The absurdity of taxonomy and nomenclature?

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Bruce Bayer

In Alsterworthia 13.1:6 (2013) there is yet another statement about the correct name for a species of Haworthia. It reads …”The vexing matter of the correct name for Haworthia pumila has taxed some of the finest minds in botanical nomenclature”. The article then goes on to replace that name with H. margaritifera with an explanation so simple that it casts considerable doubt onto the quality of those minds that have examined the problem. There is of course also a difficulty in that the quoted sentence implies that H. pumila is the correct name, while the article goes on to dismiss it.

The fact is that Linnaeus listed four different things (varieties) under a single name Aloe pumila, and the only issue was about which of those four things ends up with that particular first name. It so happened that Burman in 1701 made a choice, and was followed by Aiton in 1789 who chose something else. So the name Aloe pumila stood but applied to two different things (species). Duval was unaware of the earlier Burman choice and used Aiton’s choice when he created the genus Haworthia. Dr L. A Codd, whom I would have accepted as a fine mind (and also as a very ethical man), advised C.L. Scott that Aiton’s choice was in fact illegitimate and hence also Duval’s usage in Haworthia. The opinion was that Burman’s choice was the first and also thus the legitimate one; and it could not be denied by the illegitimacy of the Aiton usage as a later action. So perhaps it was/is a question of rank or just an opinion that Aiton made up pumila as an entirely new name.

There is nothing complicated and mind boggling about this simple state of affairs. Or is that so? What on earth does the ICN as the product of presumably fine minds actually say about this? Does it take 50 years of debate to establish such a simple fact? The situation is further exacerbated in that the finest taxonomic minds are involved in an epic battle to either create a single alooid genus or many lesser genera. It appears that the latter option is winning ground although the war against single-species genera has surely not been abandoned. When the dust finally settles, it will be recognised that the taxon onto which this unfortunate species viz. Haworthia pumila/margaritifera resolves, will be a separate genus, probably Tulista, and then the truly correct name will be Tulista pumila. Or will it?

My personal opinion that however the case may truly be judged, the correct answer is the intent. Scott and Codd came to a workable end point way back in history and it has been my misfortune now to have defended that. I think there is a parallel in the case of Aloe bainesii. Put into use by Reynolds far back in history, it is found that the name barberae had page priority and thus preference. In what interest was the change made? Why does the code have a conservation facility for names? The fun seems to be in the argument rather than in usage.

The argument that I think L.A. Codd would have made is this. There are four varieties covered by the Linnaean epithet pumila. The first effective use of that epithet for one of the four was to the warty t10 of Commelin and that is how the name is formally typified. To use of that same epithet at any other time for any other of those four Linnaean varieties would be illegitimate. It is also not in the least certain that the name margaritifera is correctly typified by Wijnands on the same Commelin illustration t10. I aided Wijnands to this conclusion before myself stumbling on the fact that its correct typification would be on a Bradley illustration.

There is a curious twist to the issue and it is somewhat of an oversight that the persons involved never read the introduction to Haworthia Revisited. I explained the problem and also in respect to the correct application of the original name margaritifera to what we know as H. minima. I also cited the name H. pumila with the authors as (L.) Bayer to make it clear that I was not accepting the name with the authors (L.)Duval as Scott cited it. I thought at the time that it was a mistake on Scott’s part. I had also written to Dr Codd specifically about the issue and this is when he explained to me (as a professional taxonomist and fine mind) that the illegitimate use of the name pumila in Haworthia did not prevent the correct usage. It only strikes me now that he probably had advised Scott to the effect that the NAME as Duval had taken it through to Haworthia was correct, even if he had applied it to the wrong species. This whole issue has not been properly and fully aired. To argue that it is a new name seems to me just a piece of intellectual vanity that serves no purpose other than to demonstrate our collective failure to honour the intent of the code – or respect the dismay of interested person. A last point I make is that people can and will always find topics to disagree on, so this is an important trap to avoid and be mindful of. It is not particularly in the case of nomenclature that this seems to happen. I had no doubt at the time when I made the decision to accept Scott’s usage that no matter what my decision was, cause would be found to change it. If I had decided on either margaritifera (correctly typified) or maxima (as I. Breuer later did), this would also have been argued as wrong.

[-ed. There seems to be a number of taxonomic changes brewing. Time will tell whether pumila survives.]

References:

1. Haworthia margaritifera/pumila
Dr. John Manning. SANBI.
The vexing matter of the correct name for Haworthia pumila has taxed some of the finest minds in botanical nomenclature. Since I do not include myself among their company, I was not in the least surprised to find that I had misrepresented the situation. Thanks to expert input from Roy Mottram and Urs Eggli we can now put the matter to rights.

The issue of the correct name for Haworthia pumila starts with the fact that in his original publication of Aloe pumila, which forms the basis for this species, Linnaeus recognized several varieties, but without explicitly listing the typical variety, thus he did not list Aloe pumila L. var. pumila. Linnaeus’ Aloe pumila was subsequently effectively lectotypified by Burman f. (1701) [and later in enor by Scott (1978)] against the illustration in Commelin’s Horti medici Amstelodamensis, which is also the type of var. margarit!fera. This renders the name margaritifera homotypic with Aloe pumila L. (i.e. they share the same type). As the autonym (i.e. following automatically from the species name) for this species, pumila would normally have statutory priority over margarit(fera BUT, in the interim, the combination Haworthia pumila (Aiton) Haw. (1804) had been published, based on the name Aloe arachnoidea var. pumila Aiton, a quite different species that we know now as H herbacea. The publication of this combination renders Haworthia pumila (L.) Duval (1809) an illegitimate later homonym and thus not available for use in Haworthia. Because the combination Haworthia pumila cannot be used for Aloe pumila L. as a result of its prior usage for some other taxon it must be substituted with the next available valid and legitimate epithet, which is margaritifera. Note, however, that in any genus other than Haworthia the epithet pumila is the correct one to be used for this species.

The formal rendering of this situation is as follows:
Haworthia margaritifera (L.) Haw. (1819). Aloe pumila var. margaritifera L. (1753). Aloe margaritifera (L.) Burm.f (1768). Aloe pumila L. (1753). H pumila (L.) Duval. (1809), hom. illegit. non H pumila (Ait.) Haw. (1804). Lectotype, effectively designated by Burman f. in Prodromus florae Capensis: 10 (1768) [Superfluous lecotypification by Scott (1985)]: Illustration in Commelin, Horti medici Amstelodamensis, Pars altent: t.l 0 (1701): Aloe Afric: folio in summitate triangulari margaritifera, flore subviridi.

2. International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Melbourne Code)

3. Aloe pumila, Haworthia pumila; what or who is confused? ISBN: 0-9534004-4-1 Bruce Bayer. Alsterworthia International Special Issue No.3. https://haworthiaupdates.org/aloe-pumila-haworthia-pumila-what-or-who-is-confused/

4. Commelin, Johannes, Horti medici amstelodamensis rariorum tam Orientalis, vol. 2: t. 10 (1701)
http://plantillustrations.org/illustration.php?id_illustration=122192

5. Commelin, Johannes, Horti medici amstelodamensis rariorum tam Orientalis, vol. 2: t. 11 (1701)
http://plantillustrations.org/illustration.php?id_illustration=122193&height=750

6. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, vol. 33: t. 1360 (1811) [S.T. Edwards]
http://plantillustrations.org/illustration.php?id_illustration=8348

7. Moninckx, J., Moninckx atlas, vol. 3: t. 12 (1682-1709)
http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?c=botanie;view=entry;cc=botanie;entryid=x-421058064 and http://plantillustrations.org/illustration.php?id_illustration=133655

8. History of Succulent Plants, Bradley, Richard (t30) (1716)
http://www.botanicus.org/page/614136

9. History of Succulent Plants, Bradley, Richard (t21) (1716)
http://www.botanicus.org/page/614116

Ed. – another …

10. J., Moninckx , Aloe Africana, folio in summitate triangulari / Margaritifera, Flore subviridi. / C: Commelin, Hort: Amst: Part: 2. pag: 19. Wijnands, D.O., The botany of the Commelins, Rotterdam 1983, p.134

http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?c=botanie;view=entry;cc=botanie;entryid=x-421058064

Variable chloracantha

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Bruce Bayer

Variability – sounds so hackneyed now but still it does not seem as if anybody “gets it”. These are plants from two populations of chloracantha east of Herbertsdale. Two very different soils. One is shale and I show only a single plant from there – the left one of the three unearthed plants. There the plants were “ordinary” chloracantha. But the other locality was exposed “pressure burst” kaolinite such as you get around Riversdale and westwards. Some of the plants reminded me of floribunda and even parksiana. I know of only 6 populations around Herbertsdale and there the plants are different too.

Leaf sequence in Haworthia emelyae ‘comptoniana’ over a long period

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Bruce Bayer

Here is an interesting series of pictures showing Haworthia leaf replacement over only 16 months. The plant is in an outdoor rockery. Leaves are numbered from oldest to youngest. Leaf loss has not been quite sequential as the 7^th leaf outlived the 5^th. In the growth condition of September 2012 the leaves show three tiers viz. 1,4,7,10,13 / 2,5,8,11 / 3,6,9,12. The figure for Dec 12 illustrates the “5-tiered” artifact of the spiral sequence with leaves 15/10, 14/9, 13/8, 12/7 and 16/11/6 in each tier.

These pictures demonstrate that the plants grow quite fast. They may not be very long-lived in nature. I estimate a life span of 15-20 years?

The first picture of this plant was taken in Dec 2011 when the leaves were numbered 1 to 10. Here in March 2014 leaves 1 through 12 have died away and there are 10 new leaves. At the same time the stem will be stretching as roots are replaced in a similar sequence. The life of the plant is going to be determined by the way in which the old stem and roots decay and how that decay will affect the ultimate health of the whole plant.

In the field it seems as though the decay of the old leaves and stem is well regulated as a sort of dry composting. In cultivation this can vary from this state to when all the roots and even the base of the stem can rot unhealthily. In the field one does finds moribund old plants that are at the end of their life and with large aged stems. Just how long the plant can maintain good health in either the field or in cultivation is an unknown. A grower just has to depend on experience and feel for his/her plants and this is why some time back I guessed at the normal life of one of these ‘retuse’ haworthia at about 10-15 years. Some things like Tulista pumila and Haworthia coarctata are quite different as the stems can elongate and re-root along the ground. Plant of H. coarctata more than 3 meters in diameter must be very old. Even H. reticulata or H. herbacea do this – look at H. cymbifomis ‘ramosa’. What you can consider is that new leaves and flowers follow a regular process and it is useful to remember that the plants go through a non-growing stage in the year. I tend to think most haworthia grow in the spring and autumn disliking the heat of summer and the cold of winter. But this is just a generalization that points to things that need to be considered. All species are not the same. Good root health is also associated with drainage and adequate air space in the growing medium.

In species like coarctata and reinwardtii – and I doubt that these are two different species – the plants easily lose obvious connection to the mother clone and a single clone can come to occupy a very large area. H. cymbiformis and H. angiustifolia can also spread widely by pieces breaking off to establish somewhere else. H. limifolia does it by stoloniferous expansion as can H. marumiana and H. zantnertiana. But coming back to the solitary non-pupping growth forms it would be interesting to know just where the essential life of the plant resides. Sometimes the stem just seems to get too thick and cutting it back too far also cuts away the support and source of the very young and new centre leaves.

Addendum: 10 March 2023
New leaf formation is an annual event as is new root and stem growth. So the life of the plant is a delicate balance between decay of old and re-placement by new. There are always moribund old plants and there are sometimes seedlings. Seed is not widely and randomly dispersed. They occur less frequently as distance from the parent plant increases. Also, germination and survival in any year is a gamble. Anyone with field familiarity will have observed that no two years are the same. Some events are once-in-forever events. Like the field of red Droasanthemum speciosum one year east of Worcester, or the mass display of pink Drosanthemum micans that is normally yellow there (this yellow variant has the name D. halli). The fields one year of yellow – Moraea gawleri. Another year, rings of pinkish red Ruschia carolii around the termitaria. One year flowering Stapelia thudichumii everywhere in the Tanqua Karoo. And so on. ♦

The science (of plant names)

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Bruce Bayer

The debate arising from the announcement of Homo naledi, on what actually constitutes science is disturbing. It raises the question of science versus religion that is a horse flogged to death with no outcome but the death of the human soul. The argument should be scientism versus religion. Why?

Because there are two quite different ways of using the word “science”. Almost universally science is taken to be a function based solely on physical mensuration and on experiment and result gained from some sort of external physical observation i.e. scientism. This is a gross distortion because the word science is derived from the Latin word “scientea” that means “a KNOWING”. This knowing extends far beyond physical measurement and observation and is directly related to consciousness. Scientismists insist that consciousness is some sort of physical or chemical reaction that goes on in the nervous system. Absolute nonsense. Even the great palaeontologist gets it all wrong in his book “Rocks of ages” and his principle of non-overlapping magisteria.

Anyone can do true “science”. This is observation with sincerity of purpose, objectivity and a desire to know. Time I think will tell that the scientismic approach has been a deliberate distortion in which pursuit of knowledge has been directed away from the spiritual to the material. This is why the Dalai Lama and perhaps a few others have described the scientismic view of science as just another religion. The word science cannot be reduced to simple materialism as has been done. This is a distortion that has reduced man to the status of any other animal or plant.

So what about plant names? In a way we have the same problem here. The sense and purpose of plant classification is to arrange plants in a hierarchy that reflects the orderly evolution from chaotic DNA and an original single life form, to that of more and more complex life forms with the human form as the pinnacle. It all started with study of physical characters and their imagined or studied development from one condition to another. The recently agreed truth, just like the belated acknowledgement of tectonic plate movement as the driver of continental drift, is that this dependence on simple physical characters is not satisfactory. The insights to DNA and the sequence analysis of the binding amino acids of the two strands of the nuclear protein structures have opened the window to a wholly different view of species and their relationships.

But it should be noted that the argument is profound and the result actually not complete or perfect. The DNA sequencing is from limited access to many more millions of amino acid pairings each regarded now as a “character”. The statistical interpretation of the pairings and that presentation in a two-dimensional diagram is in my opinion a serious distortion.

Surprise after surprise is that the definition of what a species is, evades definition. Largely it is the zoological concept of non-interbreeding sets of life forms that constitute species that is followed in botany. But this is flawed. It is well known, especially in birds, that what may be seen to be two species in one place may not be true in another. In plants that are position bound in respect of parentage and with less complex behavioural relationships, the position is considerably more confused. Because there is no true and secure definition and circumscription of what a species is, names have proliferated and abound where maybe there should be a lot less. Very few plant species have actually been grown for a study of their breeding relationships while conversely a great deal has been made of the variation within species, as well as of hybridization, for their use and benefit to man.

Estimates of the numbers of species of life vary. These estimates are hardly useful without a real understanding of what a species is. Here in South Africa there are considered to be 24 000 to 25 000 species. Leaving this aside now, one has to look at the classification process and how plants are studied and organised. This is done in herbaria where dried specimens are assembled, mounted on sheets of cardboard and stored in herbaria. A name all begins in such a single (desirably more than one) specimen to which the name is attached. This is termed the “type specimen”. Theoretically all subsequent identifications should be confirmed by comparison with that single type. The system has worked incredibly well except for the problem of deviations that can be very misleading. Hence there is a constant revision as more and more specimens accumulate and things thought to be different are seen to be one and vice versa.

The next problem is that of personae. Not all individuals have equal skills or aptitudes and neither can any single person hope to acquire good enough knowledge of enough species and specimens to ensure any kind of consistency across the board. Unless species are actually cultivated from seed and the conditions of cultivation known to be non problematic, not enough is learned about variation to be really sure that something, say, with clubbed hairs on the leaves in one area, is not the same as something from another area that has simple hairs instead. Something as simple as this can lead to great argumentation about names. To top it all there is a huge element of personal achievement associated with the application of Latin names as well as an incentive to explorers to find and be associated with something new and different.

Still further confounding matters is that the type specimen may not be easily available to all and sundry and may not even be adequate for purposes of a good identification. This is because it is dried and pressed are sometimes out of recognition from the live state. Description is no easy matter and the original description may not even be accurate. The outcome is that herbaria acquire identifications of specimens based on those in other herbaria and these new identifications become the reference points for names. They may be wrong. But the point is that a local use of a name becomes established and this may not be the same as that derived from the identification of another herbarium and its staff.

Public interest leads to the production of literature and things such as field guides and other reference works. A problem is that illustrating a single species and all its variants is just not physically possible. Firstly there is a problem that an author, however competent and skilled, may not even be familiar with all the variants even in his/her own special field of study. It is worth noting that in a genus such as Asparagus with only about 70 species in South Africa, there is simply not enough herbarium storage space to assemble just single specimens from across the distribution range. There is hardly one of these species for which a herbarium sheet is adequate to record a root system. How does one acquire and store all the information to report on the diversity and distribution of the respective group members?

Identifying from a field guide is thus problematic because there are things that look very similar and differences may either not be obvious to the inquirer but also species may be mentioned in discussion and not illustrated at all. For the average mind it is the picture that tells the story.

This primarily the reason for this site – to try and establish a local reference point so that an interest and awareness of a very special local creation becomes attainable.

What do you think this is?

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Bruce Bayer

Incidentally both the soft shale bands within the Sandstone strata as well as the Bokkeveld Shale above, decompose to kaolinic clay.

I took so many pictures that I will just post because I was so fascinated myself. The population is in an area quite new to me and wholly empty as far as haworthia records go – but perfectly predictable if you throw out the chaff. In the meantime, keep thinking.

The plants were all in much the same situations among sparse restioids and grass and very few other succulents. Next I will post better pictures of a few plants and explain a bit more.

What do we have so far? mirabilis, ‘magnifica’, atrofusca, pygmaea, comptoniana, esterhuizenii, Quite good actually – but some serious omissions. Any more offers – these are all excellent.

Just to make sure the name “magnifica” makes sense, here are a few pictures taken at the type locality.

While looking at those magnifica pictures I was struck by these two to show how a retusa influence is present.

A closer look at the new find.

The scenery

Those flat top hills are the remnants of an ancient african plateaus prominent from near Barrydale to beyond Uniondale – north of the Langeberg. – silcrete upper layer like the concreted layers also present topping the inselbergs south of the Langeberg.

So what is it? If H. magnifica makes sense to anyone as a species, that person is lost to me. This new population is in the sequence from Muiskraal eastwards and it is H. emelyae (‘breueri’, ‘wimii’). The identifications put forward are nearly all in the context of H. mirabilis which includes ‘magnifica’. This naturally supports my perceptions that H. emelyae is in fact the karoo extension of H. mirabilis. More widely that H. mirabilis, pygmaea, retusa and emelyae form a single system. If one reads in the Updates the reports of Towerlands/Aaasvoelkrans one will appreciate the connection better. The “magnifica’ as a species myth is simply and easily dispelled by studying the floral data presented in updates. There is no reason why there should be any doubt and confusion that the cabal so enjoys and wallows in. Aloe barbara jeppeae indeed.

The truth of the matter is that there is no taxonomic solution other than recognising this and stop prostituting science in the name of populism. There are hundreds if not thousands of people interested in Haworthia, and millions affected by the formal names of plants. I see some responsibility in respecting this fact and even more so in trying to understand what all this marvelous stuff really means. It comes down to what a species truly is and how it is defined. If I could bring just one person to that realization I might feel comfortable – with no one caring a damn, I am not. :) I have not far or long to go now and I will be posting more on this topic before I am finished.

M.B. Bayer
June 2016

Kaboega

Posted on July 16, 2016 by Bruce Bayer

Kaboega is located in the Zuurberg Mountains north of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Read more about this in Haworthia Update Volume 1, Chapter 5:- The Haworthias of Kaboega. There are a mind-boggling array of Haworthia populations here in an area considered to be the meeting point of several vegetation biomes. There is much exposed rock, and the soil is very skeletal, composed of three major groups: sandstone, mudstone, and glacial deposits. These pictures are of a Haworthia cooperi variant that occurs high up on sandstone. I went to this spot because researchers had sent me a picture of a cycad festooned with Haworthia. I did not get to the exact spot but have seen the way it forms hanging bundles in other situations.

