h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you've explored a lot of wild places in South Africa, you're sure to have noticed that there is a vast variety of different 'places' each with its own characteristic 'look', this 'look' being due to a very complicated pattern of different elements that constitute every particular 'place', whether those be geographical, geological or botanical. You'll also notice certain recurring 'themes' that pop up in various forms in various places. One such particular 'theme' that is very noticeable in many places in South Africa is that of plants that develop proportionately very thick stems or trunks. You get this feature in a great variety of different plants ... they aren't particularly closely related to each other, they belong to different families, but all of them develop these thick stems and trunks. This sort of thick trunk is often called a 'caudex', and the plants themselves 'cauduciforms' or 'pachycauls'. In the whole of South Africa there must be dozens of different types of cauduciform or pachycaul plants. In this entry I just want to talk about some of the ones found in the Far North of South Africa - my own region, the Limpopo Province, because this is the place I'm best acquainted with.

First of all - what is the use of this thick trunk or caudex? Basically, it's an aid to survival. In places that are very dry, a thick trunk acts as a store of nutrients and water, accumulated during good seasons, to get a plant through long drought periods. A caudex, part of which might be underground, and the above-ground parts protected by thick bark, can also survive a bush fire. The leaves and thin superficial stems may burn up, but the protected caudex remains and resprouts after the fire.

In this entry I don't want to go into all the details - I merely want to talk about a number of very interesting thick-stemmed plants of my region, to give you, O Esteemed Reader, an inkling of their variety and fascinating forms, and how they contribute to the 'looks' of various different places around here.

NOTE: I have photographs of most of these species, but at the moment only those of the Baobab are visible online (the link is just a few lines below). I hope to be putting more photos online soon, as well as to try to get even better photos than the ones I have.

1. The Baobab - Adansonia digitata.

The King of them all - the Baobab! No account of South Africa, or indeed Africa, could be complete without mention of this most famous of trees. The Baobab Tree is found in the drier, hotter savannah regions of Africa, with related species in Madagascar and even some that are native to Australia! In South Africa, Baobabs are found mainly in the regions around the Limpopo River, after which the Limpopo Province itself is named. Lots of very impressive specimens can be seen in the Messina Baobab Reserve, and surrounding areas. Here are photos of some of them from the reserve, as well as on the road from Messina to Pontdrift:

http://community.webshots.com/scripts/editPhotos.fcgi?action=viewall&albumID=204829939

As you can see, Baobab Trees are very individual - each one looks unique, different from all the others. Some are fairly slender and long-limbed while others are short and fat. Some are incredibly big and thick. It is not unusual to see trees with trunks over 3 m in diameter, or 10 m in circumference. The very biggest are about 9 m in diameter, over 30 m in circumference. There is an individual near Hoedspruit, that is a monstrous 16 m in diameter! I've not yet seen this individual, but if I do, I will certainly take pictures and put them online ... though I somehow doubt if the full 'impression' of a tree like this could adequately be conveyed by a photo.

Baobabs dominate the view in the regions where they are common. They tower above everything else, their massive bulk dwarfing their decent-sized neighbour trees. Every single adult Baobab is pretty much a Permanent Landscape Feature, worthy of including on a map, along with hills and rivers, not even to mention less permanent features such as human roads and towns. Individual Baobab trees can dominate landscapes for very long periods, since they can reach ages in the thousands of years.

2. The Spiny Elephant's Foot - Adenia spinosa.

The plants in the genus Adenia do not have any familiar common names. They are variously called 'elephant's feet' along with a number of unrelated plants, or sometimes 'baboon's poison', or 'wild grenadilla'. In actuality they are a very well-defined group of plants that occur in hot, dry regions of Africa, mainly in the East, as well as in Madagascar. These plants are characterised by their stems that have a thick lower part, from the top of which emerge thin trailing stems. Sometimes the thin stems and/or the caudex are protected by spines. The caudex as well as the branches are usually covered by a greenish bark. They belong to the same family as the Passion Flower/Fruit, or Grenadilla (family name Passifloraceae) and many species have fairly large, brightly coloured and conspicuous fruit, but in the Adenias, these fruit are poisonous and children, especially, should be warned not to eat them.

