Welwitschia: curious cone-bearer of the Namib

This is no ordinary tree trunk.

It was a hot afternoon during my freshman year and I was trying to find my botany professor's office. Sweat running down my spine, already late for organic chemistry, lost in the basement of the Botany building. I turned a corner and came face-to-face with the giant, scalloped remains of a welwitschia, mounted on a pedestal. Clutching the ethnobotany paper I was meant to submit that day, I just stood there, enraptured, mesmerized. It resembled something creepily organic, like Martian fungus, or at least something indecent that had sprouted from the sea floor. Certainly not a tree trunk. I never made it to organic chemistry that day.

Welwitschia mirabilis makes the scorching Namib desert its home.

Not only is Welwitschia mirabilis the solitary member of its genus, but it is also the only member of its family, the Welwitschiaceae. In fact, it is taxonomically so bizarre and so unique that it has been given its own order. The only other species that appear to be (quite distant) kin are the joint-pines of genus Ephedra. Wait, did I say joint-pine?! Yes, I did. For the welwitschia is a short, stunted gymnosperm and bears its seeds in cones, just like pines, firs and spruces. Think about that for a while. This weird tree is found only in the Namib desert of Namibia and Angola, a habitat as different from a dark northern forest as any, the oldest desert on the planet. It is estimated that welwitschias have been growing here for nearly 100 million years, and that they haven't changed much during that time. The welwitschia has many fascinating adaptations that allow it to thrive in this harsh climate. It survives in places where it sometimes doesn't rain for years, subsisting solely on the fog that rolls in from the Atlantic at dawn.

Alien vegetable forms dot the landscape inside Messum Crater, Namibia.

Its short woody stem is unbranched, but grows wider with age to form a crenulated woody bowl that can be a meter in diameter. Like most moisture-dependent desert plants, welwitschias are pretty slow-growing: it is estimated that large specimens with leaves in excess of 6 m long may be more than 1,500 years old. From the margins of the crested stem sprout what appear to be a myriad of strappy leaves. 

A large specimen in the Namib-Naukluft National Park.

Their appearance is deceptive. In fact, the welwitschia only produces two opposing leaves that continue to grow throughout the life of the plant, becoming split and shredded through the action of sand and wind and centuries. The shredded leaves become a trap for wind-blown debris, enriching the sandy soil around the plant and providing shelter for insects, spiders and lizards. Welwitschias have a large taproot to pull moisture from deep underground, and also a network of short fibrous roots near the surface to help them absorb water from ocean fog that condenses on the leaves and rolls to the ground. In a way, these plants engineer their own microclimate to ensure their survival in extremely arid surroundings.

Welwitschia bugs on the cones of a female plant.

As I mentioned, the reproductive structures of Welwitschias are cones, like those of cypresses and cycads. Male and female plants exist separately, bearing different types of cones. Male cones produce pollen, but not in copious amounts like those of wind-pollinated pine trees do. Instead, they rely on insect pollinators to carry their precious cargo to a receptive female plant. The plants are often found crawling with yellow or vermilion coloured welwitschia bugs, Probergrothius sexpunctatis, attracted by the sweet nectar secreted by the immature cones. However, these bugs don't seem to be the pollinators, and other insects have been suggested as the culprits, including flies and wasps. In the unforgiving desert, welwitschias have maximized their chances of survival, especially at the vulnerable seedling stage. When released from mature cones, welwitschia seeds may remain dormant in the sandy soil for several years until heavy rains come to the Namib. Only then does a new generation of Welwitschia mirabilis germinate. All in unison.  

Picture credits:
Welwitschia trunk by Routard05
Welwitschia in habitat by Derek Keats
Messum Crater by intelligentinfo
Naukluft specimen by Joachim Huber
Bugs on cones by Jerry Oldenettel

"We should have been foaming at the mouth..."

It was late-July and the Rocky Mountain orchid season was drawing to a close. When two good friends, First Man* and CJ*, invited me to accompany them on a hike in the mountains around Breckenridge, I didn't hesitate. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to go hunting for terrestrial orchids. I had visions of us locating great species, like the spotted coralroot, the roundleaf orchid, or perhaps the glorious yellow lady's slipper - if we got particularly lucky. Instead, what we managed to do was prove that even three plant scientists, armed to the back teeth with guide books, can still be quite naive and actually very stupid when left to their own devices in the wilderness...

