Notices for Users of the Albums

1. New Albums and some changes

 

The latest Albums on genera of South African plants added to the Operation Wildflower Site are the ones on Cyrtanthus, Dicoma and Strumaria. This means that photos and stories of plants belonging to these genera already on the Site, together with some new ones, have been moved from the more general Albums called Bulbs and Herbs respectively into their own new Albums under Genera. 

 

There is a genus Album in every case where enough material has been accumulated to warrant a stand-alone grouping of photos and stories. There are now more than 220 such genera Albums. The biggest ones (most photos) belong to the genera Crassula, Euphorbia, Pelargonium, Aloe and Erica. Keep watching, more will be added. If there is no genus Album yet on the plant you are looking for, check under Types, the grouping that the Site was started off with, accessible via the pictured items shown on the right. The Search Box may yield more, for plants and related material are also shown in Albums on Habitat, Regions and Parks and Gardens.

 

In order to access items on a plant of interest, enter its botanical name in the Search Box. Entering other words or names will access what is contained in the Albums database. The latest Regions Album is the one on Nature's Valley and the latest Parks and Gardens Album is on Tietiesbaai also known as the Cape Columbine Nature Reserve.

 

2. Want to talk about a plant or an Album item?

 

There is a new way of communicating with the Editor of this Site regarding any of the Album Items.
Comments, questions, corrections, information and suggestions can be put to the Editor by using the following email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

Please ensure that the Album Item concerned is clearly identified. Type its exact title as well as the Album Name in the Subject Line of your email. Please also state your name.

 

Similarly, communication regarding the functioning or technical aspects of the Site can be directed to the Webmaster at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

3. Reduced Mobile Site for Cell Phone Users

 

Operation Wildflower now also offers a reduced Mobile Site for cell phone use that only presents the Albums contents. This is aimed at overcoming display difficulties on some of the mobile devices in use for quick reference. The reduction found in the Mobile Site doesn't affect the full set of photos and stories of Operation Wildflower, only in diminishing the Site's secondary details that may make it hard to access the items on a small screen.

 

It is best to use the normal or full Operation Wildflower Site on computers, iPads and devices with bigger screens, as well as those that present unimpaired display of full details and access to all material on offer.

 

Should viewing difficulties be experienced on your device, click here to access the Mobile Site.

 

4. Subject Index

 

A Subject Index of a selection of topics touched on in Album Item text has been started, other than plant species. Access it via Information.

 

The Album Item Title should be clicked upon to open the Item dealing with the Topic.

 

Check in the Search Box for yet more subjects not added to the Subject Index list yet.

 

Botanical Ambassadors winning Friends

Ever so often the plant is South African, receiving sympathy for its brave coping with the contrasting climate to its natural origins by being lovingly tended, but also deserving praise for pleasing owners with the occasional flower that is mustered in season!

Who says all of our ambassadors earn salaries paid by our taxpayers?  Some receive full citizen rights and exemplary treatment, with hardly any remaining knowledge of their origins, when they left our shores and what passports accompanied them.   Their owners may well expect them to cheer for Dutch sports teams with no ‘uitlander’ tendencies. 

So plants have the same globetrotting tendencies of some humans.  And while some become unwelcome squatters (‘krakers’, I believe they say in Holland) that invade and mess up the local vegetation, others behave well as successful garden plants, learn to speak foreign languages from the whisperings of their green finger owners and may by now have forgotten their South African roots, so to speak! 

What’s done is done and while exporting plants is much more controlled these days, avoiding the contamination that has bitten so hard in many cases across the earth, the distant colonial botanical past has introduced plants as guests, impostors, immigrants or conquerors in strange places.  The links thus made serve to welcome us as tourists doubly when we visit strange destinations to hear our home language or see our home vegetation comfortably and prosperously established in alien territory.

I had a friend from the Mafikeng area that as a child played in dongas on a farm there, using the leaves of locally growing Strelitzia plants for sword fights in the Zorrow tradition.    There is doubt as to whether this plant grows in the western parts of the country and my friend has unfortunately passed away, so determining exactly which species he knew there or where to find it today has become a problem.  But Strelitzia reginae has moved on from South Africa to many countries, also for example adorning special features of Disney World and Disney Land in the USA.  Similarly, in the streets of Santa Monica in Los Angeles Podocarpus falcatus trees grow commonly as the popular fern pine; few will recognize the name yellowwood there or even know where the tree originates from!

Of course, many of ‘our’ plants are not truly ours alone: we share many with Africa and even beyond.  Did you for instance know that Protea lacticolor, some South African ericas, yellowwood and other of ‘our’ plants grow indigenously in the rain forest up the slopes of Mount Kenya on the equator?

But what if some of our most treasured plants may be one day only found on alien lands, completely lost to their natural home?  More ambassadors seeking asylum?  Are we sufficiently aware and respectful of what some of our local vegetation has achieved internationally and deserve from us?  The Chelsea Flower Show trophies for SA fynbos and other exhibits may have attracted attention, but let us remember what value there is around us and how delicate our natural vegetation is in so many both densely and sparsely populated areas.  Let us protect what we have when we clear areas for development.  Let us remember this when we encounter littering, burning or roughshod quad biking over what may so easily be lost forever.

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