These plants certainly deserve to have a specific, distinctive, common vernacular name for them all together as a group.

In my view the most impressive, not to mention bizarre, member of the group is the Spiny Elephant's Foot, or Spiny Adenia, Adenia spinosa. This plant occurs in the Limpopo Province in many of the same areas as the Baobab can be found, and also futher northward into Southern Zimbabwe. The Adenia favours rocky or hilly regions, often growing between rocks. It grows in regions that often experience extreme heat in Summer (and sometimes even in Winter as well!). This Adenia has the biggest caudex of them all ... it can reach one and a half metres in diameter! Strangely, though, this very wide stem doesn't grow very tall, typically only about 30 to 60 cm ... a foot or two ... in height ... like a round, wide and flat cushion, from the top of which emerges a huge tangle of thin, spiny trailing stems that either grow up into surrounding vegetation, or, if there's not much surrounding vegetation, sprawl in an untidy mess over the ground around the main 'trunk'. These trailing branches can reach 3m - 10 ft - or more in length, and carry fairly small, inconspicuous leaves.

This plant is extremely hard to characterise. Is it a tree? A shrub? It simply doesn't conform to the image of any particular general sort of 'plant' one might visualise. In my own mind, what it looks like, is a gigantic Medusa's Head that is buried so that only the top of it - above the eyebrows - sticks out above ground. For me this is an appropriate image, with the sickly yellowish-green bark recalling the Gorgon's skin, and the trailing branches the snakes that constitute her hair.

This is certainly a very bizarre plant indeed, and quite an amazingly unusual thing to discover in the bush. From afar they aren't particularly conspicuous, since their surrounding branchlets blend into the tangled vegetation, and their huge basal stems can only be seen up close. This species doesn't seem to be very common - I've yet seen only a few of them - if I could only get me some good seed, I would try and cultivate thousands upon thousands of them, and plant them in large numbers in suitable habitat, here in the Northern Limpopo Province, so that they could be much more abundant and so that lots more people could see them and gawk at their weirdness! As far as I'm concerned, this is a species every South African should be familiar with, and there should be thousands of thousands of them to be easily-viewed in their native habitat. This is another species, like the Baobab, where every individual has a unique appearance.

These plants are, like many of the very special South African plants, slow-growing. At least, the big basal stem grows and thickens slowly. The emerging, thinner trailing stems grow faster, but will die back periodically and be replaced by new stems growing from the caudex. They photosynthesize mainly with the green bark rather than with the small leaves. I would recommend them for cultivation - outdoors in Northern South Africa, and in hothouses in cooler places like Europe and America - but they are best in their native habitat. I really hope to get my hands on seeds sometime soon!

Related species:

Adenia fruticosa.

This Adenia has a much taller stem, reaching about 2m in height, and about 60 cm in diameter. The trunk is bottle-shaped and covered with a smoothish, greenish bark. Unlike the Spiny Elephant's Foot, this Adenia does not have spines. At the top of the bottle-trunk emerge a few thin trailing branches that snake upward and clamber over surrounding vegetation. This Adenia comes in three varieties, one of which is confined to the Sekukuniland Region, an hour's drive from my home town, Pietersburg.

Adenia glauca.

This Adenia is a much smaller plant than its two abovementioned relatives. It usually grows in dappled shade beneath the canopy of well-developed woodland, often where the land is sloping and rocky. It sometimes grows wedged in cracks between rocks. It consists of a small but usually neatly round bottle-shaped trunk that can reach about a foot in height and diameter, from which emerge a number of thin scrambling branches covered in hand-shaped bluish-green leaves. It has attractive orange fruit, round and about an inch in diameter, that are poisonous, as are those of its other relatives. This Adenia could make a very interesting specimen plant. The bottle-shaped trunk enlarges slowly, but the thin scrambling branches lengthen rapidly. They die back in Winter, and new stems sprout from the caudex at the onset of the next Spring.