The weather was absolutely perfect as we breached 11,000 ft. in the shadow of Quandary Peak. The mountain itself, highest in the Tenmile Range at 14,265 ft., was teeming with climbers trying to reach the summit. However, we weren't there to test our mountaineering skills. We were there to revel in the botanical splendour that is the alpine summer. When warmth and liquid water have been absent for so long, plants seem to put in extra metabolic effort to really make the most of these summer resources. Wildflowers were everywhere: columbines with their bi-coloured cups; whiproot clover hugging the scree slopes; violets; forget-me-nots; saxifrage and primrose shimmering on the banks of streams; red and yellow paintbrush; asters and monkshood competing to see who had the most intense shade of purple. And higher up, their petals shredded by howling winds, alpine sunflowers. I started to feel giddy from all the biodiversity around me. Or it may have been the altitude, it's difficult to tell. No sign of a single orchid, though. Were we too late? Had they all gone?

We rounded a corner on the trail and came across a stand of the most peculiar plant (above). We stopped dead in our tracks. It was beautiful. Mid-green, pleated leaves bursting towards the sky from large clumps. We had to know what this thing was, taxonomically pin it down on the herbarium cards inside our heads. You could tell by the venation of the leaves that what we had here was a monocot. Which still meant it could be any one of around 60,000 species of plants. Was it some sort of lily? Or was it Cypripedium parviflorum, the yellow lady's slipper orchid? I so desperately wanted it to be the latter. Slippers are unmistakable in bloom, but this one didn't have a single flower on it. So as geeks do in situations like these, we whipped out the guide books. Mine had a lot of interesting text, but the pictures, frankly, were total crap. CJ's book contained more flower porn than you could shake a large stick at, so we elected to look through hers first.

Nothing. Couldn't find this thing at all. Looked through my book next, but to no avail. Mosquitoes started buzzing around our heads. It was time to move on. The trail was marked on First Man's GPS, so we could always come back this way if we didn't see it again. As we were hiking past stone cairns piled by previous explorers, CJ and I decided that it just might be an orchid, since the leaves looked so similar. Here's a picture of the yellow lady's slipper (left). Wouldn't you agree? Big, mid-green, pleated leaves. Identical. Especially because I wanted it to be identical. Which was a big mistake. We finally found another clump of the mystery plant. Against our better judgement (and park regulations, possibly) CJ and I waded into it. We stood waist-deep in the stuff. CJ caressed the leaves with her fingers, as I turned them upside-down to scrutinize the surprisingly hairy undersides. I almost suggested digging one up to look at its root structure (since terrestrial orchids generally have distinctive underground tubers), but luckily the environmentalist in me vetoed that idea.

Then we noticed the inflorescences. Two plants way in the back of the clump had the beginnings of enormous flower spikes forming, with lots of tiny, green undeveloped flowers forming. This was the evidence that shattered the fantasy. This was clearly no orchid, but something entirely different. In the end, we hiked all the way above treeline, to hidden lakes, and all the way back down again, without discovering any orchids. I had a truly terrific time, of course, but the orchid hunter in me was disappointed. We also failed to uncover the identity of the mystery plant, which was most unsatisfying. So that evening, after dinner and in the warm comfort of the cabin, we turned to every scientist's last resort. We Googled it.

Guessing that its colloquial name may have the word "lily" in it (don't they all?) I spent some time doing image searches with various forms of "lily" or "lilies" and "Rockies" or "Rocky Mountains". And then I found it: Veratrum californicum, the corn lily. Without a doubt. CJ and I excitedly grabbed our guide books again. Interestingly enough, the plant and related species were listed in both our books. The images were just really bad likenesses, so we had simply ignored those entries while on the mountain. Once again, a mistake, as we discovered when I read aloud from the entry in my book.

This plant, also known as the California false hellebore, is poisonous. And not just poisonous, the book informed us. Violently poisonous. "Eating even small amounts can result in unconsciousness, followed by death," we were informed. The symptoms of corn lily poisoning apparently include, "frothing at the mouth, blurred vision, lock-jaw, vomiting and diarrhea" and "people have reported stomach cramps after drinking water in which this plant was growing". Geez. We'd been waist-deep in them, touching their furry leaves. A brush with death, literally. Native Americans used to boil the roots and use the resulting extract to kill lice. I was suddenly very glad I had elected not to dig one up. Veratrum californicum contains the teratogenic alkaloids jervine and cyclopamine, which cause major birth defects such as cyclopia. Oh dear.

Just the week before, I had finished reading Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart - a beautiful and fascinating book all about spiky, toxic, invasive and poisonous plants. How ironic. I guess I learned two valuable lesssons on this trip. One: just because you want something to be true, it doesn't necessarily make it so. Two: assume every creature unfamiliar to you will try to kill you somehow. We so desperately wanted to find an orchid that we did things against our better judgement. Even in the mountains, orchids cast their crazy spell. Days later, when we'd all gone back to work, I noticed that CJ had changed her Facebook status to read, "After seeing the photos... we should have been foaming at the mouth".

