While considering what to post next on Mirabilis Travels I realized that I have to break mirabilis up and organize my pictures better. There are practically speaking 12 geographical zones and I only have pictures for about 200 populations of at least 400 I have visited that fall into the category I recognize as H. mirabilis. I cannot believe that anyone can dispute the statement that these populations and the internal variation form a continuum and any taxonomic subdivision will be purely artificial. In fact I go further and state that the species H. turgida, retusa, pygmaea, mutica and emelyae are more probably than not, included. When the involvement of H. floribunda with it’s associations, and then the probability that H. emelyae has further connections are considered as well, the enormity and complexity of the situation can be imagined. But here are pictures from two further populations to go with the previous SW Heidelberg.

Each of those mirabilis zones has something going on pointing to the complexity I refer to, but right now I am posting about the heidelbergensis mirage. This is the Swellendam zone and the population one from S Buffeljagsrivier. The home of groenewaldii, that is a variant that for me puts the whole retusa/mirabilis complexity into perspective.

This, further south from Buffeljagsriver. The plants were not in good shape and this is just one of the sad facts of life. It raises the issue of how to decide what it is. But the situation is that there is no clear idea of just what constitutes heidelbergensis. West of Buffeljagsrivier there are 6 known populations of mirabilis that I cannot state why exactly they are the same. There is an obvious similarity in respect of size, colour and flower but confoundment with the floribunda/variegata variant as well. Can it be understood and can it be explained? So lets rather continue southwards down the Breede River for the moment.

Further south along the Breede River is a “farm” where we found 8 populations of mirabilis and I will just show plants from 3 localities to show how they vary. See the floribunda influence too – floribunda as a recognizable population is absent south of the Bontebok Park but reappears as such down along the western end of the Potberg. But remember we are actually on a heidelbergensis mission to show that it is fiction just as magnifica and maraisii (and others) are.

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