Some four months after the fire and following good autumn and early winter rains the landscape is full of floral surprises. Splashes of pink on the upper sandstone slopes turned out to be these beautiful pink flowered Gladiolus meridionalis.

This large flowered Gladiolus is adapted to sunbird pollination. It has a long flower tube with large quantities of sucrose dominant nectar hidden at the bottom of the flower. A feast for a hungry sugarbird!

A bit lower down, on sandier soils, were these hedgehog lillies, Massonia pustulata.

This species is a low, ground-hugging, bulbous plant characterised by two broad, flat, leathery leaves that have rough, blistered (pustulate – hence the species name) upper surfaces. The rivulets formed on this upper surface capture condensation and channel moisture to the bulb. The flowers are densely clustered between the two leaves and are creamy-white, pink or yellow. It is pollinated by honeybees and butterflies in search of the nectar held in the bottom of the long floral tubes. It is widespread and relatively common from Namaqualand to Port Elizabeth and the Karoo.

The bright red flowers of Lachenalia rubida were abundent in the deep sands near to the Walker Bay coastline in the first wineter following the fire. This species has one or two lance- to strap-shaped leaves that are plain green or spotted with darker green or purple. It is a species of the coastal sandy flats from Hondeklip Bay to the Cape Peninsula and eastwards to George.

By mid-April the first good rains had fallen, the temperatures were dropping and the blackened landscapes were now rapidly becoming covered in fresh, young vegetation. The photo below shows the fast regrowth of the resprouting Olea capensis ssp. capensis as well as asparagus and the grass Cymbopogon marginatus on the ridge below Swartkransberg.

A closer look at the landscape revealed some flowering gems including the resprouting Liparia splendens (the mountain dahlia) and Gerbera piloselloides (swarttee).

Liparia splendens subsp. splendens, or the Mounatin dahlia as it is cmmonly known, is an creeping shrubs that is found on the higher peaks in the Walker Bay region where it is mostly found in rocky outcrops. As a species that resprouts after fire, the rocks provide some degree of protection for the undreground lignotuber from fire. Liparia seeds have a fleshy collar-like aril that attracts ants that disperse seeds underground. This dispersal strategy using ants is known as myrmecochory.  

Gerbera piloselloides (swartee) is a tufted perennial with a rosette of elliptical leaves that are softly cobwebby on both surfaces. It tends to be overshadowed by larger fynbos plants in mature veld. As such it loves fire, and is one of the first species to flower in the autumn after a burn. It has a natural distribution from the Cape Peninsula to tropical Africa.

You can see from the photo above our post-fire landscape is still looking rather bare, but there are some traces of green appearing despite no rain having fallen.  However on closer inspection a number of plants had already re-sprouted and were in full flower. Below is a photo of the beautiful Kniphofia uvaria (red hot poker) that was photographed in full bloom just seven weeks after the fire.

Another species already flowering was Mairia coriacea (fire daisy), a species restricted to rocky sandstone slopes between Rooiels and Potberg that flowers profusely imediately following fire.