*Names have been changed to protect the ignorant.

Photography credit: alpine meadow and Veratrum californicum © The Electric Orchid Hunter (that's me!); Cypripedium parviflorum © David Tees and Melanie Schori

The Kerguelen Cabbage

It was widely believed during the 18th century that a massive southern continent must exist in order to balance out the landmasses of the northern hemisphere. King Louis XV wanted to claim this Terra Australis for France, and commissioned Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec, an ambitious naval officer, to set out for the Southern Ocean in search of it and to establish trade with its natives.

       Braving stormy seas, De Kerguelen discovered an island wreathed in fog on February 12th, 1772. The island was midway between South Africa and Australia, and right in the path of the Furious Fifties: non-stop Antarctic winds that howled across its barren surface from the west. Wind speeds in excess of 150 kph drove waves as high as 15 m around its ragged coastline cut by fjords and inlets. No trees grew there; the interior was almost entirely covered by glaciers. After several expeditions - not all of which made landfall in the rough seas - it became clear that the island was uninhabitable and not the southern counterpart to France everyone had hoped for. Disillusioned, King Louis XV had De Kerguelen incarcerated at Saumur Château for almost four years. Conveniently for De Kerguelen, the French Revolution occurred soon after. Since he was regarded as a victim of the Ancien Régime, he was released and eventually became Rear Admiral and commander of the port of Brest. De Kerguelen died in 1797. But what became of his island, you ask?

 

On Christmas Day 1776, Captain James Cook anchored the HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery in a bay on an uninhabited island in the Southern Ocean. Cook decided to call the bay Christmas Harbour and the island itself Desolation Island. While Cook's men explored the shore, one found a bottle fastened with some wire to a projecting rock on the north side of the bay. Inside the bottle was a message, written in Latin by one of De Kerguelen's company, Officer De Rochegude of the French frigate L'Oisseau. The message claimed the island in the name of the King of France. Cook wrote in his log, "I could have very properly called the island Desolation Island… but in order not to deprive M. De Kerguelen of the glory of having discovered it, I have called it Kerguelen Land." 

And so Kerguelen Island was discovered and named. It remains a French territory to this day. Although the frozen continent of Antarctica was discovered in 1820, perhaps De Kerguelen was not entirely off the mark when he claimed that his island was Terra Australis. In fact, modern surveys of ocean floor topography have revealed that several islands of the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean are actually the highest exposures of an ancient landmass which sank beneath the surface of the sea about 20 million years ago. This submerged landmass has been named the Kerguelen Plateau. Rich underwater coal seams have been discovered here, evidence of expansive forests that once covered this lost continent.

Captain James Cook and his men were exploring Kerguelen Island in 1776, clubbing seals on the shore and collecting fresh water further inland, when William Anderson, Cook's surgeon, came upon a most curious plant. He described it thus: "It was not unlike a small cabbage," having "not only the appearance, but the watery acid taste of the antiscorbutics."It did resemble the Savoy cabbage, but seemed to be a slow growing perennial, as evidenced by its long woody stem. The leaves of this Kerguelen cabbage contained a pale yellow oil, rich in vitamin C.  Having spent months at sea, Cook and his men staved off scurvy by supplementing their meals of seal meat with boiled Kerguelen cabbage. Boiling released all its essential oils, making it even more pungent, but the malnourished seamen took no notice of its strong taste reminiscent of watercress or horseradish. Anderson gave it its scientific name of Pringlea, after Sir John Pringle, who was president of the Royal society at the time.

The Kerguelen cabbage had to await the arrival of the Ross Expedition in 1840, before it received a full scientific description. Sir Joseph Hooker, assistant surgeon on the HMS Erebus, catalogued 18 flowering plants, 35 mosses and liverworts, 25 lichens and 51 algae during the Expedition's time on the island, but called the Kerguelen cabbage "perhaps the most interesting plant procured during the whole voyage in the Antarctic".  It was given its full name of Pringlea antiscorbutica, emphasizing its use as a remedy against scurvy. It provided much-needed sustenance to the crew of the Ross Expedition. As Hooker wrote: "During the whole stay of Erebus and Terror in Christmas Harbour, daily use was made of the vegetable, either cooked by itself or boiled with the ships' beef, pork, or pea-soup; the essential oil gives a peculiar flavour which the majority of the officers and crew did not dislike and which rendered the herb more wholesome than the common cabbage for it never caused heartburn, or any of the unpleasant symptoms which that plant sometimes produces." Hooker rightly predicted that the cabbage would be a blessing to future ships that passed by. 