Haworthia glauca!! can also be found here. On Kaboega these plants often have a very close resemblance to H. coarctata and it is no co-incidence that the distributions of these two species complement each other. An essential element of species recognition is their juxtaposition and if they occur in very close association or not. Darwin said as much.

I visited four populations of this greenish cooperi. One can find plants like this from east of Grahamstown right through to the Little Karoo. Here they are on Dwyka (glacial) skeletal soil.

These next are in the shales low down in the valley on Kaboega – I name it H. aristata. It is very common in the area but complements H. cooperi while there are populations that are neither. Populations cannot be treated in isolation and there is a distinct possibility/probability that I have been too generous with species. The attempts to find answers via DNA sequencing should make the vendors of that technology thoroughly ashamed.

More of these green things. I would guess that these would class as the simple progenitors of cymbiformis and cooperi. Perhaps even of mucronata?

This is Haworthiopsis sordida that does not occur, as far as I know, north of this. H. nigra also occurs here at it’s most southern at this longitude. Altogether it is quite a complex network of distribution patterns that relate to greater plant geography.

From another population as variants on a theme. have seen about 30 such just on this small mountain area and it just suggests what is still unseen on the length and breadth.

Not a great diagram but a way to appreciate the drammatic choreography of plant distribution and how it impacts on classification. Without it Haworthia names make no sense other than as imagined and fantasized. Cooperi and cymbiformis occur as intertwined species to the east and south. In the south they extend westwards to get lost in H. mucronata. Cymbiformis as an independent species does not enter Kaboega except as an observable variant of H. cooperi. The cooperi gets lost westwards as variants of H. decipiens. Perhaps close northwards as H. aristata. H. glauca does cross the Zuurberg but is here confused with H. coarctata that may occur in recognosable form on the eastern tip. Angustifolia is on the eastern end too but does not enter Kaboega. Neither do H. monticola or H. zantneriana from the west. This is also closely tied to the intrigue of winter vs summer rainfall and still further to the massive geological changes of the very recent.

♦

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Posted on May 3, 2020 by Bruce Bayer

Everything looks easy to those who haven’t a clue. In other words – the Dunning-Kruger Effect is essentially that we do not know enough to recognize our incompetence. This could not be more true of the fields of science and religion. Lawrence sent me some great stuff on taxonomy that demonstrates this too well with regard to both Darwinism and the Linnaean system.😅

I would like to add to that confidence/knowledge field because at the point of “never understanding”, the graph branches. One direction is intellectual superiority (no one else can understand this better than me), the other is … how do I get myself and others to grasp that we are all equally ignorant and that knowledge of the material world has no reality.

I really like that post of Steven’s re Dunning-Kruger Effect because it supports my contention that unless we recognize what we will not i.e. this is a conscious creation, we will never understand anything!

Very important. Naming species after people is in fact very suppressive as questioning the validity of the name gets confounded with the persona. Steven Hammer is worthy of considerably more than this absurd non-entity that I doubt he would have been party to. The same applies to H. bobbii that has an identical history. Breueri, jakubii, even bayeri has its worms as Gerhard is anxious to inform us all. So does marxii where a shepherd who so remarkably brought it to the attention of mankind via a farmers wife. Kobus Venter and then myself get an amazing acknowledgement from the author of the name. How could it have been undiscovered for so long?

(ed. – original Dunning Kruger paper – Unskilled and Unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.)

(ed. – try internet searches for “non-linnaean taxonomy”, “Raymond Hoser problem”.)

Flowering Time

Posted on January 30, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

Emile Heunis
Hi Bruce, I would like to hear your opinion on the flowering time of H. magnifica var. splendens, Haworthia truncata and some other species whilst it is very dry at the habitats where they grow. (I include two photos of the species mentioned) Without rain, the plants have lost their condition, yet they use water and energy to produce their flowers. On top of that, other insects and animals have limited choice to their feeding menu and would gladly include a haworthia flower stalk. I keep in mind that the survival of a plant at a particular site depends on the existence and activities of pollinators. Could it be that these plants adapted to the availability of pollinators in summer and have found a way to preserve enough moisture to flower during the dry months of the year?

Bruce Bayer
What a nice surprise Emile. Grower extraordinaire! Splendens flowers like all mirabilis (?) in February. Retusa (flowers October), emelyae in the Karoo flowers October. I think truncata also flowers summer, but really irrelevant here. In my current ideas is that splendens (mirabilis), retusa (turgida, pygmaea) and emelyae are in reality, one true basic life form i.e. species. Rain is not a significant (note – significant) factor in flowering time.

Emile Heunis
Thank you for the complement. I have had you as a mentor and inspiration, visiting Karoo Botanical Gardens in the late 1970’s and early 80’s. I bought many beautifully grown haworthias when you had sales at KBG in the 80’s. I use the names as I have come to know them. Please appreciate that I have no understanding of the species concept in Haworthia or any plant form. I have always avoided any comment on the topic because of that. As an artist with a life long interest in nature, particularly succulents, my interest lies in their shape, form and colour, qualities that allow them to survive in nature. As most human thinking support (sadly), all that is to please Homo, the one that can determine the existence of all other life forms. My love for nature brings many questions. The magnitude, the diversity and how it exist together in peace and at war with one another. Hence my question. How did it come that ,in this case, H. splendens survived on a particular spot whilst that spot is not ‘ideal for producing flowers. As it is, it is ideal!! The plants are in excellent condition, at least the two times I could go there, and as can be seen in most photos taken by other enthusiasts. Could you please explain your concept of ‘significant factors’ that do play a role?

Bruce Bayer
Thank so much Emile. Funny I saw “splendens” originally a short way from the now fenced spot. They were larger and more colorful in a sandier environment. While we have a mechanistic concept of species and their environment we will never understand either of these. A species is a fractal system based on metaphysical realities with infinite possibilities. The world too is a “living” thing. There are five main energy systems (elements) in creation related to the five regular figures that can be fitted to a sphere – hence the “tree of life”. Plants have one of these, insects two, snakes reptiles birds, three, mammals four and man at top of creation five. Always infinite possibilities with the energy fields starting at math zero or infinite zero. There is far more to creation that our absurd “science” belief system allows.

Emile as an extra. I have seen out of season flowers on both mirabilis and retusa and what is more have encountered field hybrids of these as well as of these with floribunda. The complexity of the interaction between all these so-called “species” is incredible.

Original correspondence on Facebook 27 January 2021. ♦

Morphology

Posted on February 20, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

Soumen Aditya
The visual confusion about two separate species Haworthia emelyae var multifolia and Haworthia mirabilis var sublineata. Vol -1. Except geographical distribution. The epithet “multifolia” : “many leaved”, but first morphology based taxonomy dose not accepted, because similar leaves arrangement for Haworthia mirabilis var sublineata, [also have been “many leaved”]. Where “sublineata” means “almost lined”, where no differences between two taxon as visual observation. [Because apex windows also be very “lined”]. I agreed both species are comes from different geographical distribution but can not possible visually without the means of latin diagnosis. In other hand, Haworthia emelyae var multifolia definitely a link with Haworthia rossouwii var rossouwii [H. serrata] or Haworthia heidelbergensis any way. Haworthia “sublineata” described V. Poelln in 1938, where Haworthia emelyae var multifolia described by Bruce Bayer1979. Note Haworthia serrata described by Bruce Bayer 1973 as same location for type Bredasdorp, actually Near Heidelberg. Also note the “serrata” means “toothed”. So except botanically trams three Plant species have no much more differences. My visual taxonomical position for three plant only Simple haworthia triebneriana [mirabilis now] var. sublineata. V. Poelln. 1938. Type, S. Bredasdorp, is correct. Different locality Only Geographical race.

Bruce Bayer
Difficult to really follow this argument and there are also errors in citation of location. The sublinatea t loc. at Bredasdorp, is totally apart from the rossouwii location also at Bredasdorp. The “serrata” Bayer (now also rossouwii) at Heidleberg is much further east. Suggesting that rossouwii and mirabilis are the same species is stretching things too far when the probability is that retusa, pygmaea, mutica, emelyae and mirabilis, while excluding rossouwii, are one species.

Apurva Sukant
I like that you felt inclined to make this argument based on your observation. It is indicative of your deep interest and efforts. IMHO as far as tools of taxonomy go I think the hierarchy is: gene based > geography based > visual similarity. I understand that Haworthia taxonomy is still dominated by classical works of geographical analysis. Avenue remains for it to move into gene based determination which has significantly reduced error margins.

Mr. Bayer has himself responded to your post. It is an encouragement and surely one of the authoritative points of view on this.

Bruce Bayer
Thank you Apurva. Current Haworthia and Aloid classification is largely based on DNA sequencing (gene based). I personally think it is flawed because DNA does not determine form. Also what DNA scientist gain from technological skills, is lost by lack of field experience, insights and more general knowledge. I also think that a sensible, reasonable and modern species definition is seriously lacking. What Soumen is doing, is what has been attempted by many enthusiastic students and collectors. Some even with extensive field experience. Very welcomed and more than justified, but not very rewarding.

Apurva Sukant
I understand the limitations of sequencing that you suggest. It makes sense that a complimentary approach may be best for now, if both tools are not perfect themselves as of yet. For my knowledge please mention some institutions or authors that carry out sequencing of haworthias for taxonomy. I would be very interested in getting to know their work.

Bruce Bayer
Univ Johannesburg Dept Botany – did the sequencing of the aloids.

[ed.] Facebook conversation February 7, 2021

Fusca

Posted on April 10, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

This is Paulsfontein just west of Albertinia. A small population in an intensively grazed and weed encroached area. A reminder to keep in mind within and between population variation. This has the Latin epithet ‘fusca’ and I personally fuddle over whether to address it as pygmaea or mirablis. So I suggest H. retusa because these populations simply mirror what I was showing for populations to the west where names like mutica, groenewaldii, badia, joleeniae, bobii, hammeri etc. are collector useful. Conservation is poking me in the ribs but I am not finding the right ambit for that discussion.

Essie Esterhuizen wrote – Populations in that area confuse me. I am not sure whether I deal with the western end of Haworthia pygmaea or eastern end of Haworthia retusa.

Bruce Bayer replied – I am so glad Essie has commented because I have just felt so in need of expressing my present feelings about the aloids generally. There was a congress on Aloe classification about 10 years ago that was hailed as a breakthrough for the subject. I saw it as a total farce because the essential nature of species was ignored. My experience and slight knowledge of the DNA methodology applied in the latest solution for the genera (and species), is that it is supremely cringeworthy. All it gets right is the three Haworthioid genera where sequencing was not needed to reach that conclusion. Part of my fears for the worst are based on the fact that two of the major sequencing studies were initiated to explore the phylogeny of just Haworthia species. That the results were written up to totally avoid discussion of the initial hypothesis will never cease to confound me. My confidence in aloid classification is at zeropoint.

“H. fusca” Albertinia and Essie’s comment…”Populations in that area confuse me. I am not sure whether I deal with the western end of Haworthia pygmaea or eastern end of Haworthia retusa.” Why I so welcome this comment is because it is the first I have seen in 40 years from someone who knows the field, that makes an honest and truthful statement about Haworthia. I recall Essie did say something similar about the variation in Haworthia turgida, to dismiss this mad fragmentation even into varieties.

Cooper Siding: Darkness of Ignorance!

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

This is “H. fusca”. One of those pesky species described on the basis of a single population. It is from east of Albertinia on the way to Cooper Siding. Thankfully the finder was not “honoured” in the naming and at least the overly sensitive narcissistic element of a name change is avoided. I call it H. pygmaea ‘fusca’ and it is pivotal in the awareness that we have a single gene pool (species/system) from which many different variants have sprung.

This from east of Cooper Siding and like a tilting mousetrap sends us from the comfort of a easy to follow set of names into the web of confusion about what names mean to different people. What memories! I so wish I could empty them all out to laugh away (or at, or better still, share), the amazing history that so colours my experience with Haworthia and Latin names … AND PEOPLE – amazing people in the nicest sense.

Species, what species?

Posted on May 15, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

Here are maps attempting to illustrate relationships and a reality of “species”. The BW map was the one presented in Salisbury 1976. The colour map was done a few years ago and I may (need to) work on the legend along the lines of the MTR model. But I do feel disturbed by Gerhard’s unnecessary and unkind remarks. The fact is that I said long ago that Haworthia as was, would not be understood until the generic problem was resolved. At least PRE accepts that. But there is a bigger and deeper problem that I cannot get through to anyone despite the obvious. We have a classification system that is antiquated and dysfunctional based on a philosophy and methodology that does not work for Haworthia and MANY other genera. There is no general and precise species definition and there cannot be while we are restricted to a mechanistic world view that wholly ignores the fact that the physical world we occupy is a projection from a far greater metaphysical reality that we are programed to forget. Species are not just mechanistic products of a whimsical nature. Books like Sheldrake’s Morphogenesis, or Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis, and Capra The Turning Point (many more) are not sucked out of thin air. Neither are the Bible, The AdiGranth, the Baghavad Gita and also many more. But we do not need to go to that level to realise that we are getting nowhere pursuing a mindless argument. We do not even have to know the metaphysical reality while we think we can use a two dimensional clado- or phylo-gram to illustrate a three-dimensional issue of time and space.

For the sake of clarity, red is retusa and pink is turgida but do not make a mistake and think there is a clear separation.

The dotted lines are really a guess at a situation before the Younger Dryas? 12,000 years ago They suggest a southern connection of the mirabiloids were I have no doubt that mirabilis ‘bobii’ directly connects to mirabilis ‘paradoxa’. I would love to paste my updates stuff all over again. Trouble is I only got a digital camera about 2006 and as it is, posting one population a day would need about 3 years.

I understand there are people who are offended by my opinions and the frustrations that I generously express. But there are real problems that commercial and lesser needs prefer to wish away. Seeing H. fusca did not require for me to wait months to see any connection to H. retusa. It simply confirmed what I have been tediously trying to explain to an audience that has an element reluctant to listen. Or reluctant to read and think objectively. Why do these people want to lead enthusiasts away from what may be true? The fact is that DNA sequencing has not been able to resolve the nature of species in these retusoid/mirabiloid populations. I do not think that next-generation sequencing is going to change anything either. Here is a very rough map I drew to try and explain the situation of a single gene pool (one system = one species). I use R in the map for retusa for nomenclatural priority when it is actually turgida (thus T) that dominates. True retusa is centered on Riversdale and Heidelberg in the centre. Rather than throw rocks at me, I would be grateful for constructive ideas based on observable and quantifiable facts. If I add a smile will it alkalise the dyspepsia?

Here is a map to show the phytogeographic regions of the South African southwest – the Fynbos area. The fact is that vegetation classification like this is no easier or better than plant classification. It is full or errors and omissions. I wish I had the time, the skills, the knowledge to produce an accurate map of the distribution of the aloid species as an overlay. The map here used in a book on the Cape bulbs, comes from a book for the Fynbos as a whole. The discussion reads that these areas are primarily determined by rainfall but it sure is more complicated than that. The areas demarcated all lie within a greater area that is actually a winter rainfall one. Temperatures are never truly continental, nights are generally mild and actually there seem to be two main non-growing times viz July/August when its cold, and then Jan/Feb when it is hot and dry. What I do know is that the Haworthia genera and species can be mapped and understood in exactly this way. Nature has not just haphazardly sprinkled stuff about and had a randomly orchestrated ball.

From my point of view, you need to understand that retusa is not a separate unit. It is part of this one system = one species, Look at my coloured map and ask what names go to what colours? In fact the colours merge into each other and it is difficult to say where a name stops and starts. Again it is a problem that you might not have been able to see much of the literature where this is explained. It was about 1972 I discussed the sequence of populations from N Heidelberg from the sandstone mountains (turgida caespitosa) all the way to the sea then east and up to Riversdale where it was retusa. Atrofusca is not a separate unit but you can use atrofuscoid because there are populations you can characterise as atrofusca. You cannot do that for magnifica for example. ?? It is not funny to see what the relationship is between atrofusca and floribunda that I have also described in the literature. ??

MBB7998 – Even if this IS a species, how do you collate all this variation into a single meaningful, usable species description and which plant do you select as a “type”. G.G. Smith fell at this hurdle long before (fortunately he had finished his manuscript) Except some never learned nothing and continued in the same vein – taking one plant to cook up a description?

MBB7999 Kruisriver. These plants all fall on an interface of turgida and mirabilis.

MBB8000 Kruisriver. I am sure this is formally named somewhere. If these guys are honest it is several times. Fabulous place and people. To our amazement they had a pet chameleon and also a pal with a dozen pet tarantulas. Our one regret is having met so many great people who were so friendly and hospitable that it was awful to experience this as a kind of one-off and never see them again!

Goodness me a floodgate of thoughts and a spider waiting to catch me in its web ?? This is turgida ‘pallidifolia’ growing nearly cheek by jowl, with dekenahii (var. of retusa or pygmaea?). The classic cliff face/flat terrain situation that marks the difference between the generally clump-forming turgida and the solitary flatter withdrawn retusa? But this is not the only place. Throughout the Southern Cape we have these juxtapositions of M R and T. Old methods have not solved these problems and old ideas will not either. If critics or doubters would please just kindly and coolly, look in an unprejudiced or jaundiced way at the published information. I have tracked all of mirabilis in a really large scale operations like at Kruisriver, Komserante, Kewietsvlakte, Vermaaklikheid, Potberg, Malagas, Haarwegskloof, Napier, VanReenens Crest etc. (North of this locality by about 1km used to be another turgida population on a cliff face was that more retusoid than this one).

I would so love to post each population in the spider web map of relationships. It would take months/years at a population/day. My good friends fellow Haworthia name appliers and commercial outlets hate me for this. You need to know that Daphne, Kobus and I explored the greater area thoroughly and found about 15 populations or more. Only in one other location did we find two species and they were also contiguous but floribunda and retusa – also a cross season hybrid observed. How other Haworthia pundits evade these realities and the classification issues would need Einstein or Heisenberg or Jung or Kinsey to explain. Note Kinsey was a famous psychologist of a more recent era.

MBB8003 from the area NE Riversdale as circled on map. Yes you guessed right. I did not know whether to file these as H. retusa or H. mirabilis because it is in a dramatic series that forms a continuum turgida ‘caespitosa’ (=mirabilis) to a more mirabiloid thing.

Yes you guessed right, again. I did not know whether to file these as H. retusa or H. mirabilis. Why for example is H. vernalis seen as a more useful name than H. turgida ‘vernalis’ or H. retusa ‘vernalis’ (to observe rules priority). It is because it is more profitable I guess.

H. retusa and H. mirabilis are a dramatic series that form a continuum of turgida ‘caespitosa’ (=mirabilis) to a more mirabiloid thing.

A real problem is that people just can’t keep up. Sometimes they form strong opinions but are unable it seems, to maintain a discussion or keep relevant. We have seen 8003 and 8005 and now 8004. still in that small circled area NW Riversdale I refer to as Kruisriver. I have these under retusa but would be equally happy with them in mirabilis and with the best of intention, very confounded if someone suggested some other name. Thank goodness for emojis where people read venom dripping fangs where there is simply a plea for common sense.

These are upstream from that last lot in the same circled area but to the west 2km? Note the floribunda hybrid! I filed this under turgida!!! But I am immensely frustrated by Emile’s excellent post. Take my map for example. It has been around since 1976 and not a soul of all these potential collaborators has so much as whispered a syllable to suggest where it might be right or wrong. That has not stopped them from littering the web with names with no explanation of how they might fit and why? The name “magnifica” makes sense!!! I cannot even use it as “magnificaoid” – I will get to post pictures of this ? “species” “variety” “hodge-podge “. If you give me time. Emile can you tell where there are discontinuities in this lot – even where floribunda or rossouwii are concerned? Who do consider an authority on Lithops? Is there a communal solution or is there a truth? It is said that the camel is the product of consensus.

Taxonomy and Fieldwork

Posted on May 31, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

James Deacon asked Bruce Bayer, “What is this thing at Brandrivier?”

