So we are still south of Buffeljags along the Breede River. Looking for heidelbergensis evidence. Not much in this lot but I did also interject with a post referring to rossouwii. Very interesting because now one has to consider all populations, related species AND their distribution. Because this is a whole and species cannot be summarily treated like cherries or plums and picked by whim and fancy. Haworthia rossouwii is very odd because it occurs at two centers about 30-40km apart and then appears to reoccur in a smaller form just south of Heidelberg.
Bit of a dilemma. Rather than go south I will for the moment go west from Swellendam towards Stormsvlei. The end will shock as it really demonstrates the impossibility of arriving at a solution on the mechanistic platform.
The predictability of a working hypothesis? Essie sent me this lovely picture of a plant from the mountains between Heidelberg and the Little Karoo. But like me Essie has only just awaken to the fact that you cannot get people to believe what you say unless you can give them a greater visual experience than you had yourself? Essie has a LOT to tell us. This is a link between the turgidoides (i.e. retusa and mirabilis together therein) and H. emelyae. It will eventually be recognized to also include rossouwii?
A little further west in the Luiperdsberg area west of Swellendam.
Now between Luiperdsberg and Bromberg on the way to Stormsvlei. There is not a smooth transition and a huge number of populations nevertheless supports the contention that this is a single system viz H. mirabilis.
I don’t have pictures of mirabilis on the south side of the Bromberg so these are from north. Also I am going to skip going still further north into the Worcerster Robertson Karoo and beyond the Riviersonderend River. I wrote all about mirabilis in Updates about 2006 and don’t have pictures for the complexity in that area and westwards, which would help to ease the oddity of transformation.
Tony Brook asked if mirabilis is the oldest name. Bruce answered “A very uncomfortable question. I have no doubt that it is atrovirens – but it is a tricky path and I am no fan of the nomenclatural code or the fancy footwork that goes with it. Goes back to Stearn and typification of old names.”
These Bromberg variants will surely excite the splitters but really when one sees so many of the populations from McGregor to Swellendam as well as to the north; and even the ecological semi-desert to the south, you have no option but to abandon an impossible point of view. Unfortunately the population of ‘heidelbergensis v. scabra’ (i.e. before my even conservative view was proved hopeless) at Leeurivier east of Drew, was ploughed out despite the non-arable nature of the shale. But there are pictures in Revisited and also in early volume of Updates re: H. mirabilis.
Authoritarianism is a real problem in present society and this comes up in plant classification too. So it is not compulsory to see these plants as H. mirabilis too. It is just my personal opinion. The plants on the north slopes of the Bromberg are in sandstone and these now are along the Riviersonderend River in manganic tertiary deposit. This is very unusual habitat. Taken late February as they flower in the heat of summer.
These were taken 3 years earlier and In January when cooler wetter conditions prevail. There are four microhabitats in a very small area.
Now this is a real freak for which I have no explanation. A single small population in a weird habitat on the south side of the Bromberg. Sandstone slabs and very wet. About 200m away is shale and also what one expect of H. mirabilis. But this flowers in November and has in-turning leaves that one finds in, say herbacea. Although there are individuals, as you can see, in which the leaves are erect-spreading. The flowers are nothing unusual except the buds are flattened top to bottom and the ends also turned down slightly like-in mirabiloids. So it throws everything out of the window or into disarray. It does not alone meet the requirements of a species and there is zero indication of what its real affinities may be. My deeper feelings are that it mirrors a dark side of (at least Haworthia) classification and that the real species is the entire “genus”. For the present I have speculated, as I have suggested in this series, that floribunda/variegata/chlorocantha are intimately connected to the turgidoids, and suspect that rossouwii is as well. I have treated this H. eliseae as a variant of rossouwii, as I have done with ‘calcarea’, ‘petrophila’ and my own ‘heidelbergensis var. minor”. Let me add something. Classification is not some thing confined to part of the group so that you can cherry-pick where and to what you want to apply a name. A classification has to be ALL inclusive and the specimens remaining in the incertae folders are only there because they are too poor to permit any decision.
About 200m away is H. mirabilis.