In May of 1973, a letter from a curious reader appeared in the journal Nature, asking whether the scientists on board the HMS Challenger, then bound for Kerguelen to observe the 1874 transit of Venus, would try to collect seeds of the cabbage, so that it may be introduced on the shores of northern Europe and America. Because of its achingly slow growth and predilection for the cold, this feat was thought impossible. Recently, Canberra botanists have managed to successfully grow Pringlea antiscorbutica at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, demonstrating its commercial potential. Perhaps soon Kerguelen cabbage will be de rigueur on the menus of fancy restaurants the world over. Peppery Kergeulen cabbage with smoked salmon and lemon vinaigrette – an acquired taste, I’m sure.

Contrary to its common name, the Kerguelen cabbage is not restricted to Kerguelen Island. It grows on several sub-Antarctic islands, including the Crozet Archipelago, Heard Island, the McDonald Islands, and the Prince Edward Islands. Because of the non-stop strong winds, these islands don't have any winged insects. The Kerguelen cabbage, which is indeed related to the common cabbage and other crucifers, has therefore evolved to be wind-pollinated. It has also evolved to produce high levels of compounds called polyamines in its leaves, which act as a natural antifreeze. 

The 1874 Challenger expedition to Kerguelen brought rabbits from South Africa with it. These would serve as a food source for the sealers and whalers that regularly passed by the area. However, with no natural enemies, the rabbit population exploded, causing severe erosion and unprecedented damage to the island’s plant life.  Where rabbits grazed, plants like the Kerguelen cabbage and the cushion plant (Azorella selago) quickly became rare. The Kerguelen cabbage seemed destined to survive only on small offshore islands free from rabbits. The rabbit myxoma virus was introduced in the 1950s in an attempt to control the population. The rabbits rapidly developed resistance against the virus. It gets worse. Climate change is hastening the spread of plant species introduced from warmer environments. In 2004, a rabbit removal study indicated that the rabbits on Kerguelen Island might now be a necessary evil, required to keep the spread of such exotic plant species at bay. 

       Kerguelen and its surrounding islands are now home to rabbits, rats, mice, cats, sheep and reindeer. Rats and mice eat the seeds of native plants unchecked, since the cats seem more intent on catching seabirds than vermin. Reindeer consume all the slow-growing lichens. Sheep trample the meadows where cushion plants used to provide shelter for albatross nests. Intentionally or accidentally, we are responsible for the introduction of these creatures. What will happen to the Kerguelen cabbage, this wondrous vegetable that saved the lives of so many sailors in centuries past? 

       What have we done to Terra Australis? 

Image credits: Kerguelen Island © Pascal Subtil; 'View of Christmas Harbour' by John Webber (1776) © British Library; 'Pringlea antiscorbutica' by Joseph Hooker (1844) © Linda Hall Library; Kerguelen cabbage in situ © Station Alpine Joseph Fourier; and © Australian Antarctic Division.

(E&E)² tales: The summit of Mount Mabu [4/4]

It had been raining heavily all night long. Leaves glistened in the stifling understory; mist rose from the damp ground. Alan’s backpack was soaked through and the Garmin GPS kept cutting out, making it difficult to pinpoint the coordinates of some of the plants they collected. He was secretly glad when Olivia stopped to refill her water bottle. Above them, insects throbbed their mating calls on the limbs of trees. His quads burned from climbing uphill virtually non-stop for two days. The things he’d seen. He was teetering at that narrow interface between exhilaration and exhaustion.

The site was amazing: 7,000 hectares of virtually unexplored medium-altitude forest. The only access road ended several kilometers away at a disintegrating tea estate, long abandoned. They had left the Land Cruiser among the collapsing ruins and hiked the rest of the way. The name Mount Mabu does not occur in classic plant collection records from northern Mozambique. After decades of civil war, local people were only now returning to the area. Most were unaware that the mountain even had a name. And now the scientists from the Darwin Initiative had already collected more than 500 different specimens of plants and animals here. They’ve done pretty well themselves, Alan thought. He’d recorded almost thirty succulents so far, and collected a number of specimens. If only he had coordinates for all of them. Cataloguing is going to be a nightmare when he got back to UCT. Olivia was growing more sullen with each step, though; there was still no sign of the Polystachya orchid. She’d hardly spoken a word in the last four hours.

Olivia straightened. ‘My God, Alan, a huge snake,’ she said levelly.

‘Just stand back and don’t bother it,’ Alan responded. ‘Just let it pass.’

‘I think it’s dead, actually. This big guy isn’t going anywhere.’

‘Are you sure it’s not just playing dead?’ Alan exhaled, slowly.

