Volume 6 • March 200 News from the CREW lthough 2009 has been a Asteraceae family) in full flower. REW, the Custodians of Areally challenging year with These plants are usually rather C Rare and Endangered the global recession having had inconspicuous and are very hard Wildflowers, is a programme a heavy impact on all of us, it to spot when not flowering, so that involves volunteers from we were very lucky to catch it could not break the strong spir- the public in the monitoring it of CREW. Amidst the great in flower. The CREW team has taken a special interest in the and conservation of South challenges we came up tops genus Marasmodes (we even Africa’s threatened plants. once again, with some excep- have a day in April dedicated to CREW aims to capacitate a tionally great discoveries. the monitoring of this genus) network of volunteers from as they all occur in the lowlands a range of socio-economic Our first great adventure for and are severely threatened. I backgrounds to monitor the year took place in the knew from the herbarium speci- and conserve South Afri- Villiersdorp area. We had to mens that there have not been ca’s threatened plant spe- collect flowering material of any collections of Marasmodes Prismatocarpus lycioides, a data cies. The programme links from the Villiersdorp area and volunteers with their local deficient species in the Campan- was therefore very excited conservation agencies and ulaceae family. We rediscovered about this discovery. As usual, this species in the area in 2008 my first reaction was: ‘It’s a particularly with local land and all we had to go on was a new species!’ but I soon so- stewardship initiatives to en- scrappy nonflowering branch. bered up (I can’t remember the sure the conservation of key Luckily the leaf morphology is countless times I have been sites for threatened plant quite distinct and Chris Cupido excited about new species that species. could give us a positive identi- turned out not to be new at all) fication, but we needed flower- and thought it might only be a ing material for the herbarium. range extension. I’m not going to give too much information about the Prisma- I showed it to Anthony Magee tocarpus as Vathiswa and Chris have written an article for Veld and he was sure that it was & Flora, so you can read more a new species. Hooray! A new about it in the March 200 is- species to kick off the year. sue. On this field trip we were trying to map the extent of the Our focus for our C Team field population when we stumbled trips this year was postfire across a Marasmodes (small, monitoring sites. The summer highly threatened genus in the of 2008/2009 was an impor- tant one as there were many important areas that burnt. Groot Winterhoek Mountains, Paarl Mountain and Piketberg Mountains were among the top priorities for monitoring. We have written an article about our expeditions in spring for the March 200 issue of Veld & Flora. Our most noteworthy trip was to the Groot Winterhoek Mountains to monitor Satyrium striatum. Apart from finding the target species, we thor- oughly enjoyed the vastness of the wilderness area. It is quite refreshing to be able to look to the horizon and only see natu- ral veld, something we don’t experience when working in the Marasmodes sp. nov., a new spe- Satyrium striatum from the Groot lowlands. cies found by CREW. Winterhoek Mountains. It has been a tough year with- out a project co-ordinator but we managed to pull through. Vathiswa has been exceptional in supporting me to cover the gap left by Caitlin. We hope that the 200 budget will be better and that we can fill that vacancy. Vathiswa gave her first presentation at the Fynbos Forum in 2009. It is always a great achievement to present at this conference because it is the best public- speaking ice-breaker. She gave a fantastic talk and looked very comfortable addressing the Fynmense enjoying the veld during the Fynbos Forum field trip. audience. As a consequence of her success, she will have to present more often. We also success of the year was that www.cepf.net) was to get the managed to meet some of our we managed to train four tour tour guides trained, but unfor- CREW volunteers at the Fynbos guides in Mamre. These local tunately we could not stretch Forum. Cameron, Rhoda and youngsters are extremely pas- the funds to cover the tourism Flora attended the conference sionate about Mamre and of product development as well. and joined us on our field trip course due to the CREW influ- We were approached by the to key stewardship sites in the ence, they have also become Claremont Rotary Club who was Swellendam/Bredasdorp area. passionate about the plants interested in