An amateur botanist has discovered a new flower, a member of the iris family, near Kleinmond on the southern Cape coast.
The plant, a species of ixia, was found by Louis Mostert on an area of private land that had been cleared of alien vegetation for the first time in about 40 years.
The land borders on the Rooisand nature reserve, and the as-yet unnamed plant has also been identified on the reserve itself.
Environmentalist Amida Johns said the new ixia has a long-tubed flower of an ”orangey creamy” colour, and stands about half a metre high.
The shape of the flower means it would be pollinated by a long-tongued fly.
The Rooisand reserve itself is heavily infested with aliens, and the Arabella group, which runs the nearby Arabella Country Estate, recently entered a 50-year agreement with Cape Nature Conservation to manage the reserve. This will include clearing the alien vegetation.
The group’s ecotourism manager Norris Snyders, who will be responsible for the reserve, said he is very excited by the new find.
”This is the first time in 40 years that these things saw some kind of sunshine and flowered,” he said. ”Imagine what we are going to get when the whole reserve is cleared.”
The reserve is part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, which with 1 650 indigenous plant species is one of the richest areas of plant diversity in the Cape floral kingdom, itself one of the richest plant kingdoms in the world. — Sapa