‘It’s a Gaboon viper, Bitis gabonica. I don’t think thanatosis is in its repertoire.’ Olivia meticulously stripped the leaves off a fallen branch. ‘But massive amounts of haemotoxin is,’ she continued. ‘They’ve got the largest fangs of any venomous snake. Here, look.’ With this she forced the dead viper’s jaws open with the end of the branch. At the lips and especially surrounding the giant fangs, the inside of the snake’s mouth was studded with glistening brown ticks. Alan wanted to look away. ‘I guess it must have died of infection,’ Olivia said, dropping the branch. ‘Ticks are vectors for all sorts of diseases.’

In a nearby sycamore fig with peeling yellow bark, samango monkeys twittered like birds. Elephant shrews scurried around in the dark, somewhere in the underbrush. A chameleon jerked and staggered towards a mantis, actors in their own silent film. The blue and brown discs of bracket fungi were slowly decomposing a fallen trunk, already in the shadow of saplings that raced skyward to fill the tear in the canopy. It was so hot. This forest seemed inordinately alive. Metabolic. More so than any place Alan could remember from previous fieldtrips. It was almost unimaginable that somewhere outside this verdant realm people busied themselves with their own cycle of birth and life and death. Nurses administered drugs to expectant mothers so that their unborn children wouldn’t share their fate; teenage heads of households sold scrap metal on the dusty streets of Mozambique’s villages; men woke up in the dark to stand in line outside clinics, not aware that their tuberculosis is multidrug-resistant; women planted maize where Renamo militia once planted landmines. Alan thought of all this as he clambered over lichen-covered boulders after Olivia, who was randomly taking photographs. Suddenly they broke through the canopy at the summit of Mount Mabu, and the light was bright, and there were white butterflies everywhere.

The forest they had traversed rolled into the distance beneath them. Above, every layer of the sky was filled with small white butterflies. Some of them were so high up, lifted by air currents, that Alan couldn’t be sure whether they were butterflies or just floaters in the vitreous humour of his own eyeballs. It was quiet. Millions of minute wings flapped continuously, soundlessly.

‘Mass migration,’ Olivia said from a nearby rock. ‘They’re all heading northwest.’ Alan didn’t say anything. For in the back of his mind, an awful thing had sprouted. A parasitic thought had innervated his brain, like dodder inserts itself into the vessels of a host plant. I am going to die here, he thought. In that very moment, their whole excursion seemed like such a dreadful mistake. Planned in secret, organized in haste; the head of his department didn’t even know that he was gone. Was he really that arrogant that he thought this would work? He’d never done anything this impulsive before, and suddenly it terrified him. He was getting sick, he knew. Even with the heat and the humidity, he knew that he must have a fever. He awaited the quivering of his soft palate, that gentle prickling at the back of his throat that heralds the onset of symptoms. It was just a question of time. He had to hide it from Olivia. Avoid panic. Don’t let her know -

‘Dr. Schroder!’ Alan looked up. He had a vague notion that Olivia had been calling his name for quite some time. ‘I said, I’ll give you the photos, so you can share them with Daniel. We may never see such a thing again. Marvelous creatures, insects.’ It was late afternoon, and the butterflies had not stopped. ‘I’m just a bit disappointed that we never managed to find a Polystachya songaniensis. We recorded so many natural clearings and stream banks. I really thought those would be prime habitat.’ Olivia sighed. ‘Perhaps it just doesn’t occur here after all.’

‘Yeah,’ Alan ventured. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

‘I guess I could always try and get DNA from one of those epiphytic orchids you collected earlier today. What was it, Mystacidium?’

‘Aerangis. But I’m not sure of the species.’ The wind started to pick up. The heads of thunderclouds were abuzz with lightning on the horizon to the north. Another wet evening was coming. What do butterflies do when it rains? he wondered. ‘Listen,’ Alan said and cleared his throat. ‘Don’t you think we should start looking for a suitable spot to make camp? It’ll be dark sooner than we think.’

‘Alright,’ Olivia said, strapping on her backpack. ‘Let me just take a picture of those clouds.’ She stepped right up to the edge of the summit, her eyes fixed on the screen of her camera. ‘The light is really good right now.’ And with that Olivia slid on some loose rocks and plunged down a ravine.

To Alan it seemed like he was watching it from outside himself, from a viewpoint away from the summit, somehow suspended next to the mountain in mid-air. He watched as she fell several meters towards a rocky ledge. He watched as her left ankle was jammed between large boulders studded with aloes, their succulent leaves sparkling like jade in the afternoon glow. He watched as the momentum of her descent swung her around, pivoted her around her jammed ankle with an audible snap of bone and tendon. He watched as her skull connected with the rock of the cliff. He watched all of this from outside himself. A few seconds of quiet. Olivia’s camera smashed into pieces at the bottom of the ravine. Alan’s next thought was that he would now never be able to share the butterfly migration with Daniel.  The weight of her backpack wedged her ankle firmly into the crevice. Olivia hung down there, out of reach and limp, like someone who had been crucified upside-down. Unconscious? Dead? Alan had no way of knowing, and no way of getting to her.