James – you have no idea how significant this picture is. It is an emelyae variant and I really need to know a lot more about precise whereabouts. Multifolia comes from a few km to the east and there was a very very rossouwii-like multifiolia on Brandrivier. It is pictured in Revisited. But it is not there anymore. What is there are plants like your picture indicate. Did you perhaps observe Tulista opalina?

Jakub Jilemicky added “This plant was described by Gerhard Marx as H. obserata. It occurs mainly at Brandrivier, but as well at Springfontein. It flowers with all the magnifica type plants, not with emelyae group.”

May 19 – 7888 Brandrivier. H. emelyae ‘obserrata’. It raises an interesting issue. Names may have to change every generation as the plants may change? It used to be ‘multifolia‘. Actually my species definition includes the matter of space and time. In which case the name ‘obserrata‘ is taxonomic malfeasance.

May 19 – 7846 Between Springfontein and Brandrivier. Flowering August. Surely the type loc for “H. obserrata” that I see as H. emelyae. But this is just a distraction. When you still have commentators making comparisons to the magnifica types and flowering times, you realize that the absurdity of Haworthia classification is going to continue for the next 80 years as well.

As a point of interest. There seem to be many different ideas of what species are. From the typological concept of things that look near identical, to a list of the species one thinks makes up a genus. In the latter case the genus is considered to be what is made up from the species one imagines. My own species concept is very well defined and my map (this spider web of colours) indicates the way factors of space and time are involved in only one small group of Haworthia.

Still paradoxa Vermaaklikheid but the first few were June and this is September.

Let me try this as no 3…What we have is a post of three pictures to show three “species” paradoxa, bobii and joleeniae and to ridicule Bayer for suggesting they are the same. Firstly those pictures are NOT the species. They are specimens taken to illustrate the species but by what is recognised in botanical taxonomy as the “typological concept”, i.e. a species consists of individuals that all look the same. I wish I could copy here what I wrote in the New Haworthia Handbook (1976) where I use the name H. magnifica var. paradoxa and discuss affinity with H. turgida, H. emelyae, H. retusa and H. mirabilis. I ended the discussion there with this… Consideration of the variability of this species and distribution of variants, is very helpful towards understanding variability in the genus as a whole. What I conclude is that the species are systems with any number of populations and individuals that vary enormously. The typological concept creates mayhem in the minds of critics, growers and collectors alike. So let us start with the paradoxa, but first dismiss H. magnifica as a species. That name is a total myth. The myth ghosts around probably a single plant I collected with J. Dekenah at the type locality. It proved very amenable in cultivation and plants ended up at Sheilam nursery to go world-wide. It is actually difficult to now find a clone quite the same at the original locality where there are several discrete “populations” in quite a small area – and countless variants. It is senseless to say that H. magnifica can be a species if in every aspect of such a decision it is topologically based, as is the unfortunate case. The name in SANBI is H. mirabilis. Paradoxa is a synonym. SANBI are not my friends or my clients. Some very bright and competent people are employed there. The element paradoxa is thus in my view a variant in the species H. mirabilis and illustrated here by three populations viz. at Vermaaklikheid, Osplaas and Koenserus.

Just get something clear about type specimens and the system. A specimen is only anchor for the name. It does not prove anything about where it comes from. It is just representative. A second point is in that the nomenclatural rules uphold chronological discovery (better still – description) over reality. This mad rule of priority totally confounds the prime aim of a classification that follows and explains the genetic history (phylogeny). If in fact evolutionary theory is even valid. Generally the rules provide fertile ground for confusion, argument and publication credits that do little to promote their purpose.

Two Vermaaklikheid picture sets have been posted. This is another. A cooler west facing outlook but also on those limestone rocks. I must confess to a bit of apprehension that some may claim this is a different species when my opinion will be a great deal more conservative in what lies ahead.

What is the problem? I suggest we have an antiquated, outdated, dysfunctional classification system so that our knowledge, philosophy and methodology does not allow explanation of groups like Haworthia. So I will try and demonstrate it like this…Gerhard posted pictures of paradoxa, bobii and joleeniae. One of each! So let us just see how this can be interpreted. Here are several pictures of ‘paradoxa‘ from Vermaaklikheid east of the village. I first saw it at a site north of the village.

There is so much still to explore. Here is a map just to indicate the scale that has to be exercised. Initially I was happy to stop every 50 miles to see what might be there. Now it is every 25meters! Just note an interesting phenomenon here. 3 species and as many populations as there are recorded habitats. M = mirabilis, R retusa and F floribunda. Yes we covered most of the ground between too.

Mukesh Vaid asked – What does these four digit numbers signify

Bruce Bayer – Just my collecting numbers. This map is only intended to show intensity of search to demonstrate anything. I did have a collecting permit strictly adhered to. Often, as I do now, I do my searching with camera!

Every collector should have an accession book to record what you record and find where and when. I idiotically did not get this right to start with. Even as an entomologist I did not keep proper numbers. When I started at Karoo Garden I used the garden accession system KG with number/year. No good. In the end it is the quality of accession record that indicates the credibility of the work! I did not have the luxury of digital camera or GPS that is essential nowadays. At one time it was enough to just say “collected between the Cape and the diamond fields! With plant theft and cadaverdog-like shadows, it is a bit stressful to even produce the maps that I show! Sometimes I have mentioned something and the next moment a new species is described directly connected??

Mukesh Vaid – Where is H. turgida in this?”

Bruce Bayer – This not actually about turgida but just to show level of search necessary. But let me take the opportunity to try and get this message/hypothesis across. There is a single gene pool (a system) that produces mirabilis, retusa, turgida, pygmaea, mutica and emelyae. It can be simplified if it recognised that retusa is really a offset of turgida in among 5 main lines. So let us try and get something else straight. Science (i.e. scientism actually) is a system of reductionism that supposes that everything can be explained by breaking things down to their smallest parts. So we mess up in Haworthia by thinking the smallest parts are species when in fact it is a system of many things. Does that help?

This is where I think Mukesh rightly has a problem. That bottom pink line should not be there. That is why I refer to them as intervals. These bureaucratic scientists lay down the law that this should be seen for what it is and call it an interval – because it is a break in distribution continuity e.g.. The Knysna interval is a serious break between SE coast flora and S Cape flora. That coast line area is not easily explored and the geology is limestone with a different vegetation. There may well be Haworthias there. There is a record of a mirabiloid(?) on the sea cliffs at St Sebastian west of the Breede River mouth.

There is a really weird intimation that bureaucrats have determined what species names apply on Haworthia! It is actually a very democratic process based on 4 tenets of science. Universal truth, communality – no secrets, no private gain, and organised scepticism. If you have the data and you have the facts, you are free to organise and present your case. I have no privileged access to anything and certainly no sycophantic following with commercial interests in mind. I often wonder that not a hair sticks up from the trenches of my defense when so much garbage is thrown on attack

On this map…. There is actually no known connection across from L = longebracteata (also a mirabiloid area), to P = paradoxa, to B = bobii. Historically the shore line has changed and there may have been. Variegata seems to have jumped the gaps. So now we have populations a = Buffelsfontein, b = Sandfontein, c = Sandhoogte and d = Infanta. A and b are in the De Hoop Reserve and it is quite difficult to access so I have not been there with a digital camera unfortunately. Buffelsfontein I owe to Chris Burgers, Sandfontein to Adam Harrower and Sandhoogte to Jakub Jelimicky. Infanta I owe to mesemb research and what “bob” had to do with it is anybody’s guess. Certainly I did not remotely think it was or is a new species, as excited as I was to first see it. The overall complexity of the spider web does not do justice for the problems of variability among the floribundoids, the variegatoids and the mirabiloids. Turgida seems to hold its own. Holistically I can conceive of only the one solution that excludes adding another few species to an impossibly and unrealistic list. It would be nice if the culprits owed up to the chain of events that led to “bobii” and a few other names. Including the authorization for collecting that is so uncomfortable and dehumanizing. I make no apology for suggesting the association of bobii and paradoxa , even beyond a greater issue of the mirabiloids. I do not doubt that it is a difficult “ask”. The two pictures are of ‘a’ and do not do justice to the plants in the field at all.

Arthur Dixon posted these .. Bruce Bayer replied “All ‘paradoxa’.”

These are the plants at ‘b’ where Adam Harrower recorded them. I named the place as Sandfontein or “Sandhoogte N”. Makes me long to go and drool over them again!

These are my pictures of ‘c’ in the ‘bobii’/paradoxa/joleeniae/mirabilis milieu. Funnily enough I really do sympathise with the doubters and unbelievers and am very apprehensive about further showing you what I think is the same. (remind me if I forget!). I have not mentioned “muticoid” in this lot where I say turgida is real. I suggest that mutica does come in to the picture and I will touch on that when I get to ‘joleeniae’.

Arthur posts…”It seems to me that endless discussions and reasoned arguments supported by habitat shots whilst life-affirming and endlessly enthralling are not advancing the discussion in any way as (returns to main point) WITHOUT that definition of ‘species’ the cycle continues to revolve (Personal point)”. Yes yes yes. It has been ongoing for the last 80 years. Like I said – I get credit for my great contribution to Haworthia while effectively been told I know nothing. I am happy to accept that, if some intelligence is put in place of what I have written over the years. Contrary to general belief, I do not like offending or hurting people. Therefore I am very limited in what I can actually say and tell. What we need is a dimensional shift in how we think, how we reason and in what we are really wanting to achieve. We have a societal crisis and we see it not!

Tony Brook wrote “My apologies Bruce I am not a Botanist but surely the definition and description of Bobbi should precluded the 2 plants which are relatively hairless. Otherwise many other Haworthia would be included in the “species”.”

Bruce Bayer replied “No Tony. this is essentially the problem. I did not consider bobii to be a species. H. mirabilissii the species and the best way of defining species at the moment is by DNA sequencing but rather also by what my definition of species requires. Viz a holistic view of its relationships, similarities whatever, with possible and probable relatives.”

Here is another ‘joleneae‘ population that demonstrates how observations can be slanted to re-enforce propaganda. Someone also sent me an article on Haworthiopsis that is a piece of real modern day journalism. Unable to tell left from right or right from wrong, the writer sits on the fence like a Fiscal Shrike impaling worms on the barbs, i.e. hoping to have his believers (us ordinary worms) accept him as an all-seeing eye of truth. This has plagued me all my writing life! No joleneae is not definitely and distinctly, always glabrous. Some of these pictures even show the mutica shiny speckled appearance those plants can have. Differences between populations are in my observation as much due to the skeletal soil differences (geology) as they are to spatial isolation. I think. Some amazing individuals here.

So let us move on because there are still surprises and unpalatable truths. While we have seen mirabilis ‘bobii‘ from the sandstones of the Potberg itself, we need to see what mirabilis does on the geological confoundment of the flats north of the Potberg. First there is Melkhoutfontein and I assume that this is included in the concept of “joleneae” (that I usually misspell). It really should be H. mirabilis ‘joleneae‘ and just forget formal process. It is not possible to regulate and manage the welter of names. An attempt was made to register Aloe cultivars, but if this is practical I doubt. It is senseless to argue there is no continuity from ‘bobii‘ to ‘joleneae‘. This just upholds a nonsensical humongous heap of formal binomials to argue about and ignores the many more things that attract either no aesthetic attention or commercial interest. Joleneae is on the terrace cobbly sandstone as a simply descriptor.

It occurs to me. Joleneae is claimed to be consistently glabrous. This comment disregards the electron microscopy “work” done by Dr. David Cutler of Kew that I reported on in Updates. It is obvious from these pictures that the plants are incipiently hairy or spinose whatever is correct. we simply cannot properly assess the real nature of individual characters like this. Just for recall – there was an amazing paper written on the cladistics of the Aloids published in Taxon (about 30 years ago). Whoever peer reviewed that paper prior to publication deserves serious censure. Barely a character state is correctly stated.

What it needs to is for the thought leaders, like editors, society committee members, media notaries etc. to get their act together and seriously consider what their role is in the mess of argument and infighting. I have suggested now a solution where at least in Haworthia we can (if we so choose) admit the spider web and set-out how to communicate about it. Perhaps we need to identify the mafia who have vested interest or are just too intellectually lazy or impractical to even want agreement.

Defining ‘species’ is a fuzzy art

Is this and that getting too much for you? Still ‘joleneae‘. It is a useful name, but not actually the issue. At this place Tulista minima (I am gobsmacked that some over zealous mind has decided it is actually T. minor – I suppose this name change in intended to avoid confusion!!! ) as does H. variegata ‘hemicrypta’. So I include hybrid pictures. The two species do not directly share habitat. Stoffelsriver.

Here is a map of the north Potberg area to highlight the significance of geology and its impact on floristics/vegetation/plant species. It is a complex situation with deposited materials overlying basic formations and erosional effects. The white material to the higher left are eroded and decayed shales that result in banks of white clay much like elsewhere towards Riversdale and Heidelberg. Is it surprising that the retusa/mirabiloids adjust and adapt accordingly. Why do these plants differ so much from joleneae/bobii/paradoxa and switch to resemble atrofusca and floribunda?

Snakes and ladders. Background noise! I have 206 folders for populations of which most are this unphotogenic ilk. Their lack of appeal and hidden nature is why H. heidelbergensis was spawned. The more conspicuous and bigger forms were H. maraisii and H. magnifica. The only attention I know they ever got from collectors was the complaint that they never could own or get a proper idea of what H. mirabilis looked like. Shades of the great doyen of Botanical Latin and plant taxonomy W.T. Stearn who destroyed the foundation of Haworthia taxonomy with his typification of the name Aloe atrovirens, spinis herbaceus numerosus ornata and choosing the herbaceus part for the epithet. H. atrovirens should be H. mirabilis! I do not think the name mirabilis was even used in von Poellnitz and Smith’s time? So I can see that my chances of putting Haworthia taxonomy to rest are zero. No herbarium can ever hope to hold a proper record of variation within a single population. Whoever wants to quarrel with me needs to now that their classification includes all the stuff I have tried to contend with! My pictures of this background noise are disappointing and I have none for stuff seen before ca. 2005 or so. Emoji of laughter or tears? And who wants to know what a species is anyway?

Nothospecies or notaspecies? That is the big question. Why bother to ask difficult questions, just call this H. mirabilisXmutica H. hammeri instead. It consists of one population occupying an area less than 500sqm among surrounding mirabilis and mutica populations. Will it ever be a system? (Nothospecies is coined for the offspring of two other species that in the absence of a definition become a new species. It really applies to readily seed propagating and readily dispersing plants – agriculture and horticulture!)

Here is my 2009 baby I think written in 2009 before DNA sequencing proved to us that there were 3 genera where we saw only 1. I said so when? First handbook 1976? The thing that really got me is that the results of the sequencing were actually fudged (again). The discussion and conclusions were written long before the introduction and methods, to ensure that there was a match up of results to hypothesis being tested.

Haworthia the problem child of taxonomy

Yes my favorite critic had something to say about this fishtail bud as well. Or at least the fact that I considered it at all. It is actually a feature of virtually all of the retusoid mirabiloids varying from zero in the east to nearly dramatic in the west. So herbacea and reticulata have the most exaggerated version. In these two systems the flower is nearly “regular” (as in pentagonal) hence reticulata ‘subregularis’. H. herbacea is characterised by the beige colouring while reticulata flower is pinkish. The Wolfkloof Villiersdorp herbacea has an enormous (close to 3cm long) very pink flower to fudge the issue. H. herbacea ‘paynei’ near McGregor has a bicoloured flower, hence ‘luteorosea’.

6509 H. mirabilis meiringii, W Bonnievale – Flowers are problematic because the flowers are not static things. They change by the day. In this case I pictured most open flowers on every single stem from 1-5 open.

6089 NW Potberg – some of the background noise to mirabilis. Many many populations of these small black things (“klein swartetjies” according to Michael Malherbe founder of Sheilam, in imitation of the Little Brown Jobs of bird-watching)). Not as enchanting as the larger and less common variants, they are not covered by popular classification.

H. mirabilis ‘notabilis’. This is a place in the mountains midway between Robertson and Worcester. Both arachnoidea and reticulata occur here as well in different habitats. There are shale, dolomite and sandstone formations. The countryside is formidable. How does one describe the plants here and link them adequately to a host of populations running all the way east to Ashton, and to the oddities of the NE Worcester area. Not only that. There are continuities southwards as well.

Lets try something. First the chaos formula imaging. Like a DNA seq. phylogram it is two dimensional and cannot adequately represent a spacetime issue (that species are whether evolutionary or independent creation of ‘species’. Secondly imagine a continuation of the fractal image with 6 species in a particular time frame continuing on to eventually end up as 3 species in a third frame? The frames are geographic space. The brackets demonstrate how species may overlap in distribution and/or characters. The chaos formula demonstrates overlap of characters in time or space but not in both as is needed. That is called linearity as opposed to actual reticulate reality? I am no intellectual wizard but am quite sure that plant taxonomy has got things WRONG.

Guan Tan-Amo Lim wrote “Haworthias are a little bit like domesticated dogs… they come in all shapes and sizes and can breed with each other readily. Yet dogs are all of one species. Could the many Haworthia species similarly be reduced to if not one species then to only a few? With many “breeds” corresponding to the natural populations in habitat?”

Bruce Bayer replied “Guan Yes. but we shift the problem from one level to another. I have a spider web of five species (turgida/retusa, emelyae, pygmaea, mutica, emelyae that could be one. But there is another spider web in the upper left of herbacea, reticulata, maculata and pubescens. So where do we stop? Things like wittebergensis, pulchella and marxii seem totally separate but there is chaos among all the other true Haworthia. Funny I was just browsing an article on a math issue that claims that there are things that are true but they cannot be proved to be true? Life is a conundrum.”

A fairly random lot? Actually no. This is a place a few km from ‘hammeri‘. Their is a rounded hill with small nondescript LBJs (little black jobs) most places, but at one spot quite large plants like this. Atrofuscoid? The floribunda-like leaf tip is common in the small mirabiloids. I should add… a note on fieldwork. Did I do field work? Walking around with nothing to measure and itemise but an eyeball assessment and some pictures.

6638 from NNE Bredasdorp. Mirabilis. This is a place where turgida also occurs, and with rossouwii and mutica within a few km. Also home to the ‘heidelbergensis minor’ that I suggest has rossouwii genetic material. One of these clones is very reminiscent of what I observed and considered a true hybrid between mutica and mirabilis where populations were in very close association. Does anyone really have problems with names used in an informal way like this rather than behind a facade of deep science and a degree of fraud?

From 6638 pictures. This weirdo strikes me as reminiscent of more obvious hybrids retusa/mirabilis or mutica/mirabilis where they are in close enough proximity to support a hybrid presumption. Turgida is an estimated 400m away from here.

Soumen Aditya comments “I didn’t see a features of natural hybrid … Most probably the polymorphic evolution…” Here is what IS most probably hybrid. Where mirabilis and mutica are in two populations meters apart. SO I think what would be features of a natural hybrid may just be a subjective opinion? I have mentioned before how problematic the issue of hybrids is and have often been asked – How do you tell it is a hybrid? Credibility in classification barely exists at the best of times.”

What do I ask? I once was in a meeting with a group of top managers discussing a topic they had been dealing with for over 20 years viz. rangeland production. I was suggesting a method of assessing potential. The group seemed so lukewarm to my suggestion that I felt the need to establish if they really did know what I was talking about. So I sent around a problem and asked if it could be solved using the available knowledge they had been debating for over the previous 20plus years. Deadly quiet. No wonder they were so indifferent. Now I feel exactly the same about Haworthia classification. People have been arguing and debating this since Herre’s time (1930). Here in SA nothing has changed. Perhaps I also do not know what I am talking about! The spider web for the retusoid/mirabiloid plants is a small part of the whole, and fairly straightforward compared to the bigger picture. But my suggestion for a systems approach is met with the same deadly quiet, especially from where it matters. What do I do next?

These are a few pictures of 30 from a population in a vast expanse of a no go area for any but the most intrepid. What is it? It is from an aloid sparse space and while I do have pictures for another 5 populations in the area they are not more informative. From my limited (is it that bad?) experience of mountains and the way succulent exploration has been done, I shudder to think how the Haworthia community, led as it is, is going to be able to digest what is still to be learned.

