Colours of Wildlife: Moletjie Nature Reserve
Created | Updated Oct 12, 2024
Moletjie Nature Reserve
We were a decent-sized group, mostly of students at the Limpopo University, together with a couple of friends: Prince, who's a student and very interested in overall ecology and biodiversity, Troos who's an excellent amateur botanist, and Ntsakisi who works for the Millennium Seed Bank and is based in Venda. Our trip was to the Moletjie Nature Reserve, about 30 km north-northwest from Polokwane. It's a hidden gem – hardly anyone knows of it, there are no signposts or directions towards it, and it can be accessed only by pretty poor dirt roads. But we made it!
The reserve was proclaimed in the mid-nineteen-eighties, to protect two threatened bird species that bred there: the Cape Vulture and the Bald Ibis. Sadly, the ibises no longer breed there. But the vultures remain, breeding on a giant rock that forms one of two hill complexes in the reserve. The ibises used to breed in natural pot-hole like cavities in some of the smaller (but still enormous) rocks. The hills feature lots of trees that are also found in other mountainous regions such as the Waterberg, Wolkberg and Soutpansberg mountain ranges. Surrounding the hills is flat country covered in open, grassy savannah.
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So here are some pictures from the trip. You see here a shot of all of us who went; I'm the one standing in the back on the right of the picture; next to me is Prince, next to him Troos, and in front of me furthest on the right is Ntsakisi.
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Now for a few things we found.
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Sansevieria aethiopica, called Mother-in-Law's Tongue, is a plant with very stiff, tough and fibrous, hard-edged leaves. It grows in large colonies in the flatter parts of the reserve.
Commiphora schimperi is a small, hardy tree that we found on the plains and on the mountains. Called glossy-leaved corkwood, it's actually more recognizable by its thinly-peeling bark and green underbark.
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Mimusops zeyheri, the Transvaal Red Milkwood, is a small to medium-sized tree, growing abundantly on the hills, very hardy, with tasty fruits. Unfortunately these were not ripe yet! I hope to get there sometime when the fruits are ripe, so I can eat a few and get some seeds as well!
Entada burkei, the Sumach Bean, is a small tree with very interesting relatives, such as the elephant-root, Entada elephantina, which is a subterranean tree, and the Giant Sea Bean, Entada rheedii, which is a vigorous climber growing along rivers, with enormous pods (up to 2m long) and seeds which frequently wash into the oceans and are distributed by the currents, often washing up on beaches and occasionally germinating and growing. It is thus found in tropical regions all over the world.
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Sadly, Entada burkei is not quite as remarkable as these two, but is a pretty shrub or small, bushy tree, with soft, feathery foliage. It makes pretty creamy flowers in the spring, that are favourites of honey-bees. It has been used as a source of a chemical that is used to tan leather. It frequently grows in shallow soil covering rock sheets.
Coleochloa setifera does not have a common name. It looks like a grass, but is actually a sedge! It forms these large tufts right at the summit of the big hill, on thin soil that has gathered on the top of the huge rock. They are all dormant and hay-coloured at the moment. They made the going about a bit tricky, because they are very slippery! It will not do to slip and fall off the cliff, so we trod carefully to pick the exposed rock between the tufts to walk on. There was also evidence that there has been a recent fire up there, since some of the sedges had been reduced to blackened mounds. Note in the photo of the burnt sedges, there are small white flecks - these are feathers of the cape vultures that roost up there!
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Finally a shot showing the big rocks on the very top of the huge rock, and a view - we are here looking down from the big hill onto the smaller hill complex.
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We had a great outing, recording a great many plant species, and will soon return, hopefully after good rains!