3. The Sesame Bush - Sesamothamnus lugardii.

This plant to some extent resembles a minature baobab tree. It also occurs in the same regions as the Baobab does, being especially common in the region to the North of the Soutpansberg Range in the far northern Limpopo Province. A few populations also occur further south, however, including the Sekukuniland region. On the road from the town of Vivo to Waterpoort, along the Northern Side of the Soutpansberg, there is a particular place where great numbers of large and impressive specimens of this plant can be seen.

Sesame Bushes do not grow very tall, only rarely exceeding 5 m (about 17 ft) in height. The trunk can be more than a metre thick, giving the plant quite a substantial amount of bulk for its height. From the trunk it divides into branches ascending fairly steeply upward, the branches being very thick at the bottom and thinning progressively until the twigs at the very top are about as thick as a human finger. The trunk and branches are covered by bark that peels in papery flakes, the underbark being green and the peeling bits being yellowish or reddish-bronze.

The twigs of Sesame Bushes are armed with short spines, and the leaves are usually quite small. The flowers are pretty, being white and trumpet-shaped with a long 'tube', up to 15 cm (6") in length. The fruit are capsules that dry out and split open to release papery, winged seeds.

This plant belongs to the Sesame Family, which includes the plants from which Sesame Seeds come. In Southern Africa this family includes a number of interesting species, many of them with attractive flowers.

In my experience Sesame Bush seeds germinate easily, and the plants grow at a reasonable rate, early-on already forming the distinctive thick trunk. I wholeheartedly recommend the cultivation of these plants especially in the warm Northern regions of South Africa.

Related species:

Pterodiscus ngamicus.

Of all the plants mentioned here, this is probably the one that is least known among the general South African public. It is one of the humblest as well, rarely reaching a conspicuous size, and usually growing unobtrusively amidst grasses in sandy soil in hot savannah regions. Nevertheless, it has an interesting appearance, in my view not inferior to that of the Kudu Lily (see a bit later in this entry), and it deserves to be tried out as a container plant, perhaps alongside Kudu Lilies, in rock gardens as well as in open beds. It has a miniature, short-and-thick basal stem, covered by a greenish, papery-peeling bark, with a few stubby branches, from which thin, leafy, annual branches arise carrying pretty flowers that are pastel shades of pink, yellow and white. These are followed by rather large four-winged fruit, similar in appearance to those of the well known genus Combretum that includes many common tree and shrub species here in South Africa (as well as elsewhere in Africa). The annual branches die back in the Winter, to be followed by new branches the next Spring. The persistent caudex, meanwhile, slowly grows larger and thicker.

In cultivation, the dried-up dead stems can be snipped off in Wintertime, to preserve the plant's neatness.

4. The Star-Chestnut - Sterculia rogersii.

This is one of the most 'normal' plants I describe here. The Star Chestnut is, at least, clearly a tree. It has a trunk, from which branches ascend, and with a canopy of leaves above. But that's pretty much the end of its 'normalness'. The trunk is frequently quite absurdly short but very thick. The 'thick' part of the trunk may in some cases rise only a foot or so from the ground, and at that point branch into several much thinner branches that bear the leaves. The 'trunk' is often actually simply a large, thick 'base' or 'boss' from which the several upright ascending branches arise. This 'boss' can, however, be more than a metre in diameter, which is pretty thick for a tree that usually only grows to two or three metres in height.

Star Chestnuts occur in the same regions as the Sesame Bush and the Baobab, North of the Soutpansberg Mountains. However, there are some of them South of the range as well, including Sekukuniland. As many of the other thick-stemmed plants mentioned here, they prefer rocky, hilly areas - especially favouring the hot Northern faces of hills, that get the most sunshine.

Aside from its conspicuous thick basal trunk, this tree has other noteworthy features as well. On the trunk as well as the thicker branches it has a beautiful bark, consisting of several layers that peel off in thin papery sections, which exposes the different layers. The deepest layer - the living bark - is greenish, while the upper layers become progressively more yellowish, later reddish, and finally a deep purplish wine-red. Thus the trunk and branches appear as different 'patches' of colour.