It was all such a dreadful mistake. Shouting her name had no effect. Alan had to get off the mountain as fast as possible, seek help. He did the only thing he could think of: he ran. It didn’t matter that it took them two days of hiking to get there from where they left the Land Cruiser. It didn’t matter that the nearest civilization was half a day’s drive away. It didn’t matter that his skin was ripped by thorns and branches slashing at him as he ran. Nothing mattered, apart from his muscles propelling him down the jungled slopes. He tried to ignore the soreness at the back of his throat, tried to ignore the swollen lymph nodes down the side of his neck. This is how you die, Alan thought. Not in a car on the highway. Not on the treadmill in the gym. Not in a comfortable bed, surrounded by people you love. This is how you die: small and alone in the woods, by claws and venom and poisonous sap. Viruses wait in the dark forest for you, have been waiting for thousands of years for people to come and reawaken them and absorb them and take them to the cities.

It was dusk when Alan ran into a forest clearing. Alan stopped to catch his breath and take a drink. It was a rocky patch next to a stream, populated by grasses and aloes. The soil was too shallow for large trees here. Growing between the rocks, almost hidden by tall grass, Alan saw the orchid. From Olivia’s descriptions and botanical illustrations at the Compton Herbarium, it was undeniably Polystachya songaniensis. None of that seemed to matter now. Rosettes of green leaves supported tall inflorescences with several small blooms. They were everywhere in the clearing, all around him. For some reason, Alan had assumed the flowers would be blood red, but they weren’t. The flowers were pink.

 

Image credit: Road to Mount Mabu © Julian Bayliss, Kew. Read more about the real expedition to Mount Mabu here.

(E&E)² tales: The summit of Mount Mabu [3/4]

A tremendous cacophony rumbled through the Hospital Rural de Mocuba as a troupe of vervet monkeys rattled across its corrugated iron roof. The village of Mocuba was to be the botanists’ last stop-over, the last outpost of civilization, before they reached the forests of Mount Mabu.

 ‘I’m surprised by how organized everything is. I kind of wasn’t expecting that,’ Alan said, idly scratching at an insect bite.

‘With new funding, is possible,’ Eduardo said. ‘We start our ARV program soon.’

‘ARV?’ Olivia asked.

‘Antiretroviral treatment program,’ Eduardo explained, without elaborating. In northern Mozambique, living with HIV is seemingly as normal as living with pollen allergies in Cape Town. ‘Come, I show you cholera ward. Is new.’ Alan and Olivia followed Eduardo down a long unlit corridor. In the hallway was a little bench on which five women, dressed in colourful skirts and tattered T-shirts, were waiting to be seen by a clinical officer; they passed them in silence. Both botanists were sweating, but the small Portuguese doctor didn’t seem to notice the heat or the humidity at all. They turned into a large room that smelled of fresh paint, containing forty low stretcher beds in neat rows.

‘European Union initiative,’ Eduardo said, gesturing to all the empty beds. ‘Now after the civil war, is possible for Mozambique to prosper. ’ Each stretcher bed had a circular hole cut into the canvas, with a plastic tub positioned underneath it. Alan briefly thought about what the plastic tubs were for, and shuddered. He could tell by the look on Olivia’s face that she had thought about it, too.

‘Seems like you’re ready for the worst,’ she said weakly.

‘We had a big cholera outbreak in the spring. Many hundreds of people were brought here, but is not possible to treat them with drugs. This cholera is resistant to tetracycline antibiotic, you see. Is only possible to give oral rehydration therapy. Then we hope for the best.’ Alan desperately wanted to go outside. The paint fumes were giving him a headache. It was time to leave the village.

‘Dr. Texeira, it’s been a pleasure and an honour to stay with you and meet your family. May you continue to do good work here at the hospital,’ Alan said, shaking Eduardo’s hand.

‘Give my love to Christina. She’s been so kind to us,’ Olivia said.

‘Please, the pleasure has been all ours. Good luck on your little trip. I hope is possible to find the flower, yes?’