I mentioned that vast no-go area (6694). Here is one of the other 5 populations I know that happens to be only about 500m away (7994).

7994 Yes the flowers are significantly different. 7994 I attributed to maculata and the fishtail bud indicates that it is an extension of the retusa/mirabiloid web. The rounded bud tips of 6694 suggest arachnoidea or nortieri, as geographic candidates and the most probable system affinities.

June 4, 2021 – Something useful I can do is amplify H. mirabilis meiringii. I described this to draw attention to very herbacea like forms of mirabilis. This is in the Bonnievale area where the mirabilis variants seem like a system within a system, within a system. Westwards they are less spinescent and similarly eastwards. 6509. The name was not to honour someone so much as to record a time when plants were perhaps first harvested and sold from the field.

Silly me. I say these are the same (species)

H. mirabilis meiringii 7269

Mirabilis meiringii 7327

meiringii 7882

H. mirabilis Klipfontein

♦

Zuurberg cooperoid

Posted on July 26, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

I have seen about 35 Zuurberg cooperoid populations in the vicinity of the Kaboegapoort, N Kirkwood. None of these are quite the same and reflect an interaction of at least 4 megaspecies (in this case decipiens, cymbiformis, cooperi, bolusii (blackbeardiana) and aristata. Please note – it is taking a conservative middle ground opinion to say they are discrete!!! This is MBB6940 and the variation in just one of the Kaboega populations. Do not let it be lost on you that it was (and more than probably is still the case) that a species was too often described from a single specimen. Think of Rafinesque. There is absolutely no way these things can be regarded as distinct species in their own right. I have seen too many of these local variants linked not to just geographical separation, but also to local habitat difference and usually geologically associated.

7870 and 7586 It will have some dinosaurs climbing the wall when I say the probability of these both being H. cooperi is 98%. Unfortunately it is TRUE. the bobii, paradoxa, joleneae, hammeri, groenewaldii issues are minor compared with this. Closed minds will struggle and someday taxonomic botany itself is going to have to face not having a proper species concept and definition. The Haworthia community would do well to properly acknowledge the fact that it has a problem.

Lawrence wrote … And the problem is these Zuurberg cooperoid need names?
Bruce relied … They sure do. The science of botany is not going to do it and we the people have to fix it. Trouble is we reduce the issue to personality disorders around the issue of Latin binomials instead of applying our energy to thinking communally of how to find a solution. ♦

Maculata

Posted on August 7, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

A whole bunch of pictures of H. maculata. I would have thought my Handbooks might have discouraged the “new species” guys who do not seem to recognise what the nature of the game is. There were about 450 names being bandied about that I reduced to about 140. It just seemed to spur these guys on to inventing several hundred more to recreate an unmanageable situation? Perhaps the science of botany itself lost the plot when it was decided that the practicality of genera was actually built around the need for management rather than a dubious science of evolution.

♦

Clump

Posted on August 11, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

Steven Molteno – Could almost imagine these on a steep shale riverbank in the Overberg.

Bruce Bayer – Aren’t these clump formers usually associated with riverine or stream defined rock slopes and faces? While maculata has the options to be a solitary plant or a clump former. Herbacea can be a clump former in the absence of a watercourse while at Wolfkloof in a gorger situation it is fairly non-clumping. I come to insist that science has truly led us away from understanding anything about a conscious creation. Mechanistic answers do not hold truth and we are not open enough to be aware of it?

Steven Molteno – True. Same with Tulista I guess, comparing minima growing large & solitary on hills (“retusa-minimas”!) vs. minima growing in clumps along river-banks (“turgida-minimas”!) I’ve become interested in which of the Haworthia northerners might be (relatively) closest to the retusoid grouping of the Overberg. Reticulata has many analogies with the river-born retusoids (turgida), not least in terms of habitat/substrate etc. The translucent grouping of mucronata/cooperi etc. sometimes seems to show similarities to them too maybe? If it’s not my imagination. I’ve even seen photos of some cooperi/cymbiformis in the eastern cape that I could easily mistake for chubby turgida of the Overberg. But going in a different direction. I wonder about the nortieri/marumiana groupings and whether they link to the retusoids too, via maculata perhaps.

Bruce Bayer – Of course – there is no doubt in my mind that something separated off reticulata/herbacea/maculata from the retusa/mirabilis lot. I have also considered the possibility that maculata is the link of that combined system to nortieri. There is a mucronata on the Anysberg pass slopes that is inseparable from cymbiformis except flower wise. So it gets extremely convoluted because I can see cymbiformis and cooperi as a single system – inseparable from mucronata – inseparable from arachnoidea. Marumiana seems to have its ties to monticoloa – to then angustifolia, while flowerwise angustifolia and variegata are inseparable. There are just tons of missing pieces (and not so missing pieces). We just get sidetracked by truly absurd opinions about things like ‘groenewaldii’ – as a plum-picking opportunity by those with heads in the sand!!!

Steven Molteno – The multitude of links in the Haworthia lattice can leave one quite dizzy. I’ve sometimes found it helpful to (over)emphasise to myself the different types of linkage. Mainly, the distinction between confluences (ie. links through hybridisation) and divergences (ie. links through integradation). Put simply – coming together vs. moving apart. It’s one of the few ways I can get any sort of picture in my head, as we’re probably dealing with a multi-dimensional lattice of clines that’s nearly impossible to untangle. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the strength & nature of the link between: nortieri (+maculata etc.), and marumiana (+archeri etc.)

Bruce Bayer – Both those relationships are really speculative and they revolve around the oddities of the Hex Valley and eastwards as far as SE Laingsburg. There is just not enough information from which to draw any better conclusion. As you know from Astroloba, that area holds mystery and H. marxii contributes, but so does pulchella and wittebergensis. Dimorpha??? There are at least 5 populations assigned to marumiana in the western Karoo and then there is the problem of Reddii in the east. None of this is adequately supported in the way that can be argued for the retusoid synthesis. Nearly every botanist exploring these higher points in the Karoo fail to report a marumiana-like presence.

Steven Molteno – That area does indeed hold a lot of Easter eggs. To mix the metaphor, the Wagendrift formation especially seems to be a museum of weird relics. H. marxii is almost entirely confined to some narrow strips of Wagendrift rock; H. wittebergensis is mostly (not entirely) also on this formation, and that new plant recently found (H. grenieri I think it’s called) is too of course. I’ve no idea why that’s the case though.

So would you agree that, in terms of relationships between groupings:

H. maculata is probably closer to nortieri (relatively!) than it is to marumiana?
That archeri is more closely linked to marumiana than to nortieri? I do seem to recall reading in one of the Updates that there are also (weaker?) links between archeri and both nortieri and pulchella (or have I imagined that?)
That there is potentially also a connection between the nortieri group and the marumiana group, but that this is highly speculative as you say?

Okay I think I understand what you mean:

nortieri cannot be connected both to maculata and to marumiana (as you say, diametrically opposed), so you believe it must be either one connection or the other, but not both. Based on your earlier comment then, I assume that you posit the connection only to be: maculata to nortieri (if a connection there is)
Understood. Though I cannot help seeing similarities between pulchella and herbacea (& rossouwii)
Well, your answer to 2. serves as an answer to 3. as well.
Afterthought … I do know how unreliable flowering time can be, as a diagnostic criterion for tweezing apart Haworthia taxa, so that’s fully acknowledged. But it’s still a bit interesting that some of these northerners are +-Spring flowering, e.g. nortieri (Sept-Oct?),maculata (Sept-Oct-Nov?), notabilis (Sept for some populations?) and that marumiana is apparently late-Summer flowering (Jan-Feb), just like the variegata-floribunda grouping.

Bruce Bayer – No, maculata to nortieri and nortieri to marumiana are diametricaly opposed.
Yes to first part. The archeri nortieri link would be via Hex Pass and very weak. Pulchella simply stands alone. 3.What do you mean nortieri group? when already norieri to marumiana is via archeri? I think we could start again from scratch. We are trying to establish what the systems are – if you now have decided what you think a species might be. Nortieri appears to me to be an independent system. There is a possibility of some connection to arachnoidea although they do occur in very close proximity in specific instances. The Hex valley plants just means I can’t exclude other possibilities. I see no connection between herbacea and pulchella and the flowers of the former place it firmly with the retusoids. There is no doubt rossouwii comes into the retusoid picture but indirectly. I would guard against trying to hard to establish connections like this other than as a driver to find evidence to support the process. I suggest you clear your own mind about “species” and recognise too that a mechanistic answer may not be available. ♦

Little physical substance – H. marumiana MBB7681 Lospersberg

Posted on August 11, 2021 by Bruce Bayer

7681 Lospersberg NW Laingsburg H. marumiana ‘archeri’? and one picture of ‘reddii‘ EvJ Inversomo. A massive system with very little physical substance.

♦

A random note about Haworthia chlorocantha

Posted on April 23, 2022 by Bruce Bayer

Haworthia chlorocantha is a name I use to cover a whole hoard of populations of plants that occur in the Southern Cape south of the Langeberg mountain range between George and Albertinia. Of course, as is the despairing fact in Haworthia, the plants in the different populations or even within populations, often do not look the same at all. It is only from a distance and from an overview of all the available (note ”available” – to me?) evidence, that I concluded that there are two sets of plants in the area. One is the group that I refer to as the Retusoids. It comprises H. retusa (=H. turgida), H. mirabilis, H. pygmaea, H. mutica and H. emelyae), although technically only H. pygmaea and “H. turgida” are in the designated area. The other group is the floribundoids that are H. floribunda, H. chlorocantha, H. parksiana, and H. variegata. Quite rightly and understandably, opinions about this as regards species names, differ humungously. I can only explain what my experience and information suggest. I lump the names like this because there are undeniable problems about regarding them as made up of different as fully and clearly different systems we like to name as species. Furthermore I must add that the problem is compounded when one is faced with the reality that for example H. floribunda, interacts in the field with the retusoids as well as with its fellow floribundoids.

Here I would like to just show and discuss one population of Haworthia chlorocantha that I recently came across east of Albertinia in a twilight zone where its relationship to H. floribunda is questionable. I also grew plants from seed and I will show what they look like after two years. This is particularly interesting because Essie Esterhuizen has done some remarkable Haworthia exploration over the last 40 years and commented to me upon his inability also to not find any real dramatic and clear differences within the same two groups I mention. His is a totally independent observational route to my own and he might well express his thoughts quite differently and understandably even choose to do so. Unfortunately I just do not have a picture record of all the Haworthia chlorocantha populations (and of course the others too) that I have personally seen. I would so like enthusiasts to have that available to them. So this short essay is restricted to just this one single locality and disregards others.

I have not even allocated an accession number to this population north east of Albertinea along the Valsch river. There is another even more complex population still further east that Etwin Aslander found and on which I commentated on in my Haworthia Updates. My first five figures are of adult plants in a small localized population occupying about 15sq m in Renosterveld. As you can see the plant are quite variable and there is undoubtedly I floribunda similarity in the leaves. Thinking that maybe flower characters may hold some significance is just a joke as I explained in Vol 8 of Updates. This applies nearly equally to flowering time that is March for this population.

Fig. 6 is of two pots of seedlings. Repotted at one year, they separated into two size groups. This is in itself an indication of internal population difference and my personal experience of growing these Haworthias from seed is that there is a natural inclination to first pick out the more robust seedlings and work down to the small weakest, sometimes even discarding the last! Even in this case I have discarded seedlings. What did I lose? So at two years we have a pot with 4 plants in the size range of diameter spread up to 4.5cm (figs. 7 and 8) and another pot with the spread up to only 3.5cm (fig. 9 showing a plant with a 2cm leafspread. There are differences in colour and leaf spination. With active growth in shadow, the leaves are recurved. Some of the leaves show the characteristic twisted and rounded tips of H. floribunda. The smallest plant is indicative of the H. parksiana-like size that suggests the same thoughts of species similarity that come to mind when exploring other populations.

published in Haworthiad v36.1 pp 14-16, February 2022 ♦

Tulista

Posted on April 30, 2022 by Bruce Bayer

A series of Facebook postings from April & May 2022 covering Tulista kingiana, T. marginata, T. minima (minor), T. pumila.

Warwick sent me this great picture of Tulista pumila taken between Worcester and Robertson. It would be interesting to know how long-lived individual plants are because this species can form an expanding ring of offsets much like Aloe claviflora does.

Nuisance – prempting Warwick’s post was a disaster. This is what Shucked should be about. A celebration of nature and what she has for us. We are in a mess because we have no respect for nature or for its many life forms. If it moves we shoot and kill. If it grows we chop it out or down and make charcoal, choke medical properties out of it to cure the many ailments we get due to maltreatment of other life forms? Do we collect and propagate Haworthia for the sheer joy of nature or because we get some sort of commercial or ego-soothing benefit? Lets share thoughts about and to grow the positives?

I wonder of Facebook will handle this but after the ageing question looked at this population that I specifically imagined rings to be associated. Not much joy from that except to get an idea of pupping frequency. I enjoyed seeing these pictures again and will post all my Tulista. This lot are the famous Lemoenpoort variant – check that glabrous one!

No nice pictures here but this is at Mowers (an abandoned railway gangers cottage). Road construction between Worcester and Robertson led to destruction of part of a large population of T. pumila. For some incomprehensible reason these plants have been burdened with a species name. It is difficult even to say it is a discrete population because walking either to Worcester or Robertson, or even north or south, you will find plants for many miles. It would be a flip of a coin to say they were the same or different.

Some greenish plants on old river gravel and across the valley on high shales all shades of chocolate in abundance. How I regret not filling my camera with those incredible plants if pictures can ever do justice to them.

Two plants from very near Lemoenpoort demonstrating the 8 leaf-tier formation of the Fabonacci spiral series. It is usually between 8 and 13 for the species. The single plant is from only the one population I know of where the plants are much smaller and darker, and the leaf tiers are in the 3-5 tier range. In fact when I first came across them I felt a deja vu kind of moment that I was east of Oudtshoorn looking at H. scabra (tuberculata).

Martin Scott is very knowledgeable and fascinated with Tulista and these are from near where he grew up near Witteberg way to the NE of the distribution of pumila. See one plant dividing. Warwick made some great comment on plant ageing and dividing among other points, but Facebook format tends to tuck such away.

My interest in Haworthia is totally a biocentric one. An anthropocentric interest, touched by the way we are propagandised by science, religion and economics is bound to cause differences and disagreements. These pumila pictures were taken northeast of Stormsvlei but south of the Riviersonderend river. Oh why in this digital era was I so stingy with camera capacity? Could shed tears for so much lost in the celluloid one.

What makes Haworthia including Tulista, so fascinating is the extraordinary local variability. Many more pictures would be needed to display that at this place east of Worcester at the base of the Langeberg.

These were photographed virtually within Barrydale and I am sure have now been destroyed. I believe they are a bit further east too, but interestingly there are fertile hybrids with Astroloba corrugata (muricata) about 14km east of Barrydale that suggests a more solid presence.

A last picture of pumila taken at Worcester but at probably the most western point of occurrence. The plants were blood red in summer 1970 during a prolonged drought. I went back perhaps 20 years later hoping for the same dramatic colour! Next I am going to go through my T. minima pictures with a great deal of withhold. Someone has found it necessary to change the name to minor. On of those totally unnecessary names justified by virtue signaling a Rafinesque like intent to create an impression. I fear that plant taxonomy is facing a meltdown and the aloids are leading the subject into (further?) disrepute. I will keep touching on “why”.

Fascinating stuff this business about plant classification. Up to about 2000AD there were 4 major systems. The Engler system for Europe, The Bentham Hooker one for England (and Commonwealth), the Tahktajan one for USSR and Cronquist for USA. Since DNA technology, we have the Angiosperm Phyllogeny Group (APG) trying to generate consensus on the basis of a better understanding of evolutionary history. A cursory inquiry suggests there are 13 members/contributors – 2 Swedish, 4 British (Kew 3), 1 Australian, 5 USA and 1 Finnish. On the practical fun side this is Tulista minima at the western most end of the Potberg.

Apart from the four major classification systems there comes the question of national and Independent herbaria and their choices and decisions in respect of whatever system they adopt. For the Aloids, the principals seem to be IOS (International Organisation for Succulent Plant Study), Kew, SANBI (South African National Biodiversity Institute) and Tokyo Institute for Evolutionary Biology? Recently it was said that IOS had overturned the Tulista recognition, but that is not so. IOS never recognised it in the first place. SANBI has adopted a system of classification based on DNA evidence that does not seem to take into adequate account the aloids north of the Limpopo. It has omitted some SA species too. These pics are Tulista minima from the northern Potberg area locality and I have several of those.

IOS is based on he Zurich botanical garden and has 97 private members. Kew has still to make its presence felt and then of course there is the role of herbaria world wide and a ton of individual interest from all directions. always new ideas and new brooms on the scene. Always a potential Rafinesque, or Resende or an icon of intellectual virtue finding his or her way in the strange world of taxonomy. It is simply a constantly changing scene. It is not science. It is an expression of our view of the world and how we interact with each other? More from the Potberg flats.

The Aloids are in a bit of a limbo and really caught up in the idiosyncrasy, egocentricity and autocracy of plant taxonomy, nomenclatural rules, institutions and individuals. It is NOT good and the future looks bleak. The path of Haworthia since Linnaeus is laughable if it was not so tragic. I know the last 80 or so years very well and particularly, and intimately, the last 40 years. It has all been a sheer left brain debacle. So it is nice to look at this large T. minima from far SW Heidelberg.

Of course T. minima is characteristically blue-green in colour but in the Bontebok Park we get these. It has got something to do with T. marginata but exactly what. Maybe it has something to do with T. pumila too, or is it even a bigger system that included T. kingiana. There are or were two other populations that are/were similar. It is all well and good tinkering with the nomenclature and using fancy left-brain technology to arrive at some overworked mechanistic outcome, but does it help?

There really is just an unimaginable range of variation even in Tulista where classification does not seem to be controversial. But when he eventually see what Essie feels he has learned from 40 years of field observation, you might begin to ask yourself if our species concepts are inline with reality. I agree with him.

These minima are from west of Riversdale. Taxonomy is practiced much as if one dances the Charleston or Jerusalema while navigating between shops at a mall. Much display but not necessary!

Small Tulista minima from SE Heidelberg. That is Euphorbia tridentata in the first pic with a weird distribution. Its home is actually NE Cape. But I am going to go on about the aberrations of classification and “science”. Sometimes (how often is that?) oddballs/taxonomists/amateurs/novices/experts/wannabees describe or described specimens and not species.

People from all walks of life have been messing with the Aloid genera for the last 70 years to the point that recent events are simply continued absurdity. Despite the stand-off between IOS and SANBI, a new single species (unispecies, monotypic???) genus has been published for Aloe suzannae. To what end? Just what purpose does this serve? It appears that DNA sequencing does not even play a role. Aloe suzannae is reported to be in the Aloidendron clade any way. What about all the species that are not yet covered by the published sequencing data – as suspect as I am sure it is. When will someone who actually knows the aloids recognize that Aloe striatula is wildly odd, as is Aloe haworthioides. Has sequencing really successfully buried all the other questionable genus/species combinations? What does the statement mean concerning the Aloid phyllogram that reads that there does not appear to be evidence of reticulate construction? Trust these Tulista minima will bring some solace or else take an aspirin. Is this ordinary minima in a grassy fire-threatened habitat?

A real life experience. A top ranked taxonomist revising a genus examined the material available to him and identified and described two species. Species X with the four character states A1 B1 C1 D1 and species Y with the alternate states A2 B2 C2 D2. But I was dealing with new living material and none of the plants I saw matched eg. A1 B2 C2 D1, or any other combination PLUS new ones of something like A3 or C5. I wonder if there ever were even the types that reflected the taxonomist’s decision! This has happened to me many times. Not only that – as I learned about Haworthia, I had to change my opinion many times too. More to come about that. But this is a Tulista population very near to T. marginata by about 100m – clearly there are ‘hybrids’. But remember the other green T. minima from about 1km away in the Bontebok Park! I will show more Bontebok park populations and you will begin to see that maybe Tulista is a single system.

