PlantLife Volume 55.7, July 2023. Kemp's Heights – the saving of a botanical gem from destruction

 

Kemp’s Heights – the saving of a botanical gem from destruction

By John Burrows

Figure 1: Kemp’s Heights, dotted with the yellow Moraea spathulata in mid-summer

 

The people involved in getting this area protected

• ·   William (‘Bill’) J. Fraser, Conservation Officer on Buffelskloof Nature Reserve, Lydenburg from October 1976 to December 1984†, and a member of the Lowveld Branch of the Botanical Society of South Africa.
• ·   Johan P. Kluge (29 November 1947–12 June 1998), botanist and Forest Research Officer with the then Department of Forestry, based near Sabie from 1973 to 1980. He was later employed as Curator of the Lowveld National Botanic Garden in Nelspruit (1980–1998†).
• ·   J.J.H. (‘Jo’) Onderstall (17 May 1929–28 March 2016), doyenne of amateur botany in the Lowveld and long-standing leading figure in the Lowveld Branch of the Botanical Society. Also the author of two wild flower guides on the Mpumalanga escarpment and the lowveld.
• ·   Dr Fried von Breitenbach (1 August 1916–21 June 1995), at that time Chief Professional Officer in the Forest Research Institute of South Africa. Also founder of the Dendrological Society of South Africa and a prolific author on trees and forestry.
• ·   John Rae (13 May 1913–29 November 2005), businessman and founder of Buffelskloof Nature Reserve, Lydenburg. 

 

The combining of forces to protect and conserve a small but very biodiverse patch of grassland

Kemp’s Heights is a small patch – only 107 hectares – of rocky montane grassland that sits atop the eastern escarpment of Mpumalanga, looking out over the distant lowveld. The highest point on the summit ridge sits at 1910 m, sloping down to 1740 m at the lowest point along the top of the cliffs that form the rocky ramparts of the escarpment at this point. This part of the eastern escarpment has, since the 1960s attracted timber-growers, resulting in much of it having been afforested to pine trees. Kemp’s Heights is currently surrounded on all sides by pine plantations and, in 1979, the Department of Forestry had made plans to plant up Kemp’s Heights – the last remaining piece of open grassland – to pine trees. In those days all land that could support a pine tree was planted up, with scant regard for conserving areas of these rich and precious montane grasslands. Bill Fraser, my predecessor as Conservation Officer at Buffelskloof Nature Reserve, got wind of these plans and was horrified. The border of the Reserve then lay a mere 2.5 kilometres away from Kemp’s Heights and Bill, a keen and knowledgeable plantsman, knew that the Heights supported many rare plant species, particularly orchids in which he had a particular interest.

As a member of the Lowveld Branch of the Botanical Society, he contacted the then Chairman, Mrs Jo Onderstall for help. And, fortuitously, Bill also mentioned the problem to John Rae, his employer and the owner of Buffelskloof Nature Reserve. Fortuitous as, at this time, John Rae had become friendly with Dr Fried and Mrs Jutta von Breitenbach because of their involvement with the Dendrological Society of which John Rae was then a trustee. Indeed, just prior to this, Fried and Jutta had been to stay at Buffelskloof and were extremely impressed with John Rae’s conservation efforts.

Luckily Fried von Breitenbach also wore another cap: he was the head of the Government’s Forest Research Institute and therefore also responsible for the Forestry Department’s conservation programmes. Once Bill Fraser had discussed the Kemp’s Heights matter with John Rae, the latter wrote to Dr von Breitenbach, asking for his help, enclosing along with it a memo by Bill on the imminent proposed planting of Kemp’s Heights to pines. On 17 April 1979, von Breitenbach instructed Johan Kluge, who was then the departmental ecologist at the D.R. de Wet Forest Research Station near Sabie, to investigate the matter and report back to him. Johan Kluge immediately teamed up with Bill Fraser and Jo Onderstall – who was at that time compiling the first of her two wild flower guides to what was then the Eastern Transvaal’s escarpment and Lowveld.

These three botanists soon confirmed the floral richness and importance of this small vestige of montane grassland and, with the official backing of the Botanical Society of South Africa, Johan Kluge was able to motivate the setting aside of Kemp’s Heights as a conservation area. And so in 1980, at the 11th hour – the small holes for the trees had already been dug and seedlings planted – the proposed afforestation of Kemp’s Heights was averted and the area has, ever since, been maintained as a conservation area. But, after a burn, and with the angle of the sun just right, one can still see the shadows of those holes – a reminder of just how close we were to losing this remnant of valuable grassland, but for the knowledge and commitment of a couple of dedicated botanists and conservationists. Sadly, Bill passed away a mere four years later. However, Bill would have been overjoyed to know that, in October 1996, Kemp’s Heights was proclaimed a Natural Heritage Site, with the proclamation signed by none other than Nelson Mandela.

Figure 2 (right): Kniphofia triangularis subsp. obtusifolia on Kemp’s Heights. This variety is almost endemic to the montane grasslands of Mpumalanga Province.

Figure 3 ( below): The rocky grasslands on the summit of Kemp’s Heights

What these efforts helped preserve

Frequently clothed in mist or cloud swirling up from the lowveld, the cool, misty heights of Kemp’s Heights are home to a rich array of plants. It is therefore surprising that this area had not attracted botanists from early times. It was only in 1932 that a W.E. Holt collected at least two plants on Kemp’s Heights: Colchicum striatum (Colchicaceae), and a then un-named species of Erica, both of which were sent to the National Herbarium in Pretoria. The tiny erica, barely 150 mm tall, proved to be new to science and was described in 1933 as Erica holtii by H.G.W.J. Schweickerdt, a botanist at the National Herbarium in Pretoria.

