SA’s floral kingdom can be seen all over world
IF ONLY the peoples and nations of the world could coexist in harmony like plants do in our gardens, what a happy place our planet would be. Even the smallest courtyard or balcony garden is sure to contain some plant that originally grew in a distant or exotic location: roses from China, marigolds from Mexico, azaleas from Japan, bougainvillea from South America and lavender and herbs from the Mediterranean.
Conversely, prodigious numbers of South African plants are on display in foreign gardens, thanks to the richness of our various floral kingdoms and the indefatigable efforts of early plant hunters who sent specimens to collectors in Europe, where they were propagated and hybridised for domestic use.
Francis Masson (1741-1805), the first official plant hunter appointed by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, collected over 80 species of Cape ericas, 50 species of pelargoniums and proteas, large numbers of bulbs such as gladioli, watsonias, babianas and kniphofia (red hot pokers) and numerous succulents, including crassulas, stapelias and mesembryanthemums (vygies). His haul also included specimens of
Strelitzia regina, one of South Africa’s most spectacular species. The plants were carefully potted and stored in temporary structures on the deck of a sailing ship for the long voyage to Britain. The impact of their arrival was so great a special “Cape House” was constructed for the more tender varieties.
Most of Masson’s plant material has regenerated in the interim, but at least one specimen is still alive and considered by some to be the world’s oldest pot plant.
a cycad from the Eastern Cape, arrived in London in 1775 and has had a place of honour in the giant Palm House at Kew since 1848, growing steadily at a rate of 2.5cm per year, indifferent to global turmoil and new inventions.
Cycads were known in the Jurassic era and predate flowering plants. The Kew specimen produced its first and only cone in 1819, an event so exciting the aged Sir Joseph Banks, the famous naturalist who’d employed Masson as plant collector, came to the Gardens for the last time before his death in 1820.
The one-ton plant was re-potted in 2009 in a delicate operation that was planned three months in advance. Nine gardeners were on hand to assist as the ancient cycad with its huge root ball was carefully lifted by means of a gantry and transferred to a new hard-wood box containing fresh compost.
The aged giant grows at an angle and its trunk is supported by custom-made metal stilts. It now measures about 4.5m from the base of its stem to its growing tip.
Meanwhile, wild cycads have become garden status symbols and collectors’ items and are as endangered as rhinos, despite being protected by law. Please don’t buy one without a verifiable permit.