Please note that I have had many of those disconcerting “real life experiences”. There is an astounding level of naiveté among budding taxonomists who really over-reach themselves in the process of expounding what amounts to factually limited real knowledge. Often done in the most complex language. As an entomologist and then as “assistant” at the Karoo Garden, my prime function was identification of field material, visits to the herbarium and contact with “experts”. If I appear cynical, it is with very good reason. These Tulista minima are from several populations along the northern base of the Potberg.

What really distressed me was the problem Larry Leach had in an unending argument with Kew about the validity of a Euphorbia name that Welwitsch had collected and referred to in his notes as “candelabrum”. Kew argued vehemently that Welwitsch had never intended to name it “candelabrum”. What was their motive in resisting the name? Why? They did not like Welwitsch because he had been funded to collect by Kew and ended up selling his collection to another herbarium! Larry’s obituary unkindly reads that he wasted valuable time arguing the issue about the name. This just demonstrates that taxonomic nomenclatural issues are often decided like modern day law suits. The lawyers lose nothing however the cases pan out, and the more appeals the better. Not to forget the food for the obituarist! Let’s go back to another Bontebok park population. Do you think it is possible to categorically state that these are T. minima and not a small pumila?

I want to post some more relevant and recent stuff so want to get past Tulista and touch on this nonsense of multivariate analysis and the obfuscation of “science”. This is another Bontebok park population of minima. Very pumila looking but they are smallish and I have many flower pictures to show the pinkish coloration rather than the olivaceous of pumila.

Nearly a meter across. T. minima from S Bredasdorp. Long ago before all the cultivation I came across a similar population of proliferating plants on sandy flats close to the lower Breede River. They were much smaller and compacted together in such enormous clumps.

We struggled a bit to find these minima/marginata plants a few days ago … W. Heidelberg … next is what used to be.

A second (B) population further north also of these minima/marginata confoundments.

This is A2 when there were many plants at A1. These plants are extremely sensitive to animal hooves!!

Still further north we find plants like this that we regard as T. marginata – spectacular?

East of Bonnievale are these slender, erect leaved marginata and there are ‘hybrids’ with both pumila and minima – and again the hybrids are not interspersed with supposed parents.

Here are the “pumilaXmarginata” hybrids (as a small, local population)…

I should have had a lot more photos of this population i.e. marginataXminima? Neither supposed parent was in the immediate vicinity by several hundred yards. The hybrids were fertile and I grew a lot from seed. There is another population of minima westwards by a few km and there too are this time with pumila. Again the hybrids are in a discrete small area away from either supposed parent.

This locality is in Smith’ collecting record. NE Bredasdorp. I struggled to find it until I realised that it was one of the many fatalities of a vandalistic attitude of road builders. In the 1970s they simply ignored any environmental concern and ravaged any surface stone as well. I am not sure if either minima or marginata were in near vicinity but this is the mix and named (in my opinion needlessly) as a discrete species viz mortonii. A few plants do still survive there.