The leaves are small, but pretty in appearance, light-green and thin in texture. The flowers are inconspicuous from afar but very pretty seen up close, being greenish to yellowish, with reddish stripes. The fruit, for which the tree is named, are quite remarkable, being formed of capsules arranged in a star shape, all connected at the centre. These split open to expose the seeds, that are black with orange-red coverings or 'arils'. The insides of the capsules are covered by stinging hairs, and when you take the seeds out of the capsules, your fingers usually get covered in these hairs and they have to be pulled out one by one. Such are the hazards of the job! Nevertheless, and despite what some books claim, in my experience these seeds have a high viability and germinate fairly quickly. The little plants grow fairly slowly, but form the thick 'caudex' very early on. From growing and transplanting them I became aware that the 'caudex' is actually just the top part of a very thick, long rootstock that is carrot-like in the young plant. I would quite like to know just how big this underground rootstock can get in a full-grown, old plant - I wouldn't be surprised if the underground part turns out to be much more voluminous than the above-ground trunk and branches.

These are exceptionally decorative trees that deserve to be grown in large numbers in the warm savannah regions of Southern Africa.

5. The Impala Lily - Adenium multiflorum.

Note - 'Impala' is the name of a very common medium-sized antelope to be found in the Bushveld regions of South Africa, where this plant occurs as well.

This species is rare in the wild but common in cultivation. If I had my way, millions of these would be cultivated and planted back into the wild, to boost the numbers of the wild populations! They look so good in their native habitat. In gardens, they look good in large containers, rock gardens, or open beds. They should be planted in large numbers in every Game or Nature Reserve rest camp garden, as well as in game farm gardens, as well as municipal town gardens everywhere in the Bushveld regions of Northern South Africa.

Impala lilies are usually not very big, but can grow to a height of 4 m (14 ft) with a trunk about a metre in diameter. In the wild, they are usually browsed down to a small size by various species of herbivore. They can get big if they grow in protected places such as on a steepish hill between rocks. Places like these would also be good choices to plant specimens back into the wild. In most places Impala lilies would prefer hot, North-facing slopes that get the most sunlight here in the Southern hemisphere. They do often also grow on flats, sometimes on brackish soil.

Of the plants mentioned here, the Impala Lily certainly has the most impressive flowers. Of course, the other flowers are all beautiful too, but Impala Lily flowers are very striking. They emerge while the rest of the plant is leafless, and in considerable numbers. The flowers are white in the centre, with red, wavy margins, and each flower is about 5 cm (2") in diameter. They are followed by long pods that split open to release seeds with tufts of fluff on them to aid dispersal by the wind.

Impala Lilies look good when not flowering as well, with leaves on, or off. Leafless, the thick, smooth-skinned and succulent bottle-shaped trunk, with the stubby branches sticking out from it, is very noticeable and interesting. The leaves, borne in Spring and Summer, are neatly shaped, dark green and rather leathery. The Impala Lily doesn't have any spines.

Related species:

The Kudu Lily - Pachypodium saundersii.

Note - 'Kudu' is the name of a common large antelope, to be found in the Bushveld regions of South Africa.

This species, like the Impala Lily, belongs to the Apocynaceae, the Oleander family. This family, amongst some more conventional trees and shrubs, contains a few interesting succulent species in South Africa, with related species in Madagascar and elsewhere in Africa, even into the Arabian peninsula.

The Kudu Lily differs from the Impala Lily in being a rather spiny plant. It has a thick, bottle shaped caudex covered with smooth greyish-greenish bark, and protected by pairs of spines. From the caudex the branches ascend upwards, rebranching only rarely, bearing leaves at the tips in Summer and Spring. The flowers are also quite pretty, being pinkish-white with crinkly petals. The leaves are rather softer than those of the Impala Lily.

