Collecting Proteaceae at Altitude

Collecting Proteaceae at altitude n 1809 Joseph Knight wrote garden was considered, by some, Proteaceae fell out of favour. New a book entitled Horticultural finer than Kew. It housed a huge greenhouse design and modern IEssays. I. On the Natural Order collection of plants from the horticultural practices did not suit Proteēæ. The book could not have southern hemisphere. With a these plants and the botanical been more highly anticipated or particular interest in the flora of trailblazers of the time turned their timely. Protea cultivation was at what was then known as the Cape attention to the plants of the tropics. the height of fashion in Europe, colony, he spared no expense in Proteaceae, it seems, were relegated, yet the book caused controversy commissioning James Niven to like Knight’s book. by pre-empting the publication scour this land for new and of a paper on the matter by notable interesting species. Hibbert’s Evolution and origin botanist Robert Brown. Knight’s particular passion was the Proteaceae The story of the Proteaceae certainly book was soon relegated to the most and this led Knight to being the first did not start in the days of Hibbert inaccessible shelves. to propagate and flower many of and Knight. Their history dates Knight was head gardener to these plants successfully in the UK. to the mid Cretaceous, when George Hibbert whose Clapham Alas, as fashions passed, the proteaceous plants known from 214 December 2016 PlantsmanThe Robbie Fold Mountains. These run in a curve Africa’s high-altitude Proteaceae, an from the Cedarberg in the north-west expedition of this nature would also blackhall- to the Tsitsikamma in the east, and test the practicalities of South Miles undertook block much of the prevailing, Africa’s permit system. moisture-laden, south-easterly winds The Western Cape Nature an expedition to from reaching the arid lands to the Conservation Board (CapeNature) collect seed of north. The western end of the range is responsible for issuing permits has a mild Mediterranean climate for use in Western Cape province. various Proteaceae with wet winters and dry summers, Integral to gaining these permits from high altitudes whereas the temperate eastern end were the relationships we built and receives year-round rainfall. This the trust given to us by local conserv- in South Africa. varied climate and geology has led to ationists. The initial administrative He hopes his the region’s botanically diverse flora, paperwork was simple enough, of which the Proteaceae form a key requiring a target species list and introductions will component. backing of a South African scientific be hardier than institution. However, the terms of Sourcing new material our permit required further previous collections Some members of this family are permissions from land owners or and will revive the offered for sale by a small number reserve wardens where we wished to of specialist nurseries, but often collect. Often busy fighting fires and popularity of these these are little suited to cultivation dealing with land disputes, getting a spectacular shrubs anywhere other than the mildest UK response from CapeNature wardens counties. It is our belief that there was not always quick. in the UK. should be species more able to cope Finally, after a year of preparation with the cool, high-rainfall climate and more than 250 emails, on 20 of North Wales than those currently August 2015 the hard copy of our available commercially. permit landed on our doormat and Our idea of an expedition to collect our final reserve permission was All photographs by Robbie Blackhall-Miles Robbie by All photographs seed of these in South Africa arose as granted. With just a month to spare news broke regarding what impact we were ready to go. the Nagoya Protocol might have on Seed of Mimetes paucifloruscollected horticulture, and plant hunting in Proteas and leucadendrons in the Outeniqua Mountains will be the particular. So, apart from the benefit Leucadendron strobilinum is a species first introduction of this high-altitude species to UK cultivation of gaining seeds to trial South currently thriving in our garden, and was also grown by Knight under the name L. concolor. In the grey mists of fossilized pollen, such as Trioris Table Mountain’s ‘table cloth’ we africaensis, had already evolved. It is found one particular plant of this, this fossil record and its significance literally growing out of a pool of to the early history of angiosperms water, in the shade of a cliff. that interests my partner Ben and me. Admittedly, it had been raining and We specialize in growing Proteaceae, we were at the end of the wet winter many of which are South African, in season. However, horticulturally, our garden