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

I go on Wikipedia a lot to read about plants and it's always sad to me to read 'this species is endangered due to habitat destruction'. Well over here there is also now habitat destruction going on. All the time, as this city keeps on growing. Wild countryside needs to make way for homes, roads, shopping malls, and what not. Anyways now they're doing it to a piece of land that's always been very special to me. It's just a few hundred yards away from my house and I always enjoyed going there for walks, looking at plants and animals.

That particular patch had some very interesting plants in it. It's savannah - grassland dotted with trees, and in between the grass lots and lots of small plants, including many species with underground bulbs and tubers, in which form they can survive the drought and cold of winter, and also the occasional fire.

But they can't survive bulldozers. Here are some photos of the destruction:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Sad%20Stuff/Destruction5.jpg

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Sad%20Stuff/Destruction4.jpg

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Sad%20Stuff/Destruction2.jpg

Now look at this uprooted tree:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Sad%20Stuff/Destruction6.jpg

It's still got birds nests in it. And the birds are still in the nests - see here:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Sad%20Stuff/Destruction3.jpg

Those birds are Whitebrowed Sparrowweavers, Plocepasser mahali. They're remaining with the nests even though the tree has fallen over. There are certainly eggs or even trees still in the nests. So you see - this is the thing, we're destroying their homes. The wild 'veld' is *home* to so many birds and other animals. And the plants themselves are living things, and they're being killed. This patch is home to certainly a few hundred different species of plants, and perhaps a couple of dozen bird species, and many other animals. Don't forget the insects either.

Here's another thing. Indigenous South African plants are protected by law. That patch of land contains a great many species of which I'd love to have specimens but it's illegal for me to go and remove them. But now they've just been destroyed outright. If I had collected some then they'd have been alive and well here with me.

Among the special plants that lived there, are:

1. A small Cyphostemma. A member of the Grape family, but with an underground tuber from which trailing stems emerge in spring, bearing succulent leaves. Cyphostemmas are very interesting species popular with succulent collectors. This species is one of which I've not yet seen photos or information online. This patch included the biggest colony of this particular cyphostemma that I know about - we're talking about hundreds of individuals.

2. A species of Jatropha. These ones also have underground tubers from which annual leaves arise. Some species are called 'physic nut'.

3. Species of Hypoxis, called 'African Potato', the bulbs of which have medicinal properties.

4. Species of Raphionacme, a plant with huge underground tubers, and small leaves and pretty purple-pink flowers.

5. Tiny species of Bulbine, a very delicate succulent with yellow flowers.

And a heck of a lot of others, many with pretty flowers. Even if I knew they were going to bulldoze the land, there would have been too many for me, but if I could have had at least a few individuals of the above five species, I would have been very happy.

But even that would have been sad because they would have been a mere tiny remnant of what was once a diverse, living community, with species existing in the fullness of their ecological relationships.

So, It is illegal to remove them, by digging them up from their habitat? But not for builders to destroy the whole ecosystem? That is outrageous! The system needs to be changed before everything is just turned into concrete and tarmac.

Lanzababy, it is the same here in the UK, wholesale destruction in the name of 'progress' is ok but dig up a plant to take to your garden and you can be prosecuted if caught!! It seems to be a universal problem from what Willem has told us.

Websailor