Of Botanical Gardens and Sheep.

It's August, fag-end of the winter in our part of the world; the Indian Ocean High Pressure which moves in over south-east Africa in the autumn, seems to be breaking up. It is the dry part of the year, we are in the summer rainfall zone, and don't expect much rain between about April and September: conventional wisdom has it that the rains can be expected on 15 th Sepotember; now the clear, crisp sunny days of winter are changing to unexpected cold dull days, warmer days, and the infamous "'Berg winds", hot winds that blow down from the 3000m Drakensberg escarpment; A very tyring time for farmers and timber growers: the fire-hazard warnings rise to Orange or Red Alert, a runaway fire will be disastrous.



Occasional billows of smoke on the horizon, fragments of grass ash blown over the city to settle on the washing on the line, the city dweller doesn't get much of a sight of the adrenalin rush of action around a veld-fire: squads of workers with hand beaters, fire-trucks called out at instant alerts, scrambling of the water-dropping planes and helicopters, the panic of the threat of having you house or livestock destroyed. Losses of grazing and timber can be ZAR millions, not to mention the tragic loss of lives of firefighters and livestock. Grassland farms are protected by carefully prepared firebreaks, burnt under control along the camp (ie paddock's) boundaries. That helps, but a really hot one with the 'Berg wind behind it, can jump roads and firebreaks, and wreak havoc.



Wednesday last I took a walk in the city's botanical gardens, one of the oldest in the country, a favourite picnic place with wide lawns and shady trees, and an area of natural bush retained for bird- and tree-watchers and pensive ramblers. I took the camera, to see if I could find anything colourful to snap. At this time of year, the gardens are dry, the lawns somewhat brown and arid, and the century-old avenue of magnificent plane tress leafless.

The planes were planted in 1908 by a past curator, and are almost an icon of our city, practically everyone has had the sheer delight of strolling down this archway of boughs, in autumn and winter the ground is covered with their fallen leaves, to the delight of generations of kids; in summer tne canopy of green, filtering the hot sun, is like a cool, green tunnel. The trees are enormous. their boles metres thick; some lean a bit perilously, and one wonders when one of the giants will finally topple in one of our fierce summer thunderstorms. It is a popular venue for outdoor weddings in spring and summer: temporary altars are set up in the cathedral-like avenue, and a very fine place it is to make your vows.

I did find a little colour to make some pictures, a flowering tree yielded some nice images, one of which is at the head of this post. I thought it might be Bauhinia, but I think that's a subtropical evergreen, this one was leafless. It looks nice none the less. Another was a Weeping Bottlebrush, with brilliant scarlet flowers drooping down. I think the bottlebrush trees in Australia came from here; on reflection, it may have been the other way. Yes, it was Merino Sheep that were sent from Cape Colony to the new colonies in east and west Australia. Merino seem to thrive in these similar semi-arid areas, to the benefit of the two countries' wool export trades. the intercontinental migration of plants and livestock during the era of exploration from James Cook , Darwin, Banks, to Himalayan explorers forms a whole subject on it's own, but I am no environmental scientist or botanist, and can't start the sort of debate here, but no doubt there are folk out there who share my curiosity about what are generally referred to as "invasive aliens" and so on.

Enough from the engineering profession! I bid you Good day.