Background
How this site will unfold
Information on the plants of the country is vested in the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) that has arisen on the botanical side from the amalgamation of the original national Department of Botany, the National Botanical Gardens (Kirstenbosch and its satellite gardens). There is of course also the major zoological component. The Institute is supported by the Botanical Society of South Africa (BotSoc) and the following excerpt is from its website..." was established in 1913, the same year the now world famous Kirstenbosch Garden was started. The land for the garden, which was left to the nation by Cecil John Rhodes, was allocated for the development of a botanical garden by the South African government on condition that an appropriate organization from civil society was formed to assist with the venture. The Society has faithfully fulfilled this objective, as well as extending assistance and support to the other eight National Botanical Gardens that have subsequently been established around the country. The Society has also championed the cause of wildflower protection and conservation, outside the gardens, through conservation and education programmes, projects and initiatives.
The Society is a registered not for profit organization that has 30 000 members spread across the world.
The Head Office of the Society is situated at Kirstenbosch where a small group of core personnel service and support the branches and manage projects along with the normal administration functions required by a large organization. By being a member of the Society one is part of a large group of individuals from around the world that support the mission and objectives of the Society.
The Society has several branches around the country most of which are associated with the botanical gardens they support."
This Fisherhaven Flora site is aimed at creating a local picture reference to the plants that occur in the immediate area and will be linked to the activities of the branch of the Botanical Society at Hermanus and to the Fernklooof Nature Reserve. It is intended to also link to Friends of the Bot and Environment at Fisherhaven itself. There will be a section covering invasive non-indigenous (alien) that are such a serious threat to the natural environment.
The Society is a registered not for profit organization that has 30 000 members spread across the world.
The Head Office of the Society is situated at Kirstenbosch where a small group of core personnel service and support the branches and manage projects along with the normal administration functions required by a large organization. By being a member of the Society one is part of a large group of individuals from around the world that support the mission and objectives of the Society.
The Society has several branches around the country most of which are associated with the botanical gardens they support."
This Fisherhaven Flora site is aimed at creating a local picture reference to the plants that occur in the immediate area and will be linked to the activities of the branch of the Botanical Society at Hermanus and to the Fernklooof Nature Reserve. It is intended to also link to Friends of the Bot and Environment at Fisherhaven itself. There will be a section covering invasive non-indigenous (alien) that are such a serious threat to the natural environment.
Organising plants on this site
The plants will be identified as accurately as possible using local knowledge and the many books available on the subject. The prime reference will be Dr John Manning's "Field Guide to Fynbos" as the most comprehensive and systematic. Photographs will be arranged in the same system of eight groups. These are in two sets of four. The two are:
1. Monocotyledons
These have leaves with parallel veins with the petals and stamens in parts of 3. These are divided into
Group 1 - grass-like plants,
Group 2 - wetland plants; and then two groups of lily-like plants with conspicuous flowers viz.
Group 3 - having flowers with the petals radially symmetrical and with 6 stamens,
Group 4 - flowers often 2-lipped with the 1 or stamens.
Group 1 - grass-like plants,
Group 2 - wetland plants; and then two groups of lily-like plants with conspicuous flowers viz.
Group 3 - having flowers with the petals radially symmetrical and with 6 stamens,
Group 4 - flowers often 2-lipped with the 1 or stamens.
2. Dicotyledons
These are herbs, shrubs and trees. The first three groups have as many stamens or more than petals. These are two groups with ovary superior (above the base of the petals) i.e.
Group 5 - flowers radially symmetrical
Group 6 - flowers strongly 2-lipped.
Group 7 - ovary inferior (below the base of the petals)
Group 8- plants with stamens fewer than petals and flowers mostly 2-lipped.
Group 5 - flowers radially symmetrical
Group 6 - flowers strongly 2-lipped.
Group 7 - ovary inferior (below the base of the petals)
Group 8- plants with stamens fewer than petals and flowers mostly 2-lipped.
