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| A selection of images of the flowers of two genera from the family Amaryllidaceae: top; Scadoxus membranaceus, S. puniceus; bottom; Haemanthus deformis x albiflos, H. humilis |
How our world has
changed since PlantLife Volume 48 was published. At that stage, there was an
awareness of a new influenza epidemic ravaging through Wuhan province in China
and concerns about this spreading. Six months later and there have been over 10
million people infected around the world, more than half a million deaths, every
country in the world has undergone some form of lockdown to slow the spread of the
disease and their economies have suffered massive damage as a result. The effects
of the pandemic will be felt for a long time.
In the meantime,
plants have continued to grow and flower, unhindered, and for some, this has
been a great comfort in the midst of the chaos caused by the pandemic. Along the lower south coast of KwaZulu-Natal in south Africa a few of us have kept our plant senses honed by sharing photos of indigenous plants from our gardens when the lockdown was most restricting, and latterly from within our immediate neighborhoods. I hope that PlantLife readers were able to find similar ways of continuing to get their nature-fix during these difficult times.
Over the past number of volumes of PlantLife, I have been disappointed to find that readers/subscribers were not being notified when a new volume was being published as I had been led to expect. When the service provider seemed incapable or unwilling to address this problem, I looked for other ways of ensuring that readers are informed whenever a new edition is published. I was guided to an alternative marketing platform, MailChimp, which I intend using to give myself more control over promotional activities. I will therefore be using MailChimp to circulate a notice shortly after each new edition is published but please be aware that through a IP address quirk, these notices might end up in your Spam folder unless you tell you email system to accept them. I trust this step helps to keep readers informed about new editions.
The family Amaryllidaceae includes many species with rather spectacular flowers. The cover page of Volume 48 depicted the flower of Scadoxus multiflorus subsp. katharinae. This edition has an article describing new research showing how this and other species in the family Amaryllidaceae are pollinated. This prompted me to put together the above collage of some flowers from two genera within Amaryllidaceae.
Another article in this edition gives an historical perspective on how licenses for harvesting of Dioscorea sylvatica were abused. A very similar scenario is currently playing itself out on the lower south coast of KZN where (mainly) nurseries are obtaining permits for the harvesting of Strelitzia nicolai seeds for export. Up until the Covid 19 lockdown there were a few, mainly female, groups of collectors who moved through regularly. Their collecting might have been marginally unsustainable. Since the latter stages of the lockdown, far more groups have appeared, several male-dominated and now the taller Strelitzia trees are being felled to harvest the few seeds in a completely unsustainable fashion. The KZN Wildlife authorities would do well to learn from how Roddy Ward dealt with the Dioscorea sylvatica problem then.
Finally we have a paper on a suggestion to road management authorities on a different way of utilising road verge vegetation as a botanical wildlife resource. I would like to express my appreciation to all the authors in this latest edition of PlantLife for persevering despite the unusual restrictions imposed by the pandemic lockdowns. I hope you all enjoy these articles.
And, please remember that we are keen to showcase interesting information about plant life that readers might have, so feel free to send in your ideas to plantlife.editor@gmail.com.
Over the past number of volumes of PlantLife, I have been disappointed to find that readers/subscribers were not being notified when a new volume was being published as I had been led to expect. When the service provider seemed incapable or unwilling to address this problem, I looked for other ways of ensuring that readers are informed whenever a new edition is published. I was guided to an alternative marketing platform, MailChimp, which I intend using to give myself more control over promotional activities. I will therefore be using MailChimp to circulate a notice shortly after each new edition is published but please be aware that through a IP address quirk, these notices might end up in your Spam folder unless you tell you email system to accept them. I trust this step helps to keep readers informed about new editions.
The family Amaryllidaceae includes many species with rather spectacular flowers. The cover page of Volume 48 depicted the flower of Scadoxus multiflorus subsp. katharinae. This edition has an article describing new research showing how this and other species in the family Amaryllidaceae are pollinated. This prompted me to put together the above collage of some flowers from two genera within Amaryllidaceae.
Another article in this edition gives an historical perspective on how licenses for harvesting of Dioscorea sylvatica were abused. A very similar scenario is currently playing itself out on the lower south coast of KZN where (mainly) nurseries are obtaining permits for the harvesting of Strelitzia nicolai seeds for export. Up until the Covid 19 lockdown there were a few, mainly female, groups of collectors who moved through regularly. Their collecting might have been marginally unsustainable. Since the latter stages of the lockdown, far more groups have appeared, several male-dominated and now the taller Strelitzia trees are being felled to harvest the few seeds in a completely unsustainable fashion. The KZN Wildlife authorities would do well to learn from how Roddy Ward dealt with the Dioscorea sylvatica problem then.
Finally we have a paper on a suggestion to road management authorities on a different way of utilising road verge vegetation as a botanical wildlife resource. I would like to express my appreciation to all the authors in this latest edition of PlantLife for persevering despite the unusual restrictions imposed by the pandemic lockdowns. I hope you all enjoy these articles.
And, please remember that we are keen to showcase interesting information about plant life that readers might have, so feel free to send in your ideas to plantlife.editor@gmail.com.
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