March 2007 Meeting &

Plant of the Month Competition

The March meeting was in three parts.

It started with our Chairman speaking on his recent trip to South Africa. The talk was in four sections

1 - The Grootbos nature reserve

2 - Cape Town (Table Mountain) Kirstenbosch botanical gardens

3 - Kurland animal sanctuary near Port Elizabeth

4 - Korta valley park which is called the "animal route"

He started by speaking about the plants and animals he saw at the Grootbos nature reserve - rock hyrax, protea, fan aloes and lots of Cape reeds (restio) He then went to Hermanus where he saw whales and birds such as the Cape Francolin. At Kirstenbosch botanical gardens there were Zaluskianskyas (Sam has one of these in his garden), tree heathers, dronstamums, cycads, snapping turtle's, mount nelson bugs and cape penguins. Then on to Kurland where there is the world famous animal sanctuary, monkey sanctuary and snake sanctuary where he saw the monitor lizard. After this they proceeded to Kwandwe game reserve, where there were lions, zebra , cheetahs under the trees, warthogs, black and white rhino, secretary birds and buffalo. Also there were lots of euphorbia and giant earth worms. This was an excellent talk by our chairman Sam McNair.

The 2nd talk was given by Neil Sinclair from Glasgow branch on his favourite plants which are Succulents and Cacti. The succulents were Echeveria, with displaying a great variety of different shapes and sizes. The cacti shown are as follows, good mammillarias, neoporterias, lobivias and gymnocalyciums. Neil then went on to show pictures of the Glasgow botanical gardens. Here we saw Giant tree ferns in the dome in the middle of Kibble palace, together with aeoniums and insectiferous plants.

As we had time left at the end our chairman (Sam McNair) then showed us plants in his greenhouse, together with some very interesting tales and we all enjoyed them.

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Plant of the Month Pictures - Adromischus Sub Group

High resolution versions of the photos are also available if desired.