Kudu Lilies are usually smaller than Impala Lilies. In the wild they usually grow in rocky places. As with the Impala Lily, I believe they should be cultivated and propagated in large numbers. If I had my way, every rocky hill in the Bushveld would have a few Kudu Lilies sheltered amongst its rocks!

They can be grown in the same kinds of gardens as the Impala Lilies. Just remember that they do not grow as big. They should not be planted in the midst of plants that grow much faster and bigger, or else they will rapidly be overwhelmed and overshadowed. They should best be planted amidst some lower-growing succulent 'ground cover' in a warm and sunny spot.

6. The Bonsai Tacky - Crassula sarcocaulis.

South Africa hosts a great diversity of succulent plants belonging to the Crassula or 'tacky' family - somewhere between 200 and 300 species! These plants come in a great variety of shapes and sizes, and a great many of them are pretty and unusual in appearance. Most of them are 'leaf' succulents, in that their leaves are their main fleshy, thickened, water-storing organs. However, a few species are also 'stem' succulents, where the stem or trunk is the organ that swells up, apart from (or, rather than) the leaves. This feature is very strongly developed in the Bonsai Tacky. In this tacky the leaves are fairly small and thinnish, not very succulent. The stem, however, is quite thick for the size of the plant, and noticeably swollen with moisture. The succulent appearance of the trunk is enhanced by the smooth, thin, 'polished'-looking grey bark.

These plants don't grow big, most specimens in the wild being between 30 and 60 cm (1 and 2 ft) in height. However they have a very neat appearance, looking like miniature trees - which is what they got their common name from. There are already a number of people who are cultivating these plants in their gardens, most of them probably without knowing what it is. In nature, they are quite common - lots of them can be seen in the Pietersburg area, most easily on the rocky hills at the Bakoni Malapa Northern Sotho Museum, a short distance out of town.

These plants are pretty in shape, and also bear pretty light-pinkish flowers that turn orange and then brownish as they grow older. They are very easy to cultivate from cuttings. The plants I have, I cultivated from a broken-off piece found in the veld. Some animal must have broken it off and left it lying there. I picked it up and put it in a bit of soil in a nursery bag, and it came 'back to life' and grew beautifully, and from this I propagated more cuttings until I now have quite a lot of these plants in the back yard.

There are a few different variants of this plant to be found in various parts of South Africa. The ones I have are the ones that are common in hilly regions in the central parts of the old Transvaal. In the Drakensberg mountains of KwaZulu-Natal, a different variation is found, with an even more pronounced 'stunted-tree' appearance. In the Barberton region in Mpumalanga, a large-flowered variety occurs. So far I've not yet seen these other variants.

The tacky family is, to me, interesting because it contains a large number of succulents that can withstand quite intense cold. Most succulents are not tolerant of frosts, since the water cells in their leaves and stems expand and 'burst' when the water turns to ice, thus destroying the tissues. Many Tacky species, however, can withstand temperatures well below freezing without ill effect. There are related species in Europe and Asia that can withstand even lower temperatures. One related species, the Kamtchatka Stonecrop, occurs in far north-east Russia! I would love to know how these plants manage to do this.

The Bonsai Tacky is the only 'thick-stemmed' plant I mention here that can withstand temperatures well below freezing. However, I don't think it's a good idea to 'push the envelope'. I wouldn't try to cultivate them where the temperature regularly drops to 10 degrees below freezing, or lower, in Winter. The plant likes mild temperatures best - warm (not hot) in Summer, cool (not freezing cold) in Winter. In places that experience very hot Summers, they can be planted in mild shade to protect them against the heat.

Unlike the other succulents mentioned here, the Bonsai Tacky responds well to being watered throughout the year. The other species should all be left dry in Winter.

While the Bonsai Tacky is quite common in Nature, I still think it could do with a 'propagation and multiplication' campaign to increase its numbers in the wild. I'm certain it has already been eliminated from many places where it used to occur. Its natural habitat is, unlike the other species mentioned here, mostly the cooler Southern slopes of hills and mountains in the Bushveld regions of South Africa. There it occurs along with several other nice members of the Tacky family. If I had my way, the cooler slopes of every rocky hill in the Bushveld area would be a showcase of these marvelous little plants.

