Seneca Hill Perennials

February 11, 2008

Fascinating day at Semonkong today.  Had a restless night – felt weird – thought I might be getting something unpleasant – but nothing dramatic transpired, I ate a light breakfast, and we all set out around 8:30 AM to hike towards the waterfall and see what we could find.

The path outward was pretty treacherous at times, in the sense that it consisted of many interlaced paths around a central sump of black clayey mud and manure, thoroughly mixed. One had to pick one’s way across the higher spots, not always successfully; shoes developed a platform of mud, pants were muddied beyond recovery.  As one walks, one is passed frequently by guys on horses  -some very handsome little horses, with a hint of Arabian in their pretty faces, some not – and donkeys, loaded to an extent that bothered Cameron considerably but did not seem to perturb the donkeys, who went along with a reasonable degree of liveliness.  In one instance an unloaded and otherwise undressed donkey trotted along proudly ahead of his (presumed) master, who was mounted on a horse; one had the sense the donkey was not about to be seen slavishly following anyone.

After 1 or 2K we passed through a settlement, which included one magnificent and unoccupied 1-story rectangular stone house, the door squarely in the center, one large window to either side, and the sides slightly tapered in rather than vertical.  One of the locals, dressed  in white rain slicker, white rain pants and white rubber boots, told us the stone house had been the locus of a trading company that used to operate here.  A kid of 15 or so, possibly this guy’s son, attached himself to us and came along as far as the waterfall ( a couple K further), but eventually he got bored watching us obsess about plants and wandered homeward (when we did the same, around 2:00 PM, he was trudging back from the village with whatever things he’d been sent to get – he was, he confessed earlier, supposed to be in school today, but he got up late and missed the bus).  A couple interesting bits of information from him: the locals eat the greens of the Schizoglossum bidens ssp bidens we saw everywhere (uncooked), and the flowers of Gladiolus saundersii are edible.  The latter I tried after he ate one first (he pulled out the reproductive parts and ate the petals) – I just ate one petal – they taste like lettuce and are somewhat sweet.  Too pretty to eat, though, so we left the rest alone.

So we continued to view the waterfall, which is truly magnificent, in free fall for roughly 600 feet at the head of a deep gorge, so that the sound is projected far up onto the plateau where we wandered, and visibility is excellent from many points.  Watching the plume of water, constricted as it passes over the lip, gradually widen as it fell was mesmerizing.  I would have to say this was the best waterfall I’ve ever seen.

The botanizing was delightful once we passed the heavily grazed and deeply rutted areas outside the settlement (which apparently derives its income from sending men off to the mines) and the main waterfall lookout, to which the locals bring their pony trips and then let the horses graze.  Today they had packed in a group of Chinese Canadians who are staying at our lodge and who we had assumed were here for nefarious purposes (the Chinese are moving heavily into the SA economy, so why not Lesotho?)  Turns out they’re missionaries.  Don’t know what denomination.

Anyway, before the lookout we found Schizoglossum bidens ssp bidens and Asclepias gibba, and then some big pachycarpus.  Of course I was thrilled to acquire a couple pods, but later I discovered them growing in large numbers, all in seed, so I took samples of about 20 plants in case their color varied.  It now appears it’s probably P. machrochilus (we later found 1 specimen in full bloom, either a late bloomer or proof that the pods were *not* machrochilus – we shall see – P. dealbatus is a possibility, based on leaf shape).  What the pods are not is P. vexillaris, one I would love to have; Dawie found one of those with a couple tired old blooms, and the leaf was definitely hairier than these.

I wandered up the rocky hill face to see what grew there, and collected a reasonable number of Hypoxis iridifolia seeds (foliage on this one is attractively compact and hairy – I have some at home already, seed from Dawie).  Also found a very low-growing, spreading Lessertia sp, w/ inflated pods c. 1-1.5” long, and collected some; was excited until I saw the flowers higher up, which were undistinguished little dull pink-purple peas.

Anyway, we continued up through the boulders until we reached the grassland at the top, and this was really quite wonderful – apparently a genuine natural grassland, not being grazed, with Dierama robustum (1, 2) here and there, Asclepias gibba, more Schizoglossum, lots of Haplocarphus, and other typical field plants.  Cameron found a few orchids, which always makes him happy.  We started turning homeward, slowly, and came upon a rocky slope where the Haemanthus humilis had ripe seed, so of course we collected what we could; I will give some back to Cameron (Dawie says these are just whitish-pink), but will keep a good number because they’re certainly the highest-altitude population I’m ever likely to acquire (somewhere between 2400-2600m).

Just when the haemanthus had been fully exploited, Cameron or Dawie discovered a magnificent specimen of pachycarpus in full bloom – probably P. rigidus . That one had me fully prostrate, and I got some pretty decent photos, considering that by then it was so overcast that I was shooting at 1/40th of a second.  Of course, prostrate on a steep hill is relatively easy to do.

By the time I had finished worshipping at that particular temple, the others had moved on up and over the next hill.  We don’t generally wait for each other – just keep an eye on who’s where.  I caught up with them where they’d settled down to eat lunch, and we all sat munching in awed silence, contemplating the gigantic waterfall across the gorge and by now well below us. I came pretty close to being purely content.

And then we slogged our way home, me getting quite tired and contemplating my great good fortune that my insides had managed to behave all day long (there would not have been much cover, had I felt the need).  Passed many people, horses, donkeys, and one very interesting dog of the Egyptian-derivative type, sort of like a small sylphlike shaggy corn-colored greyhound – like nothing I’d ever seen, but Dawie knows the type.

Finally and gratefully reached my lodgings, where I attempted to clean my boots under the outside tap, with the small nylon brush I carry for that purpose. Getting the sides clean was easy, but the bottoms are just not going to come clean until I work the stuff off – there’s a reason they use a combination of dung and mud to plaster the insides of their houses: it’s indestructible.

Having scrubbed the boots, I peeled off my slacks, never to deal with them again, showered long and hard, and cleaned the Haemanthus humilis seed, which fruit has a slightly revolting smell.  Laid it out to dry on the spare towel, having first decorously laid down a few layers of TP to prevent staining.  I then wandered over to the office to investigate their craft and T-shirt offerings; was interested to find that the T-shirt, with all sorts of warnings against using hot water, cleaning powders, an iron, or an electric dryer (i.e. not made to be used and washed!), cost me 125R, or roughly $18, while two very handsome large traditional winnowing baskets, incredibly solidly constructed of braided dierama leaf fiber stitched over coiled grass, cost me the grand sum of 42R each (roughly $6).  And presumably someone’s still making a killing on them.

And so back to my room, where I finally located the outlet, plugged in this computer, dealt with the few photos I took today (it was cloudy most of the day, increasingly so after about noon), and contentedly contemplated the rain outside as I tended to my affairs in here.  It’s now approximately 5 PM; I have 2 more hours to myself before dinner; I feel good.  Nice day.