/ 19 December 2003

Consider the flowers of the mountains

‘Tis Christmastide and I’m not in the mood for being snide about anyone. Filled with love for my fellow beings I’d rather write about something both beautiful and valuable.

It’s a book, a quite remarkable one that is the third and final in a series that, for botanists or any else interested in wild flowers and trees, is the equivalent of Roberts’s Birds of South Africa.

First published was The Complete Field Guide to the Trees of Natal, Zululand and the Transkei, now into its fourth impression. Then came A Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Region. Now Mountain Flowers: A Field Guide to the Flora of the Drakensberg and Lesotho. These have been the dedicated work of Elsa Pooley, which together form an astonishing body of work. The comprehensive scope and scale of the books has been made possible by sponsorship raised by the non-profit-making Flora Publications Trust, which also ensures the books will be kept in print and updated when necessary.

In a sense the titles of the first two books are deceptive for, though they deal with the flora of KwaZulu-Natal, they cover almost two-thirds of Southern Africa’s species of trees and larger woody plants. The field guide on the KwaZulu-Natal wild flowers draws from a list of all the flowers of our summer rainfall areas. KwaZulu-Natal is home to a legion of species that occur elsewhere in Southern African, and also to a very high number of endemic species.

In her introduction, Pooley explains the breadth of landscape these plants inhabit: ‘This book provides a guide to the flora of the highest mountain region of Southern Africa, the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg and Lesotho. It is forbidding, awe-inspiring territory caught among the mists and clouds of basalt peaks where waterfalls turn to columns of ice in winter. Long familiar to herdsmen and mountaineers, the area is largely inaccessible and still considered terra incognito by botanists. The plants may differ with every fold of the mountains, with every change in altitude, aspect, drainage and rock type, from one valley or peak to the next, clinging to cracks in rock faces, taking hold in basalt gravels or floating in shallow rock pools on the summit.

‘The broken landscape of the escarpment and the harsh climatic conditions on the highlands of Lesotho account for the remarkably diverse plant life with about 2 200 species and almost 400 endemics. The flora of these high mountains has recently been recognised as one of the world’s ‘hot spots’, a centre of plant diversity of global botanic importance.”

Of the book itself, Pooley and her editorial committee have maintained the obliging format of the first two books. The flowers are colour-coded for easy identification. Each of these divisions cites first those plants of the lily and orchid families, followed by those of the legumes (more or less mid-section), and finally those of the daisy clan. Maps address the distribution of every flower and plant detailed. Described plants are accompanied by a colour photograph. (Photo- graphers who contributed to the book were required to furnish specimens of the flowers they had photographed to the Natal Herb- arium for verification.)

Writ bold in the description of each plant — again for easy identification — are the diagnostic features of the plant, which assist in distinguishing one type of plant from another. Plants are identified by both scientific and common names (in all local languages). Added to that, and also where possible, is annotated the use of the plants in traditional medicine and general natural history notes.

More than 1 000 species of plants are described, including grasses, trees and ferns. The extensive research that went into the work must have been formidable. Its meticulous presentation is a delight to the eye, with exquisite line drawings by Angela Beaumont and distribution maps for every flower. The photography has to be seen to be believed. Every flower has been perfectly captured and all donated by the photographers, a contribution without which the project would not have been feasible. Many other and generous hands contributed to a work that will become a definitive reference.

The book is dedicated to Olive Billiard and Bill Burtt, who studied the flora of the Southern Natal Drakensberg for more than 20 years. It was they who first published a checklist of plants located in the Drakensberg, and it was to them that Pooley turned for authori- tative guidance in this remarkable endeavour of publishing an accomplished documentation of the plants of this region.

Pooley is a botanist with more than 30 years’ practical experience in her field, and a widely exhibited botanical artist of extraordinary gift. With this book, as with the others, she has created and developed a methodology that spans the divide between the popular and the scientific. For those whose interest in their gardens extends into the area of indigenous plants, these books provide a necessary adjunct to their gardening libraries.

Mountain Flowers: A Field Guide to the Flora of the Drakensberg and Lesotho is published by Flora Publications Trust and costs R175