Guano Caves
A farm with an archaeological heritage that has one of the most enigmatic archaeological finds of South Africa. Multiple layers of black charcoal-like strata have been found together with human habitation in a cave, but it is unclear how they were made or what they are. The Max-Planck institute has been examining this and looking at phytoliths - ancient plant hairs and crystals that have survived in the sediment. As the name implies, there is guano in the caves that is caused by a sizeable colony of bats.
Nodes
Sutera foetida
Carissa haematocarpa
Carissa haematocarpa
Pteronia glauca
Freylinia undulata
Pteronia paniculata
Drosanthemum giffenii
Tritoniopsis antholyza
Pelargonium rapaceum
Pages
Taxonomy term
Eragrostis
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Gk. eros = love; agrostis = grass; allegedly referring to the ‘graceful heart-shaped spikelets’, but also the ‘graceful dancing spikelet’ and ‘female aroma of the inflorescences of many species’; ‘love grass’.
Eriocephalus
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Gk. erion = wool; kephale = head. The fruiting capitula (fruiting heads) are woolly.
Ficinia
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For Heinrich David August Ficinus (1782–1857), German physician, naturalist, botanist, professor of physics and chemistry at the medical-surgical academy in Dresden (1814), then was professor of natural history (1817). From 1822 onwards he worked in his father’s pharmacy but also taught chemistry, technology and physics at the Technical Training Institute in Dresden (1828–1833). He wrote several literary works, textbooks and papers in the fields of botany, optics and mineral chemistry. They include Flora of the Area around Dresden (1807), Optics or Attempts to Follow the Right Outline of the Whole Theory of Light (1828), Foundations of Medical Physics, Foundations of Medicinal Chemistry (1815), and General Natural History (1839) (titles translated from German).
Helichrysum
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Gk. (h)elios = sun; chrysos = gold; referring to the bright yellow flowerheads of many of the flowers of species in this genus.
Heliophila
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Gk. (h)elios = sun; philein = to love. The plant likes a sunny position.
Lobelia
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For Mathias de L’Obel (Lobel, Lobelius) (1538–1616), Flemish botanist, traveller, plant collector. He studied medicine in Leuven and Montpellier and practised medicine from 1571–1581 in Antwerp and Delft, where he was physician to William, Prince of Orange. In 1584 he left the Netherlands for England to escape the civil war and never returned. He became physician to King James I of England and also the king’s botanist. His major work, written in collaboration with Pierre Pena, was Stirpium Adversaria Nova (1571), which describes some 1 500 species in the vicinity of Montpellier, also of Tyrol, Switzerland and the Netherlands. A second volume, Plantarum Historia Stirpium, was published in 1576 with more than 2 000 illustrations, and a further work, Icones Stirpium, seu, Plantarum Tam Exoticarum in 1591.
Lobelia pubescens
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From the Latin pubescens meaning ‘downy’ with short soft hairs
Notobubon
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Gk. noto- = of Southern (African) origin; Bubon (q.v.). This genus was once part of the Bubon genus.
Notobubon tenuifolium
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From the Latin tenuis = ‘thin' or 'fine' or 'slender’ and folius = ‘leaf’
Osteospermum
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Gk. osteon = bone; sperma = seed. The achenes are bone-hard.
Poaceae
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Named after the genus Poa. Poa is Greek for grass.
Rhus lucida
(Blinktaaibos){"type":"FeatureCollection","features":[]}
From the Latin lucidus = 'shiny' or 'glossy'
Dioecious, evergreen shrub to 3 m. Leaves trifoliolate, leaflets sessile, obovate to spatulate, shiny. Flowers yellow. Drupes round, shiny. Aug.--Oct. Sandy flats and slopes, NW, SW, AP, KM, LB, SE (Citrusdal to Zimbabwe).
Rhus tomentosa
(Korentebos){"type":"FeatureCollection","features":[]}
From the Latin tomentosus = 'densely woolly'
Salvia
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La. salvia = the sage plant; a name used by Pliny the Elder, from La. salvere = to heal; referring to the medicinal properties claimed for some species.