in North Wales. these conditions would be considered More than 300 million years ago most unfavourable. It is a common the Falkland Plateau collided into misconception that South African Gondwana, creating the parallel Proteaceae will only grow in sunny, ridges that form South Africa’s Cape very free-draining sites. But many times during our three-week trip we Leucadendron strobilinum near the highest part of Table Mountain, and growing in found plants growing in conditions very wet conditions contrary to this. We were unable ➤ December 2016 215 plant exploration to collect seed of L. strobilinum in Table Mountain National Park as a secondary permit was required, which seemed too difficult for the sake of just one species. However, given its distributional range in the wild, the provenance of the seed available commercially would probably make little difference to its hardiness in the UK. Provenance could well make the world of difference, however, to the ability of Protea cordata to grow in our damp climate. Found across the Cape, it is likely that the eastern population would be more able to cope with our summer rain, should we find it growing at high enough altitude. At 1,212m, on the path up to the mountain of Grootberg, in the shade of thick vegetation, at about the most eastern point of its range, we did just that. With insignificant brown flowers, evolved solely for the purpose of attracting its rodent pollinators, it is the glaucous, red- edged and almost perfectly heart- Protea cynaroides in shaped leaves on zigzag vertical Boosmansbos Wilderness Area stems that are its star feature. In 1809, under the synonym of Protea rupicola at nearly 2,000m Pleuranthe cordifolia, Knight wrote: in the Swartberg Mountains ‘in our greenhouses, it is liable to suffer from damp more than cold, and therefore should not be crowded among tall plants’. It is known that the seed of the plants at his time came from much further west. So, I wonder, did provenance play its part in Knight’s opinion? Across its range Protea cynaroides, king sugar bush, has more than 80 different variants. However, should you hold one against another each is recognizable as this species. We grow and flower one in our garden, but it is obvious that this plant is not the same variant used in the cut- flower industry, as ours has small flowers and narrow leaves. It seems that plants similar to ours are often found growing near the coast and the 216 PlantsmanThe plants prove to be hardy and easy to grow in the UK climate then some other more threatened species, such as Leucadendron radiatum, which are found growing in the same area, may be able to grow here too. In strong winds, 3°c, horizontal rain and with freezing wet hands, collecting seed of Leucospermum oleifolium (syn. L. criniflorum) was no easy task. But it was an indication that it might thrive in the UK. We were pleased to find it with ripe seed on the old Boland Trail, on a south- facing slope at more than 200m above its described 1,000m upper Protea aurea subsp. aurea on Grootberg altitudinal range. with atypical carmine-pink flowers Of the 50 species of Leucospermum we could have encountered we only larger variants at high altitude. We areas, large mats of the endangered came across five in the wild, and set out to collect seed from the Protea venusta. However, Protea managed to collect seed of just this highest and wettest areas; some of rupicola stole the show in these one. Leucospermum mundii was found the plants we found were huge. We mountains. One of the longer lived on the Kristalkloof Trail, within succeeded in collecting seed from members of the genus, it is little 100m of leaving the car, but four plants, each morphologically understood in its natural environment, L. winteri was the main objective. distinct, growing at 1,000m or due in part to the inaccessibility of It is described as inhabiting high higher. Protea cynaroides is renowned the cliffs on which it grows. It is summit ridges at 1,100–1,300m, and for resprouting after fire, and it reacts certainly a species that demands Rourke’s type specimen was collected the same way to frost or pruning. further study. Its continuing decline at 1,158m on a summit ridge in 1974. This species has much horticultural brought on by climate change surely However, we could only find recent potential in the UK and we have places it high on the list of priority recorded observations of it between particularly high hopes for a plant we species. As a cultivated plant in South 400 and 800m. This lower range found growing at 1,577m on Africa it performs poorly, probably makes more sense, since it is believed Grootberg in the Boosmansbos due to an unsuitable climate at low, that L.

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