♦

Accession

Posted on September 21, 2022 by Bruce Bayer

Accession	Name	Map1	Map	Location
	decipiens var cyanea	3222	DC	Trakas Kuilen
	mucronata var inconfluens	3321	AC	8km W Ladismith
	mirabilis var consanguinea	3419	BA	Die Galg
	limifolia var limifolia	2631	BD	Mbuluzi gorge, Blue Jay ranch
	mucronata var inconfluens	3321	CA	9km SW Ladismith
	heidelberg var scabra	3420	AD	W Kathoek
	cooperi var pilifera	3227	BD	Fort Murray Bridge
	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DB	Buitenstekloof
	parksiana	3422	AA	Botteliersberg
	pygmaea var argenteomaculosa	3421	BB	Cooper Siding
	mutica var mutica	3419	DB	Klipdale
	pumila	3319	CD	Lemoenpoort
	sordida var sordida	3325	AC	Brakfontein
	pulchella var pulchella	3320	CA	Nougaspoort
	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DC	Dublin
	herbacea var paynei	3319	DD	1km S McGregor
	pygmaea var argenteomaculosa	3421	BB	Humor
	marginata	3420	AC	Adoonskop
	pulchella var pulchella	3320	CB	SW. Anysberg
	pumila	3319	BC	Osplaas, DeDoorns
	kingiana	3422	AA	Little Brak, Barswell
	semiviva	3120	CD	SE Middelpos
	marumiana var marumiana	3124	CC	32km E Murraysburg
	mutica var mutica	3420	AB	Crodini
1404a	cooperi var tenera	3325	CB	Groendal Dam
2469a	nigra var diversifolia	3221	CB	W Merweville
4168b	glauca var glauca	3324	AA	2km E Humefield
6512a	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AA	SE Drew
6584a	glaucaXviscosa	3324	AD	Waaipoort
6584a	glaucaXviscosa	3324	AB	NE Waaipoort
KG100/74	blackburniae var blackburniae	3321	AC	W Ladismith
KG100/740	blackburniae var blackburniae	3321	DB	Warmbaths
KG107/74	magnifica var magnifica	3420	BB	SW Heidelberg
KG109/74	mucronata var morrisiae	3322	CA	Volmoed
KG111/72	bayeri	3322	CA	S Oudtshoorn
KG114/72	emelyae var comptoniana	3323	AD	Georgida
KG115/71	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	DB	Warmwaterbron
KG118/70	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	DA	Effata
KG118/71	emelyae var major	3321	CC	Muiskraal
KG119/72	scabra var morrisiae	3322	AD	Schoemanspoort
KG120/71	mucronata var morrisiae	3322	CB	Hazenjacht
KG125/73	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	DA	S Calitzdorp
KG126/72	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	DA	S Calitzdorp
KG126/72	arachnoidea var nigricans	3320	DD	E Lemoenshoek
KG138/72	emelyae var major	3321	CD	Sandkraal
KG140/72	decipiens var decipiens	3323	BB	Constantia
KG146/72	bayeri	3322	CB	Doringkloof
KG151/72	mucronata var morrisiae	3322	CB	Kamanassie Dam
KG155/73	fasciata	3325	CB	Hillwacht
KG160/72	arachnoidea var setata	3321	CB	S Ladismith
KG160/72	arachnoidea var setata	3322	BC	Meiringspoort
KG163/70	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	S Goudmyn Bridge
KG166/70	herbacea var herbacea	3319	CB	Brandwacht
KG166/71	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CC	Springfontein
KG167/71	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CC	W Springfontein
KG175/70	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DC	Rooiberg
KG193/73	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DD	5km N Hankey
KG202/70	magnifica var atrofusca	3421	AA	Spitzkop, W Riversdale
KG218/70	herbacea var herbacea	3319	DC	Mowers
KG224/70	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	E Bonnievale
KG231/70	decipiens var decipiens	3323	AD	Skerpkop, E Willowmore
KG240/72	turgida var turgida	3420	BB	N Heidelberg
KG241/72	turgida var turgida	3420	BB	N Heidelberg
KG257/77	emelyae var emelyae	3321	DC	SE Vanwyksdorp
KG26/70	mirabilis var triebneriana	342O	AA	Stormsvlei
KG28/70	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	AB	N Uitkyk
KG2/71	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	W Bonnievale
KG30/70	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BA	near Greyton
KG310/70	bolusii var blackbeardiana	3227	AC	SW Cathcart
KG311/7	magnifica var acuminata	3421	BD	N Gouritzmond
KG311/70	bolusii var blackbeardiana	3227	AA	Imvani
KG312/70	bolusii var blackbeardiana	3126	DD	Bowes’ farm
KG315/70	decipiens var minor	3324	AA	Campherpoort
KG31/70	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BA	near Greyton
KG323/70	mucronata var morrisiae	3321	BC	Bergplaas
KG324/71	reticulata var subregularis	3319	DA	Boskloof
KG326/71	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AA	Rondeheuwel
KG327/71	mutica var mutica	3420	AC	N Kykoedie
KG329/70	herbacea var herbacea	3319	DD	Koningsrivier
KG329/72	nortieri var nortieri	3118	DC	Die Kom
KG32/70	mirabilis var beukmannii	3419	BA	Skuitsberg
KG336/70	gracilis var gracilis	3326	AB	Hellspoort
KG345/71	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	9km W Robertson
KG34/70	turgida var longibracteata	3420	AC	20km N Bredasdorp
KG35/70	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AC	19km N Bredasdorp
KG36/70	heidelberg var minor	3420	CA	Rooivlei
KG36/71	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	BD	Tonnel Stn.
KG382/70	cooperi var pilifera	3326	DC	Brigadoon
KG383/70	cooperi var pilifera	3326	DA	Peninsula
KG388/71	arachnoidea var setata	3321	DA	E Vanwyksdorp
KG392/70	cooperi var cooperi	3227	AC	W Cathcart
KG393/70	bolusii var blackbeardiana	3227	AC	SW Cathcart
KG402/70	springbokvlakensis	3324	BD	Springbokvlakte
KG411/75	chloracantha var chloracantha	3321	DD	N Herbertsdale
KG436/75	decipiens var cyanea	3323	AD	Georgida
KG441/75	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	BC	N Calitzdorp
KG46/70	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	18km Robertson to Bonnievale
KG47/72	gracilis var tenera	3326	BA	Plutosvale
KG47/72a	gracilis var tenera	3326	BA	Plutosvale
KG535/71	arachnoidea var setata	3321	CB	W Vanwyksdorp
KG567/71	mucronata var inconfluens	3321	AC	Dwarsrivier
KG568/71	mucronata var morrisiae	3321	CB	W Vanwyksdorp
KG573/51	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CB	Ladismith to Vanwyksdorp
KG593/71	arachnoidea var setata	3321	CB	14km E Ladismith
KG623/69	mutica var mutica	3420	AC	Soesriver
KG627/69	retusa	3421	AB	Near Riversdale, Grootvlei
KG628/69	mirabilis var badia	3419	BD	Napier
KG630/69	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	9km W Robertson
KG631/69	turgida var suberecta	3422	AA	Brandwacht
KG640/69	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	CB	8km NE. Worcester
KG662/69	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DA	Keeromskloof
KG669/69	maculata var maculata	3319	CB	Brandvlei Dam
KG681/69	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BD	Mierkraal, Napier
KG682/69	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	AB	Uitkyk
KG688/69	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	SW Robertson
KG692/69	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BA	Near Genadendal
KG695/69	herbacea var paynei	3319	DD	McGregor
KG6/72	cooperi var leightonii	3327	BA	Kaysers Beach
KG77/71	mucronata var rycroftiana	3321	DD	23km E Ladismith
KG7/71	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	W Bonnievale
KG806/70	longiana	–	–	SE Hankey
KG83/71	magnifica var magnifica	3421	AA	S Riversdale at beacon
KG83/77	mutica var mutica	3420	AC	Kykoedie
KG85/72	mutica var mutica	3420	AC	Badjieskraal
KG89/76	reticulata var hurlingii	3320	CC	Goudmyn
KG90/76	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DC	Rooiberg
KG92/71	magnifica var magnifica	3421	AB	E Riversdale
KG93/71	variegata var variegata	3421	AB	Hoekraal
KG94/71	turgida var longibracteata	3421	AC	Brakfontein
KG98/71	chloracantha var subglauca	3422	AA	E Great Brak
KG9/71	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	W Bonnievale
?	marginata	3320	CC	NE Ashton
112	limifolia var gigantea	2731	DA	Nongoma
121	maraisii var notabilis	3319	DD	Vinkrivier
153	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	DB	Buitenstekloof
154	minima var poellnitziana	3320	CC	W Drew, Swellendam
155	lockwoodii	3320	BB	Floriskraal
157	parksiana	3422	AA	Dumbie Dykes
158	floribunda var floribunda	3420	BB	6km N Heidelberg
159	mucronata var inconfluens	3321	BC	Die Berg
160	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DC	Ribbokkop
161	herbacea var herbacea	3319	DC	Ribbokkop
163	pulchella var pulchella	3320	AC	Avondrust, Touws River
163	pubescens var pubescens	3319	CB	Sandberg Hills
164	maculata var maculata	3319	CB	Brandvlei Dam
166	serrata	3420	BA	Oudekraalkop, Heidelberg
167	venosa ssp woolleyi	3324	BD	Kleinpoort
168	venosa ssp venosa	3420	AB	Swellendam
169	attenuata	–	–	–
170	glabrata	–	–	–
171	arachnoidea var nigricans	3322	AC	Schoemanspoort
171	mucronata var mucronata	3322	AD	Schoemanspoort
172	marumiana var marumiana	3226	AB	Spring Valley
173	bolusii var bolusii	3225	CA	NE Pearston
174	marginata	3421	AB	S Heidelberg
175	monticola var monticola	3322	DD	Molen River
886	fasciata	3325	CB	Spring Range
887	fasciata	3325	CC	8km E Hankey
1119	maculata var maculata	3319	CB	Audensberg Peak
1120	maculata var maculata	3319	DA	S Sandhills
1128	pubescens var livida	3319	CD	S Lemoenpoort
1145	maculata var maculata	3319	CD	Moddergat
1194	coarctata var coarctata	3326	DB	Fairfax
1208	maraisii var notabilis	3319	DD	Wolfkloof, Robertson
1209	maraisii var notabilis	3319	DD	Wolfkloof, Robertson
1210	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DC	Trappieskraalkloof
1211	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	W Robertson
1213	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AA	7km N Stormsvlei
1214	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	W Bonnievale
1215	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DC	Langkloof
1216	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Goudmyn
1217	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	W Bonnievale
1218	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	W Bonnievale
1219	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	N Drew
1220	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Klaasvoogds
1221	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AD	Juliusfontein
1221	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Skurweberg
1222	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	S McGregor
1351	coarctata var adelaidensis	3326	AB	Hellspoort
1352	coarctata var coarctata	3326	AB	Hellspoort
1354	coarctata var adelaidensis	3326	BC	NW Grahamstown
1355	coarctata var adelaidensis	3326	AA	Willowfountain
1357	coarctata var coarctata	3326	BC	Brooklands
1358	coarctata var coarctata	3326	BC	Manley Flats
1359	coarctata var coarctata	3326	DA	Kowie
1360	coarctata var coarctata	3326	BC	Vaalvlei
1361	coarctata var coarctata	3326	DA	S. Vaalvlei
1363	coarctata var coarctata	3326	CB	Salem to Alexandria
1364	coarctata var coarctata	3326	DA	Hopewell, 20km W Port Alfred
1366	coarctata var coarctata	3326	DA	Hopewell, 20km W Port Alfred
1367	coarctata var coarctata	3326	BA	Rooidrift
1368	coarctata var coarctata	3326	BA	E Plutosvale
1370	coarctata var coarctata	3326	CA	Woodbury
1371	coarctata var coarctata	3325	DB	Orlando
1372	coarctata var coarctata	3326	AD	Yellowwoods
1381	reinwardtii	3326	BD	Frazer’s Camp
1391	reinwardtii	3327	AA	3km W Peddie
1438	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DC	Rooikleigat
1539	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DC	S Gemsbokkop
1543	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DD	Wolfkloof, Robertson
1558	emelyae var multifolia	3321	CC	Muiskraal
1558	emelyae var multifolia	3321	CC	Springfontein, Riversdale
1615	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CA	SW Ladismith
1616	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	DB	Oudtshoorn to Calitzdorp
1617	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CA	Adamskraal
1618	mucronata var habdomadis	3321	AC	Dwarsrivier
1619	arachnoidea var namaquensis	3219	DD	Ceres Karoo
1620	cymbiformis var cymbiformis	3326	BA	E Fort Brown
1621	cooperi var leightonii	3327	BA	SW Paynes Hill
1621	mucronata var morrisiae	3321	DB	Warmbron
1622	cooperi var pilifera	3326	AA	Willowfountain
1623	cooperi var pilifera	3227	DA	St Johns Drift
1624	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CA	W Ladismith
1628	mucronata var inconfluens	3321	CA	4.5km S Ladismith
1652	arachnoidea var namaquensis	2817	CD	Kliphoogte
1661	venosa ssp tessellata	2817	CD	Kouefontein
1674	arachnoidea var namaquensis	2917	AB	Karrachabpoort
1698	heidelberg var toonensis	3420	BB	Matjestoon
1700	heidelberg var scabra	3420	AB	Leeurivier
1701	mucronata var rycroftiana	3321	DC	Van Wyksdorp to Herbertsdale
1702	zantneriana var minor	3323	BB	near Miller Station
1703	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	W Robertson
1704	arachnoidea var nigricans	3320	DD	Warmwaterberg
1706	cymbiformis var setulifera	3228	BA	S Mooiplaas
1707	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Muiskraalkop
1708	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	N Ashton
1963	arachnoidea var scabrispina	3320	CA	Nougaspoort
1986	mucronata var inconfluens	3320	DA	Anysberg Pass
1995	herbacea var herbacea	3319	CD	W Doornrivier
1996	herbacea var herbacea	3319	CD	Lemoenpoort
1997	herbacea var herbacea	3319	DC	Wansbek
2022	bolusii var bolusii	3224	BA	Graaff-Reinet
2024	cooperi var cooperi	3225	CB	Bruintjieshoogte
2038	marumiana var marumiana	3126	BD	N Tarkastad
2052	angustifolia var baylissii	3325	BC	Oudekraal
2070	decipiens var pringlei	3224	DB	Ebenezer
2071	bolusii var bolusii	3224	DD	Lootskloof
2072	bolusii var bolusii	3224	BA	Graaff-Reinet
2074	gracilis var viridis	3324	AA	Campherpoort
2076	decipiens var minor	3324	AA	Grootriver, Mara
2083	decipiens var cyanea	3323	CA	N Uniondale
2086	arachnoidea var aranea	3322	DC	Ganskraal
2093	pulchella var pulchella	3320	AB	SE Konstabel Stat.
2099	mucronata var morrisiae	3322	CA	8km S Oudtshoorn
2105	arachnoidea var scabrispina	3320	BA	N Baviaans Stn.
2117	viscosa	3220	DD	43km N Laingsburg
2124	arachnoidea var scabrispina	3220	DC	35km N Laingsburg
2131	viscosa	3220	DD	43km N Laingsburg
2177	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	Goedverwacht
2187	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DD	Wolfkloof, Robertson
2241	pygmaea var pygmaea	3422	AA	Great Brak
2271	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Houtbaai Kloof
2287	pygmaea var pygmaea	3422	AA	W Great Brak
2289	pygmaea var pygmaea	3422	AA	Dumbie Dykes
2311	floribunda var dentata	3421	BA	Wydersrivier
2347	marumiana var marumiana	3224	AB	Valley of Desolation
2350	nigra var nigra	3224	AB	St Olives
2356	marumiana var marumiana	3124	DC	Aasvoelkrans
2372	venosa ssp tessellata	3222	BC	E Molteno Pass
2373	marumiana var marumiana	3222	BA	Molteno Pass
2377	decipiens var cyanea	3221	CB	W Merweville
2380	bolusii var bolusii	3124	CC	W Graaff-Reinet
2385	venosa ssp tessellata	3223	AA	Nelspoort
2389	bolusii var bolusii	3123	DD	E Murraysberg
2406	semiviva	3222	BC	S Beaufort West
2418	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CD	W Vanwyksdorp
2419	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CD	S Vanwyksdorp
2420	turgida var longibracteata	3420	AB	5km SW. Swellendam
2421	herbacea var herbacea	3319	CB	W Worcester
2422	herbacea var herbacea	3319	CB	SE Brandvlei Dam
2423	magnifica var acuminata	3421	BD	N Gouritzmond
2424	wittebergensis	3320	BC	SW Laingsburg
2425	lockwoodii	3320	BB	Ezelsfontein
2453	marumiana var archeri	3221	CA	Langberg
2453	mirabilis var beukmannii	3419	BA	Skuitsberg
2453	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BA	Dagbreek
2526	mutica var mutica	3420	AA	Rietfontein
2533	turgida var longibracteata	3420	BC	Diepkloof, S Malgas
2547	heidelberg var scabra	3420	AC	Brakfontein
2550	heidelberg var heidelbergensis	3420	BB	E Heidelberg
2551	variegata var modesta	3420	AD	SW Kathoek
2556	heidelberg var scabra	3420	AD	Beyersdal
2564	variegata var hemicrypta	3420	BC	NE lower slopes of Potberg
2574	arachnoidea var namaquensis	3219	DC	Skitterykloof
2579	herbacea var lupula	3319	CD	Wolfkloof, Villiersdorp
2582	pulchella var pulchella	3319	BD	W Touws River
2591	maculata var maculata	3319	CB	NE Brandvlei Dam
2665	magnifica var atrofusca	3421	AA	Droerivier
2670	venosa ssp venosa	3420	BC	Malgas
2672	turgida var longibracteata	3421	AC	Duiwenhoksriver
2697	herbacea var herbacea	3319	DC	Keerweerder, Jonaskop
2716	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CA	Winkelplaas
3363	monticola var monticola	3323	AD	Georgida
3375	gracilis var viridis	3324	BC	Dorschfontein
3384	monticola var monticola	3323	CA	E. Uniondale
3398	arachnoidea var namaquensis	3119	AB	Koringberg
3423	arachnoidea var namaquensis	3119	BC	Beeswater
3439	floribunda var dentata	3420	BA	Bontebok Park
3453	venosa ssp venosa	3420	AB	Bontebok Park
3586	chloracantha var denticulifera	3421	BB	Cooper Siding
3586	chloracantha var denticulifera	3421	BD	3km N Gouritzmond
3612	arachnoidea var nigricans	3320	AB	Jagerskraal
3620	marumiana var viridis	3322	AC	S Prince Albert
3637	nortieri var nortieri	3118	DC	W Doornriver
3906	nortieri var pehlemanniae	3320	BB	5km SW Laingsburg
4160	bolusii var bolusii	3323	BB	NE Fullarton
4179	glauca var glauca	3224	CD	Fairview
4180	decipiens var cyanea	3224	CD	Fairview, W Jansenville
4198	gracilis var viridis	3325	AC	Brakfontein
4294	nigra var diversifolia	3222	AC	Wolwehoek
4320	arachnoidea var namaquensis	3220	DA	Verlatenkloof
4404	cooperi var gordoniana	3323	CA	Uniondale Poort
4428	blackburniae var blackburniae	3321	DA	Rooiberg
4429	blackburniae var blackburniae	3321	DA	Assegaaibos
4430	herbacea var paynei	3319	DD	Olifantsdoorn, McGregor
4432	minima var minima	3420	AB	Bontebok Park
4437	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	W McGregor
4438	mucronata var inconfluens	3320	DA	Jakkalsfontein
4439	herbacea var herbacea	3319	CD	N Lemoenpoort
4440	decipiens var cyanea	3322	BC	E Klaarstroom
4450	cooperi var pilifera	3326	AD	NW Salem
4460	cooperi var pilifera	3227	DC	Brigadoon
4461	maculata var intermedia	3319	DC	Buitenstekloof
4462	arachnoidea var aranea	3322	AC	S Cango Caves
4462	arachnoidea var scabrispina	3320	CA	20km W Ladismith
4471	turgida var suberecta	3421	BA	Weltevrede
4473	mutica var mutica	3420	AC	Soesriver
4474	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DD	NE Hankey
4475	cooperi var isabellae	3324	DD	NE Hankey
4476	cooperi var isabellae	3324	DD	2km E Hankey
4476	turgida var suberecta	3421	BA	Draaihoek, Albertinia
4477	turgida var suberecta	3421	BA	E Valsch River Bridge
4478	turgida var suberecta	3421	BB	Gouritz River
4479	mutica var mutica	3419	BB	10km E Riviersonderend
4479	turgida var longibracteata	3421	AB	Kafferkuils Bridge
4499	arachnoidea var nigricans	3322	AC	N Oudtshoorn
4549	cymbiformis var cymbiformis	3325	BC	Kranspoort, W. Patterson
4575	arachnoidea var nigricans	3320	DD	W Warmwaterberg
4642	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BD	Skietpad
4647	arachnoidea var aranea	3322	AD	Raubenheimer Dam
4648	cymbiformis var ramosa	3327	AB	Wooldridge
4648	cymbiformis var cymbiformis	3327	AB	W Woolridge, Peddie
4649	cymbiformis var reddii	3226	BB	Klipplaat Dam
4650	cymbiformis var obtusa	3326	AC	S Alicedale
4651	cymbiformis var obtusa	3226	DA	Blinkwater
4652	cymbiformis var cymbiformis	3326	BB	Ballinafad
4653	cymbiformis var obtusa	3325	BB
4654	cymbiformis var cymbiformis	3327	AC	Kapp-Fish confluence
4655	cymbiformis var cymbiformis	3226	DC	Sulphur Baths
4656	arachnoidea var nigricans	3322	CA	Volmoed
4657	decipiens var cyanea	3324	BD	Hanekam
4659	reticulata var hurlingii	3320	CC	Goudmyn
4665	reticulata var attenuata	3320	CC	5km SE Bonnievale
4665	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DD	Wolfkloof, Robertson
4667	venosa ssp tessellata	3225	BA	Halesowen
4668	venosa ssp granulata	3320	AC	Touwsriver, Avondrust
4669	venosa ssp granulata	3219	DC	Skitterykloof
4671	arachnoidea var nigricans	3320	DC	E Barrydale
4677	venosa ssp tessellata	3123	CD	Nuwerus
4677	heidelberg var scabra	3420	AA	Kliphoogte
4901	marginata	3420	BA	Koppies
4902	serrata	3420	BA	Koppies
4941	sordida var sordida	3325	AD	SE Kirkwood
5086	semiviva	3120	DB	S Williston
5096	semiviva	3120	DC	S Williston
5101	heidelberg var scabra	3420	AD	Haarwegskloof
5157	decipiens var decipiens	3322	AB	Kleinsleutelftn, Prince Alb.
5182	decipiens var decipiens	3322	AA	W Prince Albert
5209	marumiana var marumiana	3221	DD	Tierberg
5225	scabra var scabra	3322	AC	Cango
5226	scabra var scabra	3322	AC	Cango
5261	decipiens var decipiens	3322	CA	S Prince Albert
5296	mucronata var inconfluens	3320	CB	Touwsfontein
5296	mucronata var morrisiae	3320	CB	Touwsfontein
5750	venosa ssp granulata	3220	CC	Bantamsfontein
5753	arachnoidea var setata	3321	DA	E Vanwyksdorp
6486	arachnoidea var scabrispina			SW Laingsburg
6488	venosa ssp tessellata	3120		Beaufort West Dam
6488	semiviva	3120	BC	Beaufort West dam
6490	venosa ssp tessellata			Karoo National Park
6495	nigra var nigra			E Merweville
6496	nigra var nigra			W Merweville
6497	decipiens var cyanea			15km Merweville to Koup
6498	marumiana var marumiana	3222	BA	Molteno Pass
6501	semiviva			Langberg
6502	nigra var nigra			Langberg
6505	nortieri var nortieri	3219	AC	N Dwarsrivier
6505	nortieri var nortieri	3219	AC	N Dwarsrivier
6506	nortieri var nortieri	3219	AC	Wolkberg Cracks
6506	nortieri var nortieri	3219	AD	Dwarsrivier
6509	heidelberg var scabra	3320	CC	W Bonnievale
