South African Trip
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South Africa is a truly remarkable and scenic place. If it were not for the perception of danger associated with the country, it could easily establish itself as a leader in the tourist industry. The country is remarkably cheap for U.S. visitors with B&B's to be had in the less populated areas for $10 to $15. I treated for lunch one day at an ocean front cafe and the whole bill for three of us came to less than $13, tip included. The temperature was about as hot as Los Angeles on a typical summer day and cooled quite nicely during the evening. During much of our stay, we were situated in Hermanus, which is a delightful town reminding me of Carmel California 20 years ago. I won't say that some parts of the country haven't embraced the tourist dollar, however. We ate at a Cape Town waterfront area another night which was trying very hard to emulate San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, both in cost and atmosphere. Below are some examples of the local wildlife. |
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| The first Disas species that we located in the wild was D. racemosa which was on Franchhoek pass. There had been burn there the previous summer and as a result, there was a good bloom of racemosa. The two side photos are of the habitat. Note in the photo on the right, the reddish foliage. That foliage belongs to a species of Drosera, a carnivorous plant | ||
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| Following are a number of racemosa slides. | ||
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| After locating D. racemosa, we looked around and noticed several other orchids. At least one was another Disa. The first slide on the left is D. filicornis. the other two are unidentified. | ||
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| The next stop in our search for wild Disas brought us to the region of Viljoens Pass. There we found a number of D. tripetaloides, including some with green stems and practically no markings. The first 3 slides show the general habitat. We actually saw more tripetaloides at more places than any other species on the trip | ||
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| Thanks to Dr. Louis Vogelpoel, we also were treated to a day on Table Mountain where we spent several hours searching for the Blue Disa or D. longicornu. We not only found it but also D. glandulosa, D. cornuta, and D. harveiana and great numbers of D. uniflora that were unfortunately not in bloom yet. The first 4 photos are of longicornu, followed by 2 of glandulosa, 1 of cornuta, and 2 of harveiana. | ||
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| While this brief photo essay doesn't even come close to describing the wide range of plant life that scratched our legs until they bled, I am determined to wrap this up so that I can get back to potting. I will end with 6 photos of non-orchid "fynbos" plants that are colorful, unusual, and able to survive in an extremely dry and harsh environment. | ||
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