supporting this and the habitats in which they project after reading about it in This year also marked the end occur. the local newspaper. They have of the Mamre project. We have made R50 000.00 available to celebrated so many successes The tour guides successfully complete the development of in this project and it was a completed their training and the project and set up the tour most fulfilling and rich learn- tour guide assessments. They guides’ business. The project ing experience. The project was are now fully certified local will include the construction of a quite different from the usual tour guides. The certification donkey cart, development of an CREW activities but it gave process was the first step to online booking system as well as us an opportunity to explore developing a viable, sustainable further business development new ways of involving people in tourism product. The funding we training for the tour guides. the conservation of Rare and received from the CEPF (Critical They had an opportunity to test 2 Threatened plants. The key Ecosystem Partnership Fund: their skills when we organised a wonderful year of threatened ‘asclep’ finds – Brachystelma gerrardii, Asclepias concinna, Asclepias bicuspis, Asclepias woodii, Schizoglossum bidens subsp. hirtum being but a few! Botanical courses by experts have really helped volunteers and CREW staff to increase their botanical understand- ing and knowledge of the KZN flora. In August, CREW hosted a four-day course on introduc- tory botany by Wendy Hitchcock at the KwaZulu-Natal National Botanical Garden in Pieterma- ritzburg. At the end, 20 keen CREW volunteers were ably drawing floral diagrams and identifying families, thanks to One of the tour guides (Charlene, front centre) with the local Councillor Wendy’s fantastic teaching and and Rotary Club members on the back of the donkey cart. her amazing photo microscope. In November, the well-known leg- ume expert Prof. Charlie Stirton special tour for the Rotary Club ciate all your wonderful contri- gave a one-day course on this members. The tour guides took butions. Most South Africans important KZN family, followed them on a tour at the Mamre will remember 200 as the year by a field trip. In addition, Ashley Flower Show in September and South Africa hosted the Soc- Nicholas’s fascinating talk at managed to run a smooth op- cer World Cup, but don’t forget the September workshop helped eration and hugely impress the that 200 is also the Year of to solve the mystery of why the Claremont Rotary Club. Biodiversity and I’m sure that Asclepiadaceae are now in the will be our memory of this year. Apocynaceae, followed by an Once this project is complete, overview of the group with many the guides will be able to con- Ismail Ebrahim living and pressed examples. duct tours in Mamre, showcas- ing the rich historical, cultural The second annual Summer- and biological heritage of the rainfall CREW Volunteer Work- area. Watch this space for an- shop was held at Lake Eland nouncements on where you can near Oribi Gorge in southern book a tour to discover Mamre! CREW in KZN in September. The work- The project has been a really shop was memorable for a number of really fantastic talks fruitful experience for us and by experts, including Ashley’s we have learnt so much about KZN Apocynaceae, Neil Crouch on community interaction and de- ne of the most rewarding medicinal plants, Tony Abbott veloping livelihood opportunities Oaspects of the past year on Pondoland, David Styles on for communities. We can now for me was seeing the new his fascinating quest for Orbea, share those lessons and hope CREW group’s field trips gradu- Livhuwani Nkuna on the Millen- to be able to replicate this kind ating from botanical rambles nium Seedbank Project, Lize of work in other areas. We also to well-planned outings focused von Staden on Google earthing, wish the tour guides the best of on specific target species. Reshnee Lala on the Emerging luck – may this be the start of Quite a few of our volunteers Alien Project and Anisha Dayar- am on carbon-dating of mesic a booming, sustainable tourism have progressed with amazing grassland plants. An unplanned industry in Mamre. speed from hardly recognising highlight was the amazing video common and obvious species on forest canopy ecology and The CREW team would like to to happily looking at the finer research brought by Tony Ab- wish you a great 200. May diagnostic details of some very bott. As in 2008, one of the this year be filled with awe- obscure taxa. Finding our first most rewarding aspects of the some discoveries and amazing critically endangered species workshop was getting so many interactions.