6509	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	0.25km W Bonnievale
6510	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	5km W Bonnievale
6511	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Goudmyn W River
6512	mutica var mutica	3420	AA	SE Drew
6512	mutica	3420	AA	SE Drew
6513	mirabilis var triebneriana	3420	BD	3km SW Swellendam
6514	maculata var intermedia	3319	DD	Buitenstekloof
6515	reticulata var acuminata	3320	CC	Aurora, Bonnievale
6516	maraisii var meiringii	3319	DD	Rooiberg, Goudmyn
6518	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Lower N Slopes, Rooiberg, Goudmyn
6519	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Agter Vink
6520	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Die Nekkie, W Robertson
6521	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AA	N Stormsvlei
6522	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	DD	Buitenstekloof
6523	venosa ssp venosa	3420	AB	Swellendam
6524	limifolia var limifolia			Komatipoort
6525	rossouwii var calcarea	3420	AD	De Hoop
6527	variegata var variegata	3420	AB	NW Swellendam
6528	floribunda var floribunda	3420	AB	SW Swellendam
6533	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AB	N Napky
6534	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AA	SE Drew
6535	reticulata var reticulata	3320	CC	N slopes Rooiberg Goudmyn
6536	mutica var mutica	3420	AB	S Napky Witklipkop
6537	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BC	NE Goudini
6538	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BD	10km W Napier
6539	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AD	Tarentaal
6540	minima var minima	3420	AD	Tarentaal
6541	heidelberg var scabra	3420	AD	NE Kathoek
6542	variegata var modesta	3420	BC	E Potberg residence
6544	heidelbergensis	3420	BC	NN boundary Potberg reserve
6545	heidelbergensis	3420	BC	inside N Boundary Potberg
6546	heidelberg var scabra	3420	AD	NW Kathoek entrance
6548				Bosfontein
6551	floribundaXmagnifica			NE Cooper siding
6552	fasciata	3324	DD	NE Zuurbron
6553	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DD	5km N Zuurbron
6554	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DD	8km N. Zuurbron
6555	cooperi var isabellae	3325	CC	Longmore Forest
6556	bolusii var pringlei	3225	DD	NW Rippon Stn.
6557	cooperi var pilifera	3325	BB	NW Ripppon stn
6558	cooperi var dielsiana	3225	DB	N Eastpoort
6559	cooperi var dielsiana	3225	DB	SE Eastpoort
6560	cooperi var dielsiana	3225	DB	S Eastpoort
6561	bolusii var pringlei	3225	DB	Baviaanskranz, Patryshoogte
6562	cymbiformis var obtusa	3226	CD	Kagasmond
6563	cooperi var cooperi	3226	CD	Koonap Bridge
6564	cooperi var dielsiana	3226	CB	Chancery Hall
6565	cooperi var dielsiana	3225	DA	5km W Somerset East
6566	bolusii var bolusii	3225	AC	NE Ashbourne
6567	cymbiformis var reddii	3226	BB	Klipplaat Dam
6568	nigra var nigra	3225	BD	Klipplaat Dam
6569	bolusii var blackbeardiana	3226	BD	Waterdown Dam
6570	bolusii var blackbeardiana	3226	BD	S Estrelle
6571	bolusii var blackbeardiana	3227	AB	Turnstream
6572	cymbiformis var reddii	3227	AB	Turnstream, SE Queenstown
6573	cymbiformis var setulifera	3227	AB	Highclere
6574	nigra var nigra	3224	DA	5km ENE Kendrew
6575	nigra var nigra	3226	CB	Adelaide
6580	decipiens var virella	3224	DC	Meerlust
6581	decipiens var virella	3224	DC	Welgelegen
6582	decipiens var virella	3324	AB	SW Mt Steward
6583	decipiens var virella	3324	AB	NW Waaipoort
6584	glauca var herrei	3324	AD	Waaipoort
6585	zantneriana	3324	AB	NE Waaipoort
6585	zantneriana var zantneriana	3324	AD	Waaipoort
6586	glauca var herrei	3324	BC	Zeekoeisnek
6587	decipiens var minor	3324	BC	NW Die Bordjie
6588	sordida var lavranii	3324	BC	NE Die Bordjie, Baroe
6589	gracilis var viridis	3324	BC	NE Dorschfontein
6591	cooperi var pilifera	3226	DC	S The Tower, Ft Beaufort
6592	cooperi var dielsiana	3226	DC	W Fort Beaufort
6593	cymbiformis var cymbiformis	3226	DC	W Sulphur Baths ne Tower
6596	kingiana	3322	CC	Moeras River
6597	cooperi var gordoniana	3424	BB	Jeffrey’s Bay
6598	glauca var glauca	3325	CB	Bauerskraal
6599	cooperi var pilifera	3325	CB	Bauerskraal, Uitenhage
6600	cooperi var viridis	3325	AC	N Perdepoort
6601	arachnoidea var aranea	3322	CC	Moeras River
6602	cooperi var pilifera	3326	BC	Glen Craig, NE Gstwn
6603	cooperi var gracilis	3326	BA	7km NE Grahamstown
6604	arachnoidea var xiphiophylla	3325	DC	Coega
6608	arachnoidea var setata	3322	CB	N Dysselsdorp
6609	truncata	3322	CB	N Dysseldorp
6610	arachnoidea var setata	3324	AC	N Steytlerville
6611	sordida var sordida	3325	DA	Soutkloof
6612	aristata	3325	DA	Soutkloof
6613	sordida var sordida	3325	BC	Bluecliff Stn
6614	cooperi var gracilis	3326	AB	Hellspoort
6615	glauca var glauca	3325	AC	Paardepoort
6616	decipiens var xiphiophylla	3325	CA	Bauerskraal
6618	decipiens var minor	3325	AC	Sapkamma/Perdepoort river
6619	decipiens var minor	3325	AC	Sapkamma/Perdepoort S slope
6620	decipiens var minor	3325	AC	Sapkamma entrance
6621	outeniquensis	3322	CC	Moerasriver
6622	pumila	3319	DA	Mowers
6623	pumila	3319	DC	W Rooiberg
6624	minima var poellnitziana	3320	CC	W Drew, Swellendam
6625	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	Sandrift Drew
6626	heidelberg var scabra	3320	CC	N Sanddrift
6627	marginata	3320	CC	N Sanddrift
6628	minima var poellnitziana	3320	CC	Sanddrift
6629	marginataXminima	3320	CC	E Sanddrift
6630	minima var minima	3419	DB	W Moddervlei, Elim
6631	mirabilis var mirabilis	3419	DB	Mierkraal
6632	rossouwii var calcarea	3420	CA	Renosterfontein, Karsriver
6633	marginata	3420	AC	Adoonskop
6634	marginata	3420	AC	Adoonskop
6635	mirabilis var badia	3419	BD	Napier
6636	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BA	S Greyton
6637	minima var minima	3419	DB	Mierkraal
6638	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AC	Rooivlei, Bredasdorp
6639	mirabilis var sublineata	3420	CA	S Bredasdorp
6640	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AC	Adoonskop
6641	mutica var mutica	3420	AC	Hasiesdrift
6642	pumila	3419	DD	Agtervinkrivier
6643	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BD	15km W Fairfield
6644	mirabilis var triebneriana	3420	BD	3km SW Swellendam
6645	pumila	3319	CB	Worcester airfield
6646	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	N Macgregor
6647	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	AgterVink
6648	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	SW Robertson (Oliva)
6649	arachnoidea var setata	3320	CC	4km E Montagu
6650	mutica var nitida	3420	BB	Diepkloof, 1km SE Heidelberg
6651	magnifica var magnifica	3421	AA	3km S Riversdale
6653	emelyae var emelyae	3321	CD	N Sandkraal
6654	emelyae var emelyae	3321	CD	N Sandkraal
6655	emelyae var emelyae	3321	CD	N Sandkraal
6658	arachnoidea var aranea	3321	CD	E. Sandkraal
6659	emelyae var emelyae	3321	CD	SE Vanwyksdorp to Herbertsdale
6660	emelyae var multifolia	3321	CC	W Muiskraal farmhouse
6661	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CC	W Muiskraal farmhouse
6662	magnifica var atrofusca	3421	AA	Kweekkraal road
6663	magnifica var magnifica	3420	BB	2-3km SW Heidelberg
6666	magnifica var magnifica	3420	BA	S Tradouw Pass
6667	maraisii var maraisii	3320	DC	SW Barrydale
6668	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	N. Ashton
6670	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	12km W Robertson to le Chasseur
6672	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Koningsriver turn-off
6673	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	McGregor Nature Reserve
6674	pumila	3319	DD	McGregor Nature Reserve
6676	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	E Goudmyn
6678	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Grootrivier, SW Goudmyn
6680	herbacea var paynei	3319	DD	Koningsriverberg
6681	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Koningriver Dam
6682	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	2km N Koningriver Dam
6683	maraisii var notabilis	3319	DD	N Klaasvoogds
6684	reticulata var attenuata	3320	CC	E Dankbaar, SE Bonnievale
6685	mirabilis var diversicolor	3320	BB	Olifantsdoornkloof
6686	mirabilis/maraisii	3320	BB	Olifantsdoornkloof
6687	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	SE McGregor
6688	herbacea var herbacea	3319	DA	Mowers
6690	arachnoidea/mucronata	3320	CA	Watervalkloof, Rietvlei 2
6691	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DC	NW Boschfontein
6692	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DC	NW Boschfontein
6693	reticulata var subregularis	3319	DC	Uitvlug
6694	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	DA	Kanetvlei t/o
6696	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	BD	W Osplaas tunnel
6697	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	BD	E Osplaas tunnel
6698	venosa ssp granulata	3319	BA	Karoopoort
6700	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3320	CA	Soutkuil
6702	pulchella var pulchella	3320	CA	Soutkuil
6703	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3320	DA	Bellair Dam
6704	arachnoidea/mucronata	3320	CB	Ouberg, Below proteas
6705	arachnoidea/mucronata	3320	CB	Ouberg, with E Enopla
6706	arachnoidea/mucronata	3320	CB	Ouberg, with Pteronia paniculata]
6710	mirabilis var depauperata	3420	BB	Boesmansrivier
6711	mirabilis var depauperata	3420	BB	Boesmansrivier
6712	mirabilis var depauperata	3420	BB	Boesmansrivier
6713	mirabilis var depauperata	3420	BB	Boesmansrivier
6714	mirabilis var depauperata	3319	DC	Koeniesriver
6719	pumila	3319	DD	Dassiehoek, N Robertson
6720	mirabilis var depauperata	3319	DC	Rietvleikloof
6721	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DD	12km W Robertson
6722	pumila	3319	DC	Boschfontein
6723	mirabilis var depauperata	3319	DC	Takkap
6724	emelyae var emelyae	3322	CD	Klipdrif, 30km S Oudtshoorn
6725	pungens	3323	DD	W Braamrivier
6727	outeniquensis	3322	CD	Herold
6727	scabra var scabra	3323	DB	Braamrivier
6728	scabra var scabra	3323	CC	W DeVlugt, ALfreds Pass
6729	transiens	3323	CC	just N De Vlugt
6730	mucronata var habdomadis	3321		Seweweekspoort
6732	scabra var starkiana	3322	AD	Lentelus, Schoemanspoort
6737	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DC	N Mowers Stn
6738	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	DC	N Mowers Stn
6739	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CC	W Springfontein
6740	arachnoidea var aranea	3320	DD	Kleindoringrivier
6741	emelyae var major	3320	DD	Kleindoringrivier
6743	mucronata var mucronata	3320	DD	5km SSE Barrydale
6744	arachnoidea var setata	3320	DC	Tradouw Pass
6745	floribunda var floribunda	3421	AB	RoseInnis Drive
6746	chloracantha var denticulifera	3321	BB	NWHerbertsdale
6747	magnifica var acuminata	3421	BD	Vleesbaai
6749	turgida var suberecta	3421	BB	Die Hoek, Gouritz Gorge
6750	minima var minima	3421	BD	Melkhoutfontein
6751	magnifica var splendens	3421	AB	Soutpan, W Albertinia
6756	herbacea var paynei	3319	DD	S Olifantsdoorn
6757	mirabilis var depauperata	3419	BB	Hoeksrivierkloof
6758	nortieri var nortieri	3219	CD	5km SE Sneeukop
6759	nortieri var nortieri	3219	CD	10km SE Sneeukop
6760	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Houtbaaiskloof
6761	maraisii var meiringii	3319	DD	Top Bakenskop
6762	arachnoidea var setata	3320	DB	Kuitfontein, NE Plathuis
6763	pulchella var globifera	3320	DB	Wolwefontein, Plathuis
6764	blackburniae var blackburniae	3320	DB	Wolwefontein, Plathuis
6767	outeniquensis	3322	CC	Herold
6768	fasciata	3324	CD	Moordenaarskloof
6769	viscosa	3324	CD	Moordenaarskloof
6770	viscosaXfasciata	3324	CD	Moordenaarskloof
6771	transiens	3324	CD	Moordenaarskloof, at River
6772	pungens	3324	CC	Joubertskraal
6773	cooperi var isabellae	3324	CC	Joubertskraal
6774	scabra var scabra	3323	DD	Braamrivier
6775	scabraXpungens	3323	DD	Braamrivier
6776	cooperi var cooperi	3225	DA	SW Glen Avon
6777	nigra var nigra	3225	DA	N Slagtersnek
6778	cooperi var pilifera	3225	DD	New Slagtersnek
6780	pungens	3323	DD	W Braamrivier
6781	maraisii var notabilis	3319	DD	Bergplaas
6783	mirabilis var mirabilis	3419	DB	Mierkraal
6784	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DC	Draaihoek, 10,5km SW Patensie
6786	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DC	Draaihoek, 10km SW Patensie
6788	viscosa	3324	DA	Komdomo, Baviaanskl.
6789	cooperi var picturata	3324	DA	2km N Komdomo
6790	cooperi var picturata	3324	DC	W Kranz, E Wistaria
6791	cooperi var picturata	3324	DC	E Kranz, E Wistaria
6792	cooperi var gordoniana	3424	CB	N Jeffrey’s Bay
6793	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DD	N Zuurbron
6794	fasciata	3324	DD	Hankey Pass, N Zuurbron
6795	fasciata	3424	BB	Kabeljouws
6796	fasciata	3424	BB	N Jeffrey’s Bay
6797	fasciata	3424	BB	W Bank Zeekoevlei River
6798	cooperi var isabellae	3324	DB	Houtkloof, Elandsriver
6799	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DD	E Roodewal, W Patensie
6801	cooperi var isabellae	3324	DD	Milton, SW Hankey
6802	cooperi var isabellae	3324	DD	Philips Tunnel, Hankey
6803	attenuata var radula	3324	DD	Hallelujah, N Hankey
6804	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DD	immed. NE Hankey
6805	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DD	N Hankey, Hallelujah
6806	fasciata	3325	CC	Loerie Dam
6807	fasciata	3324	DD	2km E Hankey
6808	cooperi var isabellae	3325	CC	E Gamtoos Bridge
6809	fasciata	3325	CC	S Gamtoos Bridge
6810	cooperi var gordoniana	3323	DD	N Joubertina
6811	cooperi var gordoniana	3323	CA	Uniondale Poort
6813	pygmaea var pygmaea	3422	AA	Moss Gas, W Mossel Bay
6815	maculata var maculata	3319	CB	Audensberg Peak
6816	sordida var sordida	3325	BC	SE. Kirkwood
6817	magnifica var atrofusca	3421	AA	NW Kweekkraal farmhouse
6820	monticola var monticola	3322	DB	W Uniondale, NE Kykoe to.
6821	scabra var scabra	3322	DB	NE Kykoe to.
6822	viscosa	3323	DA	Bottom Nuwekloof
6823	monticola var bavensis	3324	CA	Top Bosrug
6824	cooperi var isabellae	3324	CA	Koutnek Kougaberg
6825	transiens	3324	CA	S Geelhoutboskloof camp
6826	cooperi var tenera	3324	CA	Rooikloof
6827	cooperi var picturata	3324	CB	E. Rooihoek campsite
6828	attenuata	3324	DA	Sandlands Cambria
6830	cooperi var gordoniana	3324	DA	E Komdomo
6831	attenuata	3324	DD	Hallelujah, N Hankey
6832	cooperi var tenera	3326	BA	E foot Plutosvale
6833	cooperi var tenera	3326	BA	ft Plutosvale
6834	cooperi var tenera	3326	BA	W ft Plutosvale
6835	cooperi var tenera	3326	BA	WW ft Plutosvale
6836	cymbiformis var incurvula	3326	BA	W Rolfs Rock, Plutosvale
6837	cymbiformis var incurvula	3326	BA	S Rolfs Rock, Plutosvale
6838	cymbiformis var incurvula	3326	BA	SE Rolfs Rock, Plutosvale
6839	cymbiformis var incurvula	3326	BA	W Mindmill, Plutosvale
6840	cooperi var tenera	3326	BA	opposite windmill, mid Plutosvale
6841	attenuata	3326	BA	Rolfs Rock Plutosvale
6842	bolusii var blackbeardiana	3227	BC	Inverbolo
6843	cymbiformis var reddii	3227	BC	Inverbolo
6844	angustifolia	3326	AC	E Alicedale
6845	cooperi var cooperi	3326	AC	E Alicedale
6847	cymbiformis var obtusa	3326	AC	SW Alicedale
6848	cymbiformis var obtusa	3326	AC	NW Alicedale
6849	angustifolia	3325	BB	Aalwynspoort Stn
6850	cymbiformis var obtusa	3325	BB	Swartwaterpoort
6851	aristata	3325	BB	Modderfontein, S Verdun
6852	aristata	3325	BA	Stonefountain
6855	decipiens var virella	3325	AA	E Waterford Bridge
6856	arachnoidea var xiphiophylla	3323	BB	NE Fullarton Siding
6858	glauca var herrei	3323	BB	NE Fullarton Siding
6859	floribunda var floribunda	3420	AB	SW Swellendam
6860	maraisii/mirabilis	3420	AB	4km SW Swellendam
6861	maraisii/heidelbergenis	3420	AB	SW Swellendam, Bredasdorp to.
6862	mirabilis/maraisii	3420	AA	NW Rondeheuwel, Stormsvlei
6863	mirabilis var diversicolor	3419	BB	Boesmansriv/Olifantsdoorn
6864	mirabilis var depauperata	3319	DD	Whipstock, W McGregor
6865	mirabilis var consanguinea	3319	DD	Dwarswaterkloof, W McGregor
6867	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3320	CB	5km NE Ouberg farmhouse
6868	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3320	CD	W Twistniet, E Montagu
6871	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	DD	Pietersfontein, NW Montagu
6873	arachnoidea var arachnoidea	3319	DD	NW Pietersfontein, Montagu
6875	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	NE Ashton. Cogmanskloof
6876	mirabilis var depauperata	3419	BB	E Olifantsdoornkloof
6877	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Die Nekkie, W Robertson
6878	maraisii/mirabilis	3419	BB	SW Swellendam
6879	maraisii/floribunda	3420	BA	Koppies, SE Swellendam
6880	rossouwii	3420	BA	Oudekraalkop
6881	floribunda	3420	BA	S Oudekraalkop
6882	heidlbergensis	3420	AD	W Juliesfontein
6883	mucronata var mucronata	3320	CD	Poortjieskloof Dam
6884	cymbiformis var incurvula	3326	BA	Rolf’s Rock, N Plutosvale
6885	decipiens var cyanea	3222	DC	Trakaskuilen, S Beaufort West]
6886	heidelbergensis/mirabilis	3420	AD	N Juliesfnt, S Brakfnt.
6888	variegata var modesta	3420	BC	NW Slopes Potberg
6889	heidelbergensis var scabra	3420	BC	NW slopes Potberg
6890	heidelbergensis var scabra	3420	AD	Witkop, N Brakfontein
6891	cooperi var tenera	3326	BA	300m W lower Roff’s Rock windmill
6892	cymbiformis var incurvula	3326	BA	below 6891, Roff’s Rock
6893	cymbiformis var incurvula	3326	BA	400m W Roff’s Rock
6894	angustifolia	3326	AB	Thornkloof, NW Grahamstown
6895	cymbiformis var obtusa	3326	AB	SE Thornkloof house
6896	coarctata var adelaidensis	3326	AB	SE Thornkloof house
6897	aristata	3325	BB	SE Commadagga house
6899	aristata	3325	AB	Paddafontein crossing
6901	aristata	3325	AB	400m W Hopewell farm
6903	cymbiformis var cymbiformis	3325	AD	S slopes Spekboomkop
6904	cooperi var gordoniana	3325	AD	Top mnt. Wilgerfontein
6905	cooperi var isabellae	3325	AD	Top mnt. Wilgerfontein
6907	glauca/coarctata	3325	AD	Top mnt. Wilgerfontein
6908	glauca	3325	AD	SE DePlaat
6909	cooperi var gracilis	3325	AD	SE DePlaat
6910	cooperi var isabellae	3325	AD	SE DePlaat
6911	cooperi var gracilis	3325	AD	Kaboegapoort, Cliff face
6914	cooperi var gracilis	3325	AD	East Spekboomberg
6915	cooperi var gracilis	3325	AD	SE above, Koch’s Dam
6916	aristata	3325	AB	Spitzkop, Kaboega
6917	aristata	3325	AB	Original Kaboega gate
6920	aristata	3325	DA	Soutkloof
6921	cooperi var doldii	3327	BA	Chalumna crossing
6922	cooperi var pilifera	3325	BA	Oudekraal
6924	cooperi var gracilis	3325	AD	Kaboega Dam
6925	cymbiformis var cymbiformis	3325	AD	Kok se Pad
6927	bolusii var pringlei	3325	BB	3km W Ripon Stn
6928	cooperi var isabellae	3324	DC	Nuwelande, Patensie
6929	longiana	3324	DC	Nuwelande, Patensie
6930	cooperi var picturata	3324	DC	E. Andrieskraal
6932	cooperi var isabellae	3424	BB	Krom River, Ripon
6933	cooperi var gordoniana	3424	BB	7km E Humansdorp
6934	fasciata	3424	BB	4km SW Humansdorp
6935	cooperi var gracilis	3325	AD	S DePlaat
6936	cooperi var gordoniana	3323	CA	N Uniondale
6937	decipiens var scottiana	3323	CA	Vetvlei, N Uniondale
6938	decipiens var scottiana	3323	CA	Woedjieskloof, NE Uniondale
6939	decipiens var scottiana	3323	AD	Ghwarriepoort, Keurfontein
6940	cooperi var gracilis	3325	AB	Klipfontein, E DePlaat
6942	aristata	3325	AB	DePlaat Weir
6943	cooperi var gracilis	3325	AD	Dassiekop
6945	nigra	3325	AB	N DePlaat house
6947	sordida	3325	AD	S DePlaat house
6949	cooperi var pilifera	3325	AD	Vyeboomfontein
6951	maraisii var	3320	CC	NN Ashton
6952	marginata	3320	CC	N Ashton
6953	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Le Chasseur Nek, S Sandberg
6954	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AA	N Stormsvlei
6955	mirabilis var triebneriana	3420	AA	Stormsvlei Pass
6956	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	SWslopes,Rooiberg, Eilandia
6957	reticulata	3319	DD	S valley Rooiberg
6958	pumila	3319	DD	S slopes Rooiberg
6959	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Upper SE slopes, Rooiberg
6959	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Kleinspitzkop, Vrolikheid
6960	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	W Sanddrift
6961	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Muiskraalkop, Robertson
6962	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	Goudmyn, E river
6963	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	5km W Bonnievale
6964	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	5km E Zandvliet
6965	maraisii var maraisii	3320	CC	2km E Zandvliet
6966	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Steenbokshoogte, Vrolikheid
6967	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	W Kanonkop, Vrolikheid
6968	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Witkranz, Vrolikheid
6969	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Kleinspitzkop, Vrolikheid
6970	herbacea var flaccida	3319	DD	Rooiberg, Vinkrivier
6971	heidelbergensis/maraisii	3320	CC	Jakkalshoek, E Bonnievale
6972	maraisii	3319	DD	with flaccida, Rooiberg
6973	maraisii var maraisii	3419	BD	N Napier
6974	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CC	Tonteldooskop
6976	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CC	S Tonteldooskop
6977	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CC	south aspect at 6974
6978	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CC	between 6974/6977
