RECENT visitors to St Lucia, Maphelane and other coastal areas were greeted by a beautiful spray of delicate white flowers adorning the forest floors.
It dominates the forest floor and forms up to 95% of the cover in some areas.
The plants provide shelter to many of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park’s common coastal residents including bushbuck, red duiker and the Tonga red squirrel, all of which browse on the growth shoots.
The flowers’ nectar attracts honey bees, and the butterfly larvae of Protogoniomorpha parhassus and Celaenorrhinus mokeezi feed on the leaves.
PHOTOS: iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority
The plant is thought to flower only every four to eight years, showing off nothing but drab greenery in between.
Some lulls between flowering can be as long as 10 years.
St Lucia has just experienced its first mass flowering since 2013.
Once flowering is over, the plants all germinate and die off simultaneously, with the seeds germinating immediately.
Isoglossa woodii is on the red list of South African plants under the category ‘least threatened’.
A recent study undertaken in iSimangaliso by researcher Zivanai Tsvuura focused on the ‘Density Effects of a
Dominant Understory Herb, Isoglossa woodii (Acanthaceae), on Tree Seedlings of a Subtropical Coastal Dune Forest’.
He stated that ‘The life cycle of I. woodii may hold the key to coastal dune forest dynamics.
‘Since the herb likely suppresses the growth of tree seedlings, and the entry of new recruits into the population can only occur when I. woodii dies back, forest tree recruitment is predicted to be very closely tied to the life history strategy of I. woodii.’
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