Posting to let you know this was read with interest.

Weird and wonderful they are. The only one I've met is the baobab - too big to hug, hey ? But I was close enough to touch.

I wonder if the one you likened to a Medusa head also has a lot more below ground level. And really is like a buried Medusa head.

I've read your other journals too Willem, hope you're feeling more ok now.
Waz

Hey Waz, THANKS for reading the entry and commenting on it!! That makes me feel much better already. I guess I feel depressed because it feels to me like I'm totally 'out of sync' with the rest of the world ... nobody else seems to care about the stuff (like plants) I care about. It feels to me like the inhabitants of the Earth are simply going to let the whole planet go to hell in a handbasket without single sound of complaint. *sigh* ...

Well anyways.

The Spiny Adenia must certainly have a lot of its 'body' (or 'head'!) under the soil level, but I don't know just how big it might be! It is the only one of the main species I mention that I do not have in cultivation here at home. But I do have two of its relatives, the Adenia digitata and the Adenia glauca. The digitata has, in fact, and usually, almost its entire 'tuber' underground. The glauca has about half to a third of its tuber exposed, but leaving quite a bit of it under the soil. I have one digitata and four glauca in bags here at home, and I'll be transplanting them in a year or two, and then I'll check how big the tubers have become. At the moment they're still small, with very little 'swelling' in evidence on the superficial stems.

I really wish that I could soon get viable seed of the Adenia spinosa and grow a few of them here ... then, at least while it's manageably small, I could 'check' on the proportions of the above-ground and below-ground portions ... but by the time its stem has reached one and a half metres in diameter it's going to be rather too large to dig out and transplant!

Based on other thick-stemmed/cauduciform/tuberous plants I know from around here, the underground portion could be very big indeed, and quite possibly weird-shaped too ... in fact maybe not very far, with a bit of imagination, from a monstrous 'gorgon' head and body!

*Sigh* ... I still feel like a lone nutcase for being interested in this sort of stuff!!

In a minority but not lone. And not a nutcase, people who can't see the weird and wonderfulness of all this are the ones with loose screws .

To get viable seed would you have to go out collecting? Is that allowed in SA, or do you mean finding someone with the plants in cultivation that could supply seeds?

Would you mind if I linked to this journal from a page written for ? I don't know how many people read the CACC pages in the Post but you never know...

Hey Waz!

Yes, I'll have to go collecting. With the permission of the owners of the land. About it being legal ... the 'old' laws used to say that it was legal provided a plant is not a 'specially protected' plant, which the Adenias are not.

There may be new laws in effect, but nobody seems to know what these laws are.

However, these laws will have to allow for the 'collection' of plants from the wild since large numbers of African people do this for medicinal purposes.

I am currently speaking to people and trying to arrange for such plans as for instance going into an area that is about to be mined, and collect plants that will be destroyed by the mining activities. This could be an excellent source of plants and seeds since the most desirable mine locations happen to also be the most botanically interesting.

At any rate, right now the majority of the seeds that I plant come from professional collectors Silverhill Seeds -

http://www.silverhillseeds.co.za

- or from the National Botanical Institute which runs the Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens.

Just a quick question before I answer yours - what are the 'CACC Pages'?

And a quick answer - A2815922 is an example of one of the CAC pages I put together and the one I think I like best.

They are just intro's and links to entries. I haven't tried one that just links to a journal but I don't see why not. I know you have issues with creating guide entries. Though CAC pages don't use Edited entries and can just link to the author's original ones which they can edit or delete as they wish.



We have all sorts of rules over here now about taking seed and I'm no longer sure when you can and can't. Taking plants from areas to be mined is an excellent plan. Anyway, commonsense from someone who knows what they're doing, as you do, is enough.

Don't plant any Medusa heads too close to the house hey? Or you might find Medusa wearing you like a hat!