Pressure drops. Temperature rises. It was still sunny, but thunderclouds the colour of basalt were piling on the horizon, beyond the plots of cassava and fields of sugarcane. The Land Cruiser was loaded and ready, but Olivia wanted to buy sundried fruit and cashews from the roadside vendors before they left. There were children everywhere: balancing rusted scrap metal on their heads, laughing; chasing chickens; kicking a weathered football around, their toes stained red from the dusty streets. It was so hot. They walked past a crumbling Portuguese church, shot to pieces twenty years ago and never rebuilt. Some houses had roofs of corrugated iron, others were thatched with palm fronds. All had stands of banana and papaya growing by the front door. Alan caught himself wishing for a moment that he could share this with Daniel, that Daniel was with him. A group of girls were washing clothes in the Licungo River. Although Alan had been told stories, he hadn’t actually seen any crocodiles on its banks so far, nor did the girls seem much concerned by the possibility of reptilian predators lurking in the brown water.

The shacks were built right up to the banks of the river, right among the reeds. They would most certainly all be submerged during a flood, he thought. He was right. This is the place where nature wipes the slate clean. This is the place where people start anew, building on yesterday’s tragedy.

 

Image credit: Hospital Rural de Mocuba © Christopher van Belle

(E&E)² tales: The summit of Mount Mabu [2/4]

Olivia squeezed lemon juice over her calamari salad. It was a quiet evening at Arnold’s on Kloof Street, which by Cape Town standards meant the average wait for a table was around 15 minutes.

‘How’s the ostrich?’ she enquired, absently licking a finger.

‘Rather tender,’ Alan responded, still mulling over the expression on Daniel’s face when he’d dropped him off in Observatory on his way over. ‘Although, I’d prefer it more well-done. I never claimed to have a very sophisticated palate.’

‘Apparently, they suspect arson. Too many bushfires at too many locations to just be random. Such a shame. All those grapes. All that wine.’

‘I wonder if it will spread all the way to the Hex River Valley. They have some really excellent vineyards there,’ Alan sighed.

‘Oh, that’s where I grew up!’ Olivia brightened. ‘De Doorns, with the snowy peaks of the Hex River Mountains all around!’

‘Now I understand how you got into botany. There’s a lot of cool stuff that grows there and nowhere else.’

‘And now you understand why I’m totally crazy and you shouldn’t be going on collecting trips with me. My dad always said I had a little bit of The Witch in me,’ Olivia said, bringing a glass to her lips.

‘Witch?’ Alan asked, perplexed.

‘You know. It’s a folktale. The Witch of the Hex River Mountains.’ Olivia squinted at Alan’s apparent ignorance. ‘It’s even got an orchid in it. Surely you must have heard it before. No?’ So the evening progressed with Olivia telling Alan the story as her lips were stained successively darker shades with glass after glass of Pinotage.

 

In the whole of the Hex River Valley, there was no-one as beautiful as Eliza, the only daughter of Jacob Meiring. Charmed suitors came to the Meiring farm from far and wide to court her, but none could win her hand. The truth is that Eliza was too proud. Because of her conceit, countless men left the Meiring farm with empty hands and broken hearts. One day, a young man named Filip appeared. He was different from the rest. He sat upright on his horse. His hands knew what hard work felt like. He had a clear laugh, clear as snowmelt. Eliza knew that this was the man she had been waiting for. But she was still proud, and therefore decided to send Filip on a quest. She said, 'Pick the red disa orchid that only grows on the Matroosberg, the highest peak in the Hex River Mountains. Bring it to me so that I may know you are worthy of my love.' Without a moment's hesitation, Filip set off on his mission, riding upright on his horse towards the gravelly mountain paths. He tied his horse to a wild almond and continued on foot. Filip climbed the steep slopes with a smile, higher and higher. When he thought of Eliza, his laughter was clear, like snowmelt. Filip climbed up the dangerous mountains, his hands cut by the jagged rocks. Then he saw the red disa blooming above him on the sheer cliffs. 'At last. Come, my bride awaits,' he whispered, hugging the rock. But as he reached up and snapped the stem of the orchid, the rock beneath his feet crumbled and he fell to his doom. When Eliza heard of Filip's death, she became delirious. Her father locked her in the attic of the farm house, but to no avail. In her grief she found inhuman strength: one night she broke the shutters from the window and escaped, her despair driving her barefoot up the mountain paths. She was never seen again. Everyone who worked the Meiring farm searched and searched, but the only trace that remained of Eliza was a red shawl, snagged in a wild almond at the foot of the Matroosberg. Not long after, the people of the valley started talking, as people do. 'Her beauty bewitched a young man. Her pride cost a young man his life,' they said. 'The witch got what she deserved,' they agreed. 'Her soul will have no rest as she searches for her Filip, even though she will never find him.' Even today, whenever the wind howls around the peaks of the Hex River Mountains, it does so in the anguished wail of a witch. And when the moon glimmers on the first snows of winter, they say that Eliza Meiring walks the mountain paths of the Hex River Valley.

