Towerlands Wilderness Retreat
Farm co-owned by botanist and photographer Greg Nicholson, this is a delightful venue in the Langeberg Mountains west of Garcias pass that features natural-earth houses.
Nodes
Hermannia angularis
Clutia
Clutia
Mesembryanthemaceae
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Leucospermum saxatile
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Taxonomy term
Linum
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Gk. linon = flax, name used by Theophrastus, successor to Aristotle in the Paripatetic School in Athens (372–287 BCE). Possibly Celtic lin = thread, used from making fabric.
Metalasia
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Gk. meta- = meaning reverse; lasios = shaggy, woolly. The leaves are twisted, rolled upward, to present the woolly side of the leaf from the top to the bottom.
Mimetes
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Gk. mimetes = imitator, mimic. Possibly given this name because some of its features, like the toothed leaves, bear a close resemblance to other family members, like Leucospermum, better known as pincushion. The genus itself is distinctive.
Nivenia
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For James Niven (1776–1827), Scottish gardener at the Royal Botanical Garden of Edinburgh and at Syon House, Middlesex. He collected plants in South Africa from 1798–1803 for his patron, George Hibbert, in Clapham, London. Three months after his return to England he went back to the Cape as botanical collector for Empress Josephine of France and James Lee and John Kennedy of the Vineyard Nursery, Hammersmith, near London. He spent a further nine years at the Cape collecting herbarium specimens, seeds and bulbs but also visiting areas such as Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape to Clanwilliam northwest of Cape Town, returning to England in 1812 and setting up his own business, unrelated to botany.
Oscularia
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La. osculum = small mouth; aria = possessing; from the fanciful likeness of the toothed leaves.
Otholobium
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From the Greek otheo, to burst forth; lobos. lobe or pod. The fruit of . caff rum seems to be "pushing out of the calyx" (author).
Othonna
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Name derived from the Greek othone, a linen cloth or napkin, in allusion to the downy covering of some of the earlier known species. Doria Less. is not regarded as separable.
Oxalis
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From the Greek oxys = sharp, sour or acid and (h)als = salt. The plant is frequently consumed for its sour taste caused by the oxalic acid, particularly the flowering stalks of O. pes-caprae. In large quantities the oxalic acid inhibits digestion and in stock leads to the condition 'dikpens' or bloated belly.
Paranomus
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From the Greek para, beyond, contrary to; nomos, custom, law; referring to the leaves which carry dichotomously branched veins, are not dorsiventral and in many species are of two entirely different shapes in the adult bush.
Pelargonium
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Gk. pelargos = a stork; referring to the beak of the fruit which resembles a stork’s bill (cf Geranium, Erodium).
Phylica
(The Featherheads){"type":"FeatureCollection","features":[]}
Gk. phyllikos = leafy; referring to the plentiful foliage.
Podalyria
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For Podalirius (La.), from Podaleirios (Gk.), son of Asklepios, god of healing. He and his brother, Machaon were physicians to the Greek army during the Trojan wars, as described in the Iliad. The brothers’ great feat was the healing of the festering foot of Philoctetes, who was badly needed for his arrows, but whose fetid stench sorely disturbed the warriors. The flowers of this genus are strongly fragrant but not unpleasantly so, rather sweet-smelling.
Polygala
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Gk. poly = much; gala = milk; so-called from the belief that cattle grazing in fields with this plant produced more milk. (San Marcos growers in the United States claim that Polygala virgata ‘Portola’ has this property but the authors could find no scientific evidence).
Psoralea
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Gk. psoraleos = scabby. The plants are covered with rough warty-looking glandular dots.