A professional seed collector sounds a nice job to have.
Waz

Hey thanks for telling me about the CAC Waz! I'll check them out some more, soon ... right now I have little time. I'm preparing for tomorrow - my nephew Christiaan will have his very first Birthday party tomorrow, in Pretoria, and we'll have to be up early for the drive!

Yes, you could of course link to my journal entry if you'd like to!

I'm starting to rethink Guide Entries. I really do think I might like doing some 'proper' entry again, that even one or two other people might see and read.

Yeah, no Medusas close to the house! That's just one reason why I'd like to have a bigger piece of land, ultimately. I'm very thankful for being able to work with this guy with the farm over here! And I'm also thinking more and more about donating plants to schools. My parents work at a school that has lots and lots of open areas. Even though I don't have any 'Medusa heads' at the mo, I've lots of other plants that can get very big. You probably know about the baobabs! I think I must have at least thirty of those. Then I have numerous species of wild figs too, and a few other big trees. These days I'm getting more into smaller plants, particularly succulents.

You know, regarding getting 'specimens' ... aside from seeds, I also get some very interesting stuff from local nurseries. Most nurseries will have some indigenous (or potentially indigenous) plants. You already know about the 'mystery plants' I got last time from a 'Succulent' nursery in the Loskop Dam region. Well, I've now managed to identify most of the species I got there! It *is* in fact a big goal of mine to get as many species as I can from those being cultivated already. All over this country, there will be people interested in succulents and other plants, who managed to get certain species by whatever ways, and will have specimens available. Many of these people will not even know what it is that they have! But I will know, or find out!

Then there are societies overseas ... cactus
and succulent lovers, and many of them will be cultivating South African plants ... because we simply have the most incredible diversity of plants of any country in the world! There's a society like the International Asclepiad Society, which has seeds of many species of Southern African stapeliads for sale. When I have money, I'll join one or two such societies and from them be able to get more seeds. There's a heck of a lot of South African species in circulation, in France, Germany, even Russia and Japan - and certainly a heck of a lot in Britain and America! Lots of stuff got sent from here to the Kew Gardens while the Brits were invading us, and in America, there's the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, Arizona, which looks to me like it has a bigger collection of South African plants than any South African botanic garden does!

Best wishes for your day in Pretoria - hope it was a good one and your nephew enjoyed his birthday. I can't imagine him not doing so though.

Thanks about your journal entry, I will do. And it would be good news for the Guide if you wrote entries for it. Those ones you wrote in the early days were really good. I look at the Edited Guide as like sowing seeds of very slow growing trees. One day it could amount to something.

I wondered how your work at the farm was going. Can you talk them into a plantation of Baobabs?

That you've found out what the mystery plants were doesn't surprise me at all.

I have been to Kew Gardens you know. Just once, in winter, but it was very impressive. Plants and trees looked after with care and shown to their best.

PS There's draft version of the CAC page here A3343961 featuring this journal. I could make the link just to post 1 but I left it as you've said more in later posts.


Waz in CAC Clothing on behalf of Team Continuum

Hey thanks Waz!

You know, I won't really have to do much 'persuading' to convince that guy to grow some baobabs! He would be ecstatic to do it. I guess so would just about any farmer around here. It is really surprising that baobabs aren't being grown and planted more ... I wonder why? In my experience, they're quite easy to grow from seeds ...

Just dropping by to say the CAC Continuum feature is in the current issue of The h2g2 Post.

Regarding baobabs, did you catch the link I posted elswhere to the magnificent avenue of baobabs in Madagascar?
Waz

Hey again Waz!

I don't get much h2g2 time these days ... I'll see if I can manage to check out The Post and some more of the CAC pages.

Anyways, no, I didn't catch that link of yours ... but I'm certain I know of exactly which Madagascan baobabs you're talking. I have seen several photos of that particular group of baobabs in Madagascar which is probably one of the most 'surreal' scenes to be found on Earth. I'll go to your page and hunt for the link to see if they are the same ones but I'm about 99.99% sure they are ...

Hey I now found your link and, indeed, they are the same baobabs! I will reply in more detail in that thread! Thanks for being interested!!