 

Image credit: Hex River Valley © Mike

(E&E)² tales: The summit of Mount Mabu [1/4]

Alan awoke to find his pillowcase covered in blood. Harsh mid-morning sun streamed in through the window. Daniel must have opened the blinds before he left for work.

Alan tightened his grip on the toothbrush as he calculated that this was his fourth nocturnal nosebleed of the year. The first quarter at UCT was still six weeks away. He rinsed the razor under the tap as the reporter on 567 CapeTalk mentioned that Sir Lowry’s Pass was closed to all tourist traffic because of choking smoke. There were fires everywhere. From the historic Vergelegen wine estate in Somerset West to the township of Khayelitsha out on The Flats, it seemed that the whole peninsula would eventually succumb to the blaze. The hot and windy weather was set to continue all through January.

Using the wipers, Alan removed a fine layer of ash that had accumulated on his windshield, before driving up to Kirstenbosch. Table Mountain looked much like it always did, but there was something weird about the light today, as if everything was observed through a layer of insipid tea.

 

The modest 1930s architecture of the Compton Herbarium hugged the lower terraces of Kirstenbosch. It held almost a million specimens in its collection, mostly of South African plants, but also a few important species from other parts of the world.

‘Dr. Schroder,’ Alan repeated to the young woman at the front desk. ‘I have an appointment with Dr. Kennon at ten-thirty.’

‘Ooh… okay,’ she said eventually, lifting the receiver. ‘I’ll check to see if she’s in. Please sign the visitor’s book and have a seat.’ The girl seemed really young and a tad overanxious. Must be a first year student on a summer internship, he thought to himself. They always end up spending most of it indoors, making copies and manning the front desk.

‘Alan, after all the emails it’s great to finally get a chance to talk in person.’ Olivia Kennon appeared in the doorway. ‘Although, I have actually heard you speak, at that sustainable development conference in Johannesburg last year.’

‘I hope that didn’t bore you too much. I tend to go off on tangents at times.’

‘No-no, on the contrary, the tangents were a welcome break from all those boring talks on carbon credits and environmental policy. Please.’ Olivia showed Alan to a small conference table in the library, which smelled of crumbling monographs and ozone from the photocopier.

They started drawing up equipment lists and designing an itinerary. It was an impromptu thing, this fieldtrip, hardly more than a month or so in the planning.

‘So the main thing I want to do when we get to the site is to collect DNA samples and herbarium material of Polystachya songaniensis.’

‘That’s a terrestrial orchid, isn’t it?’ interrupted Alan.

‘Yes,’ continued Olivia. ‘Now, it’s known from Malawian accessions, but has never been reported from Mozambique at all. I believe that genetic analysis of this little orchid would provide me with supporting evidence that all of the isolated islands of Afromontane forest used to be connected in one large megaforest that pretty much covered all of south-eastern Africa.’

‘That is, until the climate changed and all the species had to seek refuge on the cool, wet mountaintops.’

‘Exactly.’ Olivia was thrilled that Alan saw the connection. ‘Oh, and I also promised a colleague in Pretoria I’d collect some lichens for him. He’s quite excited.’

‘I’m just excited to get out there. Ever since those Darwin Initiative guys from Kew discovered it, I’ve been dying to go and do a proper census of all the caudiciform succulents, perhaps with a slight emphasis on the Euphorbiaceae.’ Alan grinned.

‘Should have known you’d be interested in all that weird stuff.’ They tried to stifle their academic chuckles in the quiet of the library. ‘Are you going to involve any of your students?’

‘No, it’s too short notice, really.’ Alan paused. ‘You realize we might get several papers out of this,’ he said, imagining the grants pouring in.

For more than two hours, the botanists talked excitedly, bouncing around ideas, debating dubious taxonomy, arguing about GPS receivers and the merits of different malaria prophylactics. Then, Olivia looked at her watch and said, ‘Well, Dr. Schroder, I am glad we had this opportunity to discuss our expedition. Unfortunately, I have a series of afternoon meetings I need to attend.’

‘That’s always how it goes at the start of the year, I guess,’ Alan said, getting up from the table. ‘I suppose I should get to campus. I’m lecturing a second year course in plant diversity and I still need to draw up some sort of study guide.’

‘Why don’t we continue this tomorrow over dinner?’ Olivia suggested. Alan found himself strangely attracted to Olivia, on a cerebral level. They shared an intellectual connection, something Alan felt had been lacking in his life lately. No matter how much Daniel seemed to care about him, he never did laugh at Alan’s science jokes.

 

Image credit: Cape Town Fire © Web Design Cape Town