6979	heidelbergensis/maraisii	3320	CC	Loerkop, E. Ashton
6981	heidelbergensis/maraisii	3320	CC	SE Loerkop
6982	mutica var mutica	3420	AC	Hasiesdrift
6983	rossouwii var rossouwii	3420	CA	Soutkloof, NW Bredsadorp
6984	rossouwii var rossouwii	3420	CA	Nooitgedacht, NW Bredasdorp
6985	rossouwii var calcarea	3420	AD	DeHoop at cottages
6986	rossouwii var petrophila	3420	CA	Karsriver W Limeworks
6987	mirabilis var badia	3419	BD	Sandfontein, W Napier
6988	pumila	3319	DD	Pietersfontein, NW Montagu
6988	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CC	Nooitgedacht at Farmhouse
6989	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CC	2km SE Nooitgedacht farmhouse
6990	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CC	2km NE Mardouw farmhse.
6991	mucronata	3320	DA	Jakkalsfontein
6992	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CD	Langverwacht
6994	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	DB	NE Tierkloof, Gamka
6995	viscosa	3321	DB	E. Tierkloof
6996	arachnoidea var setata	3321	DB	SE Tierkloof
6997	viscosa	3321	DB	S Tierkloof
6998	arachnoidea var setata	3321	DA	Top Rooiberg
7001	arachnoidea var setata	3321	DA	Groenefontein
7002	viscosa	3321	DA	Groenefontein
7003	arachnoidea var setata	3321	DA	W Groenefontein
7006	bolusii var pringlei	3225	CC	Moederzoonpoort
7008	bolusii var pringlei	3225	CC	Rietvlei NE Waterford
7010	aristata	3325	AB	SE DePlaat Weir
7011	aristata	3325	AB	SE DePlaat Weir
7012	aristata	3325	AB	Buffelsnek, Kaboega
7014	truncata	3322	CB	N Dysseldorp
7017	cooperi var isabellae	3325	BC	S Klipfontein
7021	bolusii var bolusii	3225	CC	SE Pearston
7022	decipiens var virella	3225	CC	SE Pearston
7023	decipiens var virella	3224	DB	SW Pearston
7024	viscosa	3322	AB	Sleutelfontein, Prince Albert
7025	decipiens var cyanea	3222	DC	Trakaskuilen
7026	decipiens var decipiens	3322	BC	Klaarstroom
7028	decipiens var virella	3325	AA	Darlington Dam
7029	mutica var mutica	3420	AD	25km SW Swellendam
7030	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AB	22km SW Swellendam
7031	mutica var mutica	3420	ab	18km SW Swellendam
7032	mutica var mutica	3420	AA	Rietfontein, S Stormsvlei
7033	arachnoidea	3319	DD	W. Cape Lime works, Mowers
7035	kingiana/minima	3321	AD	Rooiberg, S Calitzdorp
7036	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CC	Witkop, SW Janharmsgat
7037	heidelbergensis var scabra	3320	CC	Middelrivier, Drew
7038	marginataXpumila	3320	CC	NW Sanddrift
7041	decipiens var virella	3224	DD	Palmietfontein, NE Jansenville
7042	bolusii var bolusii	3224	DD	Hinchenbrook
7043	decipiens var virella	3224	DD	Langollen
7046	bolusii var bolusii	3224	DD	DeRust, S Lootskloof.
7047	decipiens var virella	3224	DD	DeRust, S Lootskloof
7049	cooperi var pilifera	3325	AD	SE Klipfontein, Kaboega
7051	cooperi var gracilis	3326	AB	Helspoort, upper W facing
7052	cooperi var gracilis	3326	AB	Helspoort, lower east
7053	cooperi var gracilis	3326	AB	Helspoort, lower west
7054	cooperi var gracilis	3326	AB	Helspoort, upper east
7055	maraisii var nov	3420	CC	Rietvlei (Shielam)
7056	heidelbergensis va scabr	3420	CC	NW Sandrift, Drew
7057	heidelbergensis var scabra	3420	CC	W Sanddrift, Drew
7058	pumilaXmarginata	3420	CC	S Sanddrift, Drew
7059	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BC	Jongensklip
7060	mutica var mutica	3420	AD	Beyersdal
7061	variegata var modesta	3420	AD	Kathoek
7063	heidelbergensis	3420	AD	SE Beyersdal
7064	mutica var mutica	3320	CC	Sanddrift
7065	pubescens var pubescens	3319	DC	Sandberg
7066	pubescens var livida	3319	CD	Lemoenpoort
7067	herbacea	3319	DC	Sandberg
7068	arachnoidea var scabrispina	3320	BB	Witteberg Rd
7069	viscosa	3320	BB	Witteberg Rd
7070	nortieri var pehlemanniae	3320	BB	NW Laingsburg
7071	arachnoidea var scabrispina	3320	BB	NW Laingsburg
7072	marumiana var dimorpha			Konstabel
7073	wittebergensis			S Laingsburg
7074	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BB	Verdwaalskloof, Riviersonderend
7075	mutica var mutica	3420	DD	Grootvlakte, E Riviersonderend
7076	herbacea var paynei	3419	DD	S Grootrivier
7077	maraisii var maraisii	3319	DD	Wolwedrif, SW Bonnievale
7078	pumila	3319	DD	Wolwedrif, SW Bonnievale
7079	maraisii var meiringii	3319	DD	W Middelplaas
7080	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	W Wakkerstroom
7081	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	E Goudmyn
7082	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	Bobbejaanskloof
7083	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	NE Goudmyn
7084	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	E Olive grove
7085	maraisii var meiringii	3320	CC	Station Hill
7086	maraisii var maraisii	3420	AA	SE Bokdam
7087	mirabilis var triebneriana	3420	AA	Brakfontein
7088	reticulata var reticulata	3319	DD	W Middelplaas
7089	pumila	3320	CC	E Bonnievale
7090	mirabilis var mirabilis	3419	DB	Mierkraal
7091	mirabilis var triebneriana	3419	BD	NW Napier
7092	mirabilis var triebneriana	3420	AB	Elandskloof
7096	pumila	3319	DD	Koningsriver
7097	maraisii var notabilis	3319	DD	Kranzkop
7098	maraisii var notabilis	3319	DD	Bergplaas
7099	heidelbergensis	3420	AA	Nuutbegin
7100	minima	3420	AA	Nuutbegin
7101	variegata	3321	AB	Hoekraal
7102	magnifica var splendens	3321	BA	Welgevonden
7103	floribunda var dentata	3321	BA	N Ouvloer
7104	floribunda var dentata	3321	BA	NE Ouvloer
7105	turgida var suberecta	3321	BA	NE Ouvloer
7106	floribunda var dentata	3321	AB	Snymanskraal
7107	retusa	3321	AA	NE Melkboom
7108	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	NE Melkboom
7109	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	Klien Kragga
7110	retusa	3321	AA	N Melkboom
7111	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	N Melkboom
7112	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	NW Kweekkraal
7113	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	NW Kweekkraal
7114	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	NW Kweekkraal
7115	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	NW Kweekkraal
7116	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	NW Kweekkraal
7117	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	NW Kweekkraal
7118	heidelbergensis	3321	AA	NW Kweekkraal
7121	cymbiformis	3325	BD	Gatjewolf
7125	attenuata	3325	BC	N Enon
7126	cooperi var puberula	3325	AD	Wilgerfontein
7127	glauca	3325	AD	Buffelsnek
7128	angustifolia var baylissii	3325	BD	Wells Gate
7130	venosa subsp granulata	3319	BA	Karoopoort
7131	venosa subsp granulata	3220	CC	E Bizansgat
7133	mutica var nigra	3420	BB	Goedehoop
7134	mutica var nigra	3420	BB	Klipdrift
7135	venosa subsp venosa	3420	BB	Sandkraal
7136	limifolia			Bridgewater Nursery
7137	limifolia	2732	CD	Pumalanga
7138	limifolia	2732	CB	Inxwala, Mkhuze
7139	limifolia	2731	BC	Ncotshane, Pongola
7140	limifolia	2731	BC	Draaiwater, Pakamisa
7141	limifolia	2531	CC	N Rymers Creek
7142	limifolia	2531	CC	Mays Mine
7143	limifolia	2531	CB	Boondoks
7144	limifolia	2531	CB	N Manders Dam
7145	limifolia	2531	CB	Three Sisters
7146	limifolia	2731	CA	Bivaan Dam
7147	limifolia	2731	CB	Ithala
7148	limifolia	2731	AD	Ithala
7149	viscosa			N.Koup Stn
7150	decipiens var cyanea			W.Merweville
7151	heidelbergensis	3421	AA	N Kweekkraal W
7152	heidelbergensis	3421	AA	N Kweekkraal W
7153	heidelbergensis	3421	AA	N Kweekkraal W
7154	heidelbergensis	3421	AA	N Kweekkraal W
7155	floribunda	3421	AA	SW Pretoriuskop
7156	floribunda	3421	AA	W Pretoriuskop
7157	atrofusca	3421	AA	N Bosgasiekop
7158	floribunda	3421	AA	N Bosgasiekop
7159	atrofusca/floribunda	3421	AA	N Bosgasiekop
7160	magnifica	3421	AA	N Kweekkraal E
7161	magnifica	3421	AA	N Kweekkraal E
7162	magnifica	3421	AA	N Kweekkraal E
7163	magnifica	3421	AA	S Riversdale t.loc
7164	floribunda cf.	3420	BD	Dassieklip
7165	heidelbergensis	3420	BB	Matjestoon
7166	pumila	3319	BD	Mowers Stn
7167	pumila	3319	BC	Apiesklip
7168	cooperi var	3325	AD	Kabouga
7169	attenuata	3325	BC	Enon
7170	cymbiformis var	3325	BC	Enon
7171	glauca/coarctata	3325	AD	S Wilgefontein
7172	floribunda	3421	AA	N Kweekkraal E
7173	retusa	3421	AA	N Kweekkraal E
7174	maraisii	3319	DD	Skurweberg
7175	pumila	3319	DD	W Highlands, Goree
7176	maraisii	3319	DD	N Agtervink
7178	viscosa	3323	BD	Ruiterspoort
7179	viscosa	3323	BD	Constantia
7180	decipiens	3323	BD	Constantia
7182	monticola	3323	BC	SW Koegoeroe
7183	momticola	3323	BC	SE Koegoeroe
7184	bayeri	3323	CA	Uniondale Fort
7185	monticola	3323	CA	Uniondale Height
7188	decipiens/scottiana	3323	CA	5km E Hoekplaas
7189	decipiens/scottiana	3323	CA	2km NW Hoekplaas
7190	mucronata	3322	BD	3km E Rooiloop Stn.
7193	cf scottiana	3322	BC	5km W Rooiloop Stn
7194	arachnoidea	3322	DA	E Middelplaas Stn
7195	arachnoidea	3322	BC	2km E Vlakteplaas
7196	bayeri	3322	BC	SW Derust
7200	truncata	3322	CA	NE Oudtshoorn
7201	truncata	3322	CA	Volmoed
7202	morrisiae	3322	CA	Volmoed
7203	arachnoidea	3321	CB	Ladismith
7204	scabra	3322	DA	SE Doornkloof
7205	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	DA	W Vensterkranz.
7206	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CA	Buffelsdrif S
7207	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CA	Buffelsdrif
7208	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CA	Bakenskop
7210	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CA	E Vensterkrans
7211	arachnoidea var nigricans	3321	CC	W Springfontein
7212	mucronata var mucronata	3321	CC	Tradouwshoek
7213	mucronata var mucronata	3321	CC	S Barrydale S aspect
7214	maraisii	3321	CC	S Barrydale S aspect
7216	mucronata var mucronata	3321	CC	S Barrydale
7217	heidelbergensis/magnifica	3421	AA	Rooikop Melkboom
7218	floribunda/magnifica	3420	BB	Duiwenhoks Morn Star
7219	turgida	3420	BB	Duiwenhoks Morn Star
7220	floribunda/magnifica	3420	BB	NE Morning Star
7221	mutica var nigra	3420	BB	NE Morning Star
7223	scabra	3322	DA	Diepkloof, E De Rust
7224	floribunda/chloracantha	3421	BB	Cooper Siding
7225	retusa	3421	AA	S Droekloof Riversd.
7226	turgida	3420	BB	Witheuwel Pienaarsr
7227	heidelbergensis/magnifica	3420	BB	Witheuwel Pienaarsr
7228	turgida	3420	BB	Somona S Heidelberg
7229	heidelbergensis/magnifica	3420	BB	Somona S Heidelberg
7231	bayer1 (seed)	3322	DA	Kleingeluk, E DeRust
7232	turgida/heidelbergenss	3420	BB	S Heidelberg Reserve
7233	turgida/heidelbergenss	3420	BB	Hooikraal (Die Plotte N)Bayer
7234	turgida/heidelbergenss	3420	BB	Hooikraal (Die Plotte S)
7236	turgida/retusa	3420	BB	E Heidelberg Dam
7237	magnifica cf.var atrofusca	3420	BB	Andrieskraal/Skeideing
7238	magnifica cf.var atrofusca	3420	BB	Andrieskraal/Skeiding
7239	magnifica cf.var atrofusca	3420	BB	Andrieskraal/Skeiding
7240	turgida/retusa	3420	BB	Skeiding
7241	maraisii	3419	DD	Voordieberg, McGregor
7242	mirabilis/maraisii	3420	AA	Witkop, N Uitvlug Annex
7243	mirabilis/maraisii	3420	AA	SE Uitvlug Annex
7244	mirabilis/maraisii	3420	AB	E Die Kop, SE sh345
7245	mirabilis/maraisii	3420	AB	do E sh345
7246	mutica	3420	AC	Verbrandskloof
7247	mirabilis/maraisii	3419	BD	0.5km NE Napier
7248	mirabilis/maraisii	3420	DB	Ballyfar N, Infanta
7249	mirabilis/maraisii	3420	DB	Ballyfar S, Infanta
7250	maraisii/heidelbergensis	3420	BC	Uitrus (Whisky Creek)
7251	mirabilis	3420	BC	Sandhoogte, DeHoop
7252	mirabilis	3420	AA	NE Klipfontein
7253	mirabilis	3420	AA	N Klipfontein
7254	mirabilis	3420	AA	NW Noukloof Homestead
7255	elizeae	3420	AA	28km E Riviersonderend
7257	maraisii	3420	AA	SW Stormsvlei homestead
7258	minima	3420	BC	Uitrus (Whisky Creek)
7259	mirabilis	3419	BD	Napier Stn
7260	mirabilis	3419	BD	S Mierkraal, Napier
7261	mirabilis	3420	AC	NW Bredasdorp
7262	mirabilis	3420	BA	Ouplaas, SE Greyton
7263	maraisii	3319	DC	Droerivierberg B
7264	maraisii	3319	DC	Droerivierberg A
7265	maraisii	3319	DC	Haumanskloof
7266	pubescens var livida	3319	CD	E Lemoenpoort S
7268	herbacea	3319	CD	E Lemoenpoort S
7269	maraisii v meiringii	3320	CC	Edendale, Bonnievale
7270	maculata	3319	CD	Ouhoek Mt Moddergat
7271	maculata	3319	CB	S Kwaggaskloof Dam
7273	herbacea	3319	CD	Draaivlei Kop
7280	mirabilis	3419	BD	N Mierkraal Napier
7283	mirabiis var	3420	AC	W Adoonskop
7285	mirabiis var	3420	AC	N Brakkloof
7287	mirabiis var	3420	AC	SW Adoonskop roadside
7288	mirabilis var	3419	BC	N Diepkloof, Oudebakho.
7295	mirabilis var	3419	BC	N Diepkloof, Oudebakho.
7299	rossouwii	3420	AC	NW Soutkloof
7325	maraisii	3320	CC	Laastewater
7327	maraisii	3320	CC	4km E Bonnievale
7334	maraisii	3420	CA	4km NE Bredasdorp
7337	heidelbergensis var scabra	3420	BC	SE Brakfontein
7356	mirabilis var pilosa	3420	BC	NE Buffelsfontein
7374	decipiens cf. var. minor	3322	AC	Malvadraai, Swartberg.
7375	decipiens var. decipiens	3322	AC	Scholtzkloof.
7376	marumiana cf var. viridis	3322	AC	Scholtzkloof.
7377	viscosa	3322	AC	Scholtzkloof.
7382	nortieri var. devriesii	3322	AC	N Prince Albert
7384	viscosa	3322	AC	Syferfontein
7386	nigra	3322	AC	Toekomsrus
7417	floribunda/chlorcantha	3421	BD	Melkhoutfontein
7419	venosa var. venosa	3421	BA	Die Eiland Albertinia
7420	chloracantha var.choracantha	3421	BA	Die Eiland Albertinia
7425	chloracantha var.choracantha	3422	AA	Wolwedans Dam
7453	marginataXminima	3420	CA	NE Bredasdorp
7485	herbacea	3319	DC	Droogeriviersberg
7486	cooperi var.pilifera	3325	AB	Vygeboomfontein
7487	floribunda var. floribunda	3420	BC	Byeneskop
7488	minima	3420	BC	Byeneskop
7492	floribunda var. floribunda	3420	BC	SE Klipfontein Potberg
7494	floribunda var. floribunda	3420	BC	SE above
7495	floribunda var. scabra?	3420	BC	SE above
7497	maraisii cf. atrofusca	3420	BC	SE Kleinberg
7499	floribunda/heidelbergensis	3420	BC	SW Byeneskop
7500	mirabilis/mutica	3420	AD	Die Kop E
7502	mirabilis/maraisii	3420	AD	Die Kop W
7503	mrabilis/maraisii	3420	AD	Die Kop mid
7504	mirabilis/heidelbergensis	3420	AD	Die Kop N
7507	magnifica var fusca	3421	AD	W Albertinia
7508	magnifica var. dekenahii	3421	BA	Draaihoek
7509	floribunda var dentata	3421	BA	Draaihoek
7510	maraisii var. maraisii	3420	CA	NE Bredasdorp
7511	variegata var. variegata	3421	BA	Swartklip
7512	turgida var. suberecta	3421	BA	Draaihoek
7513	maraisii/heidelbergensis	3420	AA	Klipfontein Vaan+F1269drigsdrift
7514	mirabilis	3420	AD	Stoffelsriver
7515	variegata	3420	AD	Stoffelsriver
7516	mirabilis/floribunda	3420	AD	W Kleinberg, Malgas
7518	variegata	3420	AD	S Kleinberg
7519	minima	3420	AD	S Kleinberg
7520	mirabilis	3420	AD	NW Stoffelsriver
7522	nortieri	3118	BC	Arizona
7523	nortieri	3118	DD	Giftberg
7524	nortier	3118	BB	N Clanwilliam
7525	nortieri	3118	BB	S Clanwilliam
7526	maculata	3319	CD	Nekkies W
7527	mucronata	3320	DD	Orange Grove S Barrydale
7577	arachnoidea	3119	AD	Nuweplaas NWDville
7578	nortieri	3119	AD	Nuweplaas NWDville
7579	nortieri	3118	AC	Trawal Bridge
7580	nortieri	3219	CB	Bakkamerfontein
7586	cooperi gordoniana			Kliprivier Uniondale
7593	aristata			DePlaat to
7594	nortieri albispina			Koup
7595	nortieri	3219	AC	N Dwarsriver
7597	nortieri	3219	CA	Kunje
7599	nortieri	3219	CA	SE Kunje
7604	minima	3420	CA	NW Bredasdorp
7605	mirabilis	3420	CA	NW Bredasdorp
7608	mirabilis ‘pilosa’	3420	BC	Melkhoutrivier
7609	mirabilis ‘pilosa’	3420	BC	Melkhoutrivier
7612	mirabilis	3420	AB	Diamant W
7615	mirabilis	3420	BC	Aalwee Malgas
7622	mirabilis	3420	CC	Bergendal Ashton
7623	mirabilis	3420	CC	Sarahsriver
7634	cooperi/cymbiformis	3225	DA	Glen Avon
7635	sordida			Swartkop Kaboega
7636	cooperi/cymbiformis			N Swartkop Kaboega
7640	granulata			Oskopvlakte
7641	viscosa			Blokhuis
7642	wittebergensis			Ezelsfontein
7644	arachnoidea			Bakoven
7646	arachnoidea			Bizamsgat
7658	arachnoidea			SW Perdekraal
7659	ganulata			Bantamsfontein
7660	arachnoidea			Bantamsfontein NW
7666	arachnoidea			Patatsriver
7670	arachnoidea			Keurkloof
7671	arachnoidea			Bulhouer
7672	arachnoidea			NW Bulhouer
7673	arachnoidea			N Bulhouer
7676	arachnoidea			8km N Bulhouer
7677	arachnoidea			Dwarsindieweg
7678	arachnoidea			SW Josefskraal
7679	arachnoidea			N Josefskraal
7681	marumiana			Lospersberg
7686	arachnoidea			N Dwarsindieweg
7688	arachnoidea			Klein Tafelkop
7692	nortieri?			Volstruisfontein
7693	arachnoidea			Volstruisfontein
7695	glauca	3325	AD	SW Darlington Dam
7697	aristata	3325	AD	2km N Swartkops
7698	aristata	3325	AD	E Buffelsnek
7701	cooperi ‘puberula’	3325	AD	S Klipfontein
7702	glauca	3325	AD	S Klipfontein
7703	aristata			7697
7704	mirabilis	3420	AB	Bontebok Pk SE Office
7705	mirabilis’atrofusca’	3420	BA	Uitvlugt NW
7706	mirabilis ‘atrofusca’	3420	BA	Uitvlugt NNW
7707	retusa ‘nigra’	3420	BA	Goedverwagting
7708	floribunda	3420	BA	Goedverwagting
7709	rossouwii	3420	BA	SW Grootkloof
7710	rossouwii	3420	BA	WSW Grootkloof
7711	rossouwii	3420	BA	NE Grootkloof
7713	mirabilis ‘atrofusca’	3420	BA	W Uitvlugt
7714	mirabilis ‘atrofusca’	3420	BA	E Uitvlugt
7715	mirabilis ‘atrofusca’	3420	BA	N Uitvlugt
7716	rossouwii	3420	BA	E Uitvlugt
7717	mirabilis	3420	BA	SW Koppies
7719	mirabilis	3420	AB	S Dagbreek
7722	floribunda	3420	AB	Appelbos
7723	mirabilis	3420	BA	S Koppies
7724	mirabilis ‘paradoxa’	3421	AC	NE Oshoek
7726	mirabilis ‘paradoxa’	3421	AC	SE Vermaaklikheid
7727	mirabilis ‘paradoxa’	3421	AC	Koenserus
7728	mirabilis	3420	BB	NE Lilliendal
7729	mirabilis	3420	BB	NW Lilliendal
7732	rossouwii	3420	BC	NW Stuurmanskraal
7733	rossouwii	3420	BC	N Stuurmanskraal
7734	mirabilis	3420	BC	Stuurmanskraal
7735	marginata	3420	BA	E Koppies
7737	minima	3420	BA	W Koppies
7738	floribunda major	3420	AB	S Swellendam
7739	herbacea	3319	CB	Glen Heatlie
7740	pumila	3319	CB	Glen Heatlie
7741	mutica	3420	AB	Dankbaar
7742	mirabilis	3420	AB	Dankbaar
7743	minima	3420	AB	Bontebok Park
7744	mirabilis	3420	AB	Bontebok Park SW
7747	minima	3420	BD	Sandfontein, N Witsand
7749	mirabilis	3420	BC	Kadies Landing
7751	mirabilis	3420	BC	Kadies Landing
7753	mirabilis	3420	BD	Brakkuil
7754	retusa turgida	3420	BD	Brakkuil
7756	retusa turgida	3420	BD	Dassieklip
7757	minima	3421	AB	Klipheuwel
7758	retusa	3421	AB	Skietbaan Rdal.
7760	floribunda	3421	AB	Witkleikop
7761	mirabilis	3421	AB	Plattekop farm
7762	mirabilis	3421	AB	W Plattekop
7763	mirabilis	3421	AB	E Plattekop
7764	floribunda	3421	AB	NW Platkop
7765	mirabilis	3421	AB	NNW Plattekop
7765a	retusa	3421	AB	Plaatjieskop
7767	floribunda	3421	AB	Platjieskop
7769	mirabilis	3421	AB	Toringskop
7770	mirabilis	3421	AB	W Soetmelksrivier
7771	retusa	3421	AB	W Soetmelksrivier
7772	retusa	3421	AB	Platkop Annexe
7774	floribunda ‘major’	3420	AB	S Swellendam
7776	retusa	3421	AA	Pienaarsrivier
7778	mirabilis	3421	AB	Komserante
7779	mirabilis	3421	AB	Komserante
7780	retusa	3421	AB	Komserante
7781	retusa	3421	AB	Komserante
7782	minima	3421	AB	Komserante
7783	mirabilis	3421	AB	W Soetmelksrivier
7784	mirabilis	3421	AB	W Soetmelksrivier
7785	retusa	3421	AB	W Soetmelksrivier
7786	mirabilis	3421	AB	W Soetmelksrivier
7790	retusa	3421	AB	Groothoogtekop
7791	minima	3421	AB	Groothoogtekop
7792	floribunda	3421	AB	Groothoogtekop
7794	retusa nigra	3421	BB	Droerivier
7797	limifolia	2632	CA	E. Isiteki
7801	mutica	3420	BA	Mullersrus
7803	rossouwii	3420	BB	Morning Star
7804	retusa nigra	3420	BB	Kransriviermond
7805	mirabilis	3420	AB	Bontebok Park N
7807	minima	3420	BB	Diepkloof
7808	mirabilis	3420	BB	Diepkloof
7809	mirabilis	3420	BB	Koeisekop
7810	retusa turgida	3420	BB	Tierkloof
7811	mirabilis	3420	BB	Kransriviermond
7812	retusa turgida	3420	BB	Kransriviermond
7813	minima	3420	BB	Skeiding
7814	mirabilis atrofusca	3420	BB	Skeiding
7815	retusa turgida	3421	AB	Klipdrift
7816	retusa turgida	3421	AB	Heuningfontein
7817	variegata	3421	AB	Klipfontein
7818	mirabilis	3421	AB	Windsor
7819	marumiana dimorpha	3320	AD	W Konstabel
7820	mirabilis jakubi	3421	AB	Klipfontein
7821	rossouwi minor	3420	CA	Rooivlei
7822	mirabilis	3420	CA	Rooivlei
7823	mirabilis	3420	BA	Klipbult
7825	chloracantha	3421	BB	N Herbertsdale
7827	chloracantha	3421	BB	S Herbertsdale
7828	parksiana	3422	AA	Rooiheuwel
7829	chloracantha	3422	AA	Rooiheuwel
7835	kingiana	3422	AA	Rooiheuwel
7844	emelyae	3321	CC	Brandrivier
7845	minima	3321	CC	Brandrivier
7846	emelyae	3321	CC	W Springfontein
7847	emelyae	3320	DD	Kleindoringrivier
7848	emelyae	3321	CC	E Springfontein
7849	retusa turgida	3321	DC	Towerland
7850	emelyae	3321	DC	Aasvoelvallei
7851	arachnoidea nigricans	3320	DD	Kleindoornrivier
7856	emelyae major			S Muiskraal
7857	emelyae multifolia			W Muisktraal
7858	emelyae multifolia			NW Muiskraal
7859	emelyae multifolia			N Muiskraal.
7860	emelyae major			3km ENE Onverwacht
7861	emelyae			W Zandkraal
7863	arachnoidea			Orange Grove
7865	arachnoidea cf			Keurkloof De Doorns
7866	chloracantha			3km E Herbertsdale
7867	chloracantha			S above
7868	kingiana			3km E Herbertsdale
7869	monticola			Williamsburg
7870	cooperi			Williamsburg
7873	parksiana			W Botlierskop
7876	mirabilis			Dysselfontein SW Swellendam
7877	venosa var. venosa			Doringrivier
7882	mirabilis ‘meiringii’			Edendale, Bonnievale
7886	mirabilis			N Sandhoogte
7887	mirabilis			W Rotterdam
7888	mutica			SW Rotterdam
7889	mutica			W Rotterdam
7890	mutica			NW Rotterdfam
7891	minima			W Rotterdam
7892	marginata			W Rotterdam
7895	turgida			Diepkloof, Malgas
7896	retusa nigra			Heuningklip Tradouw
7897	retusa nigra			Heuningklip Tradouw
7898	retusa nigra			Heuningklip Tradouw
7899	mirabilis			Heuningklip Tradouw
7901	mirabilis			Felix Unite
7902	mirabilis			Felix Unite
7903	mirabilis			Felix Unite
7904	mirