Plants to be on the lookout for as Melville Koppies
MELVILLE - The Johannesburg City Heritage Site, Melville Koppies has also been under lockdown for the last two months but nature hasn't been.
Mother Nature has been hard at work keeping the ecosystem of the Koppies running smoothly.
Emmarentia Residents Association representative and Koppies guide Jenny Grice recently explained the resourceful ways plants get themselves pollinated in her post titled, ‘Tricky ways to get your seed out there’.
Grice said, “Next time you’re on the Koppies keep a look out for these magnificent examples that reveal the interactions and adaptations of plants.”
Many seeds rely on third parties, living and non-living, to be distributed. Some plants develop a fruit to protect the seed and to entice living things to eat them.
An example of such is the Acacia Karoo, now called Vachellia Karoo, which covers parts of the Koppies. Grice explained, “This plant produces many seeds in hard pods that when dry, drop to the ground. Rats and mice find the pods delicious and often those seeds they have chewed and discarded germinate better than untouched ones.”
This how the seeds get around and continue the cycle of life for the plant. The Tumblehead plant (Boophone disticha) encapsulates its fertilised seeds in a pouch at the end of its stem.
Grice stated, “As the entire inflorescence and the stems slowly shrivel and dry out, the central thick stem snaps off the base of the plant carrying its Catherine wheel with it. It tumbles across the veld in the wind; the dried out capsules break and scatter the seeds across the landscape.”
The Catherine wheel refers to the plants magnificent showing of pink flowers that spiral out on long slender stems from its central thick stem.
Another resident of the Koppies and surrounding suburbs is the parasitic plant, the mistletoe (Viscum rotundifolium). According to Grice, the plant sticks to trees and shrubs and coats its seed in a jelly-like, sticky substance, and conceals it in a berry.
Grice added, “The sticky juice fastens the berry onto the bird’s beak making the bird brush its beak on something, often a nearby branch, in an attempt to get the pesky seed off it.” This allows the seed to settle on a branch and grow into a new mistletoe.