Figure 4: Colchicum striatum, a striking bulbous plant common on the Heights during summer, also collected by W.E. Holt in 1932.

Figure 5: Erica holtii, named after W.E. Holt who first collected plant specimens on Kemp’s Heights in March 1932.

Twenty years elapsed before the first wave of concentrated plant collecting on Kemp’s Heights began with a visit in November 1952 by National Herbarium botanists Wessel Marais and Cythna Letty. The latter was then working on a revision of the South African species of Zantedeschia (arum lilies) and she collected there a specimen of Zantedeschia aethiopica, the common white arum lily. Strangely, this species has never been seen there again and its disappearance remains a mystery.

Wessel Marais was clearly fascinated by Kemp’s Heights and he returned a number of times to make further collections. On his second return trip in January 1954, he was accompanied by fellow Pretoria botanist Dr Leslie Codd (1908–1999) and they collected a number of plant specimens, amongst which was a species of Helichrysum or everlasting – which was also to prove to be new to science. For 28 years Codd’s Helichrysum specimen languished un-named in the cupboards of the National Herbarium in Pretoria. It was not until 1982, when Dr Olive Hilliard of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg embarked on a revision of the genus Helichrysum for the Flora of Southern Africa (1983) that she came across Codd’s specimen and recognized it as a new species.

Figure 6: Dr Leslie Codd of the National Herbarium, Pretoria, one of the early botanists to visit Kemp’s Heights in 1952.

She named it after him and, in so doing, Helichrysum lesliei became the second plant species whose type specimen originated from Kemp’s Heights.

Figure 7: Helichrysum lesliei, named for Dr Leslie Codd, and now found in only here and in one other known locality.

Helichrysum lesliei serves as a sobering example of just how close we have come to losing a species altogether. While Erica holtii has subsequently been discovered to occur widely from the Drakensberg/Maluti mountains and up into Limpopo Province, H. lesliei has only ever been found again on the next mountain range to the south, on Elandshoogte at Taljaard’s Vlei, about 50 kilometres away. If Kemp’s Heights had not been saved, Taljaard’s Vlei would now be the only remaining site where H. lesliei occurred.

The loss of Kemp’s Heights to a pine plantation in 1980 would have, in one unrecorded action, halved the known distribution of this beautiful everlasting. One wonders how many other populations of Helichrysum lesliei have already been obliterated by plantations along the escarpment?

Although the continued preservation of Kemp’s Heights is reasonably well-assured, sadly its botanical integrity is not, despite its status as a Natural Heritage Site. This is due solely to its accessibility. A gravel provincial road runs through the centre of the area and there is no access control. The threats to the area’s rare plants perhaps started early on, undoubtedly as a result of glowing reports of Kemp’s Heights by these early botanists. The following passage from the periodical series The Flowering Plants of Africa (1954–55: Plate 1174), in an article on the orchid Disa patula var. transvaalensis by the Pretoria botanist Dr Inez Verdoorn, says it all, ‘For anyone interested in ground orchids the grassy slopes of the mountainous country in the Eastern Transvaal provide a happy hunting ground. At Kemp’s Heights, eleven miles south-east of Lydenburg, where the plant figured here was collected, at least a dozen different species [of orchids] occur scattered in the grass.’

While the scientific collection of plant specimens for herbarium research poses little or no threat to a species’ survival, the collection of whole plants, including underground organs, definitely does. Orchids have always been a source of obsessive interest and orchid collectors have often attempted – almost always unsuccessfully – to dig up and cultivate these delicate terrestrial orchids from our grasslands. Therefore, publicizing precise directions to the ‘happy hunting ground’ of Kemp’s Heights represented the first major threat to its botanical diversity. The provincial road has also enabled traditional medicinal plant collectors to target the area, with this author thwarting at least one such incursion.

Figure 8: A view from the rocky grasslands of Kemp’s Heights away to the distant lowveld.

There has never been a comprehensive inventory of the area’s plants carried out – however, a preliminary list is being compiled from various early botanical records, as well as from the collections made by the author and numerous botanical researchers who have included Kemp’s Heights in their visits to Buffelskloof Nature Reserve. Despite its incompleteness, one gets an immediate sense of the botanical uniqueness of this little 100-hectare patch of priceless montane grassland. A copy of the list is available from the Editor upon request.

Acknowledgement:  This article is reproduced , with permission, from Bio-Chat , the in-house newsletter of the Buffelskloof Nature Reserve, Mpumalanga, produced by John and Sandie Burrows. Bio-Chat is no longer available.

References:

Burrows, J.E. 1998. In Memoriam: Johan Kluge 1947–1998. Veld & Flora 84,3: 79.

Burrows, J.E. 2016. Obituary: Jo Onderstall. The Lowvelder, Friday April 1, 2016: 8.

Glen, H.F. & Germishuizen, G. 2010. Botanical Exploration of Southern Africa, Edn. 2. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria

Hinze, M., personal communication, 11 July 2020. Rae, J. undated, c. 1998. Memoirs of a Forester and Naturalist in the Eastern Transvaal. Privately published

Acknowledgement:  This article is reproduced , with permission, from Bio-Chat , the in-house newsletter of the Buffelskloof Nature Reserve, Mpumalanga, produced by John and Sandie Burrows. Bio-Chat is no longer available.

About the author: John Burrows is a botanist who built up the Buffelskloof Herbarium in Mpumalanga and who is also the author or co-author of a number of plant books. He was the founder of Mpumalanga's very successful Plant Specialist Group. The Buffelskloof Herbarium is now incorporated in the Moss Herbarium at the University of the Witwatersrand and John, and his wife Sandie, have recently retired down to Calitzdorp in the Western Cape.