It is expecting a lot for people to make much use of even this simplified system but it is available with more information and explanation in Dr Manning's guide. In this guide the composition of the groups with respect to plant families and genera is set out and explained. There are many other books and references among which are South African Wild Flower Guide No 5 for Hottentots Holland to Hermanus and No 8 for the Southern Overberg.
About identification and names
In present times Latin names see to be a serious obstruction to interest in and learning about plants. The fact is that the use of Latin names is the true and formal way in which information is stored and retrieved. In practise this is nothing more than a two-tier system for storage as opposed to the one- tier system of common names. In addition it is a universal tool. With birds it appears that common names have been upped by agreement among nations so that they are universal, but I am not sure this applies across all languages. It seems very unlikely that the same can be done for plants.
When a plant is named, there is a requirement that a reference specimen is deposited in a herbarium recognised by the formal botanical community (where a botanist is recognised as such if having acquired some kind of qualification from a tertiary educational institution). The formal name is the latin binomial of genus and species. Any further identification essentially requires referral to that original specimen. The process of identifying new specimens or originating new names is one of constant change and revision. A species first acquires a name and then a list of additional citations recording new finds and localities for that named species. With time that identification and list of specimens is revised. This results in new species (splitting), or consolidation of two or more species into one (lumping).
The whole process frustrates the non-botanist for two reasons. The first is the unfamiliarity and apparent complexity of the names themselves. The second is that the process of formal naming as it leads to an ever-changing system of names apparently driven by the egoism or animosity of the people who create and change those names i.e. the botanist taxonomists. There is also a strange attraction and effect of these names in respect of knowledge that begs explanation. It is a curious fact that people will visit an herbarium with a sprig of a plant and ask for an identification. Given a name, the visitor is satisfied, discards the piece of plant and forgets what the name was. My explanation is that creation is a vast "honey-trap" for the soul and there is a natural urge to explore and learn what creation has to offer. The names offer the assurance of knowledge and a key to more. For people attracted to and appreciative of nature, names are necessary to understand what plants are, how they relate to each other and where they come from. Sadly little else may be known about the vast field of what the plant contributes and brings to the nature of life in any other respect. This brings us to another question of what exactly constitutes a species. A question fraught with difficulty. Initially it was thought to be quite an easy one to answer and only a question of whether or not the plants could interbreed or not. This is a concept borrowed from zoology and there is very little evidence to suggest that botanical workers have ever seriously examined the process in the species they have so simplistically “created”. However it is much more complicated than this as it leads back in history to the foundations of science and its emergence as a disciplined process of questioning our own very origins. Much more could be written about this and I am constrained by societies mental blocks and prejudices from trying to do so.
It is necessary to say that the simple identification of plants by so-called “characters” has not produced a really stable classification. The trend in the present time is to depend on DNA sequencing where the arrangement of the amino-ac id pairs in an accessible part of the basic genetic material is accepted as the truest guide to a species status. I personally am not sure that it is, but it does hold the promise of being an objective and indisputable way of arriving at a conclusion. Where there is a classification and a name formally in place, the problem now remains of simple field identification where a DNA examination is not possible and/or not available. How do we arrive at a name? An exacerbation is that plants vary. Even at one location, unless the plants are multiplying vegetatively rather than by seed, no two plants may be exactly the same. In fact even by vegetative propagation where a plant is multiplying just by fallen parts, or extended root systems, by non-sexual setting of seed etc., the individuals may still be different from one another. In the field, individual growing conditions are very seldom exactly the same and individuals may differ for many different reasons. From the identification point of view this all leads to confusion. Apart from locally where variation may lead to the recognition of more than one species, there is a more difficult situation where species have a wide distribution. The wider the distribution the greater the possibility there is for variation and difference leading to the recognition of more than the one species that could be true for the case. It is being recognised now that a classification and identification solution for one locale, may not be true for another.
