Elizabeth

Pin Cushion Proteas

The pin cushion protea is on of the 8500 species of plants that you find in the Fynbos biome. This plant kingdom is also called the Cape Floral Kingdom and was proclaimed an UNESCO natural World Heritage Site a couple of years ago. Six nature reserves were selected to represent the status. Five of those are in the Western Cape and one in the Eastern Cape. The Eastern Cape one is the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area about 100 odd km west of Port Elizabeth. This photo was taken in the Van Stadens Wildflower Reserve, also just west of the city.