In practise the way in which knowledge is derived and established in any area may depend on the process in which a first identification is established and then propagated throughout a community. Scientific names in this way have sometimes simply been adopted by acceptance of a source (a person or publication) that may not be true. In this website I want to also explore this problem because I think it is so vital to the way in which we as a society approach the question of conservation or beyond that, appreciate and respect the very nature of life that surrounds and supports us.
When a plant is named, there is a requirement that a reference specimen is deposited in a herbarium recognised by the formal botanical community (where a botanist is recognised as such if having acquired some kind of qualification from a tertiary educational institution). The formal name is the latin binomial of genus and species. Any further identification essentially requires referral to that original specimen. The process of identifying new specimens or originating new names is one of constant change and revision. A species first acquires a name and then a list of additional citations recording new finds and localities for that named species. With time that identification and list of specimens is revised. This results in new species (splitting), or consolidation of two or more species into one (lumping).
The whole process frustrates the non-botanist for two reasons. The first is the unfamiliarity and apparent complexity of the names themselves. The second is that the process of formal naming as it leads to an ever-changing system of names apparently driven by the egoism or animosity of the people who create and change those names i.e. the botanist taxonomists. There is also a strange attraction and effect of these names in respect of knowledge that begs explanation. It is a curious fact that people will visit an herbarium with a sprig of a plant and ask for an identification. Given a name, the visitor is satisfied, discards the piece of plant and forgets what the name was. My explanation is that creation is a vast "honey-trap" for the soul and there is a natural urge to explore and learn what creation has to offer. The names offer the assurance of knowledge and a key to more. For people attracted to and appreciative of nature, names are necessary to understand what plants are, how they relate to each other and where they come from. Sadly little else may be known about the vast field of what the plant contributes and brings to the nature of life in any other respect. This brings us to another question of what exactly constitutes a species. A question fraught with difficulty. Initially it was thought to be quite an easy one to answer and only a question of whether or not the plants could interbreed or not. This is a concept borrowed from zoology and there is very little evidence to suggest that botanical workers have ever seriously examined the process in the species they have so simplistically “created”. However it is much more complicated than this as it leads back in history to the foundations of science and its emergence as a disciplined process of questioning our own very origins. Much more could be written about this and I am constrained by societies mental blocks and prejudices from trying to do so.
It is necessary to say that the simple identification of plants by so-called “characters” has not produced a really stable classification. The trend in the present time is to depend on DNA sequencing where the arrangement of the amino-ac id pairs in an accessible part of the basic genetic material is accepted as the truest guide to a species status. I personally am not sure that it is, but it does hold the promise of being an objective and indisputable way of arriving at a conclusion. Where there is a classification and a name formally in place, the problem now remains of simple field identification where a DNA examination is not possible and/or not available. How do we arrive at a name? An exacerbation is that plants vary. Even at one location, unless the plants are multiplying vegetatively rather than by seed, no two plants may be exactly the same. In fact even by vegetative propagation where a plant is multiplying just by fallen parts, or extended root systems, by non-sexual setting of seed etc., the individuals may still be different from one another. In the field, individual growing conditions are very seldom exactly the same and individuals may differ for many different reasons. From the identification point of view this all leads to confusion. Apart from locally where variation may lead to the recognition of more than one species, there is a more difficult situation where species have a wide distribution. The wider the distribution the greater the possibility there is for variation and difference leading to the recognition of more than the one species that could be true for the case. It is being recognised now that a classification and identification solution for one locale, may not be true for another.
In practise the way in which knowledge is derived and established in any area may depend on the process in which a first identification is established and then propagated throughout a community. Scientific names in this way have sometimes simply been adopted by acceptance of a source (a person or publication) that may not be true. In this website I want to also explore this problem because I think it is so vital to the way in which we as a society approach the question of conservation or beyond that, appreciate and respect the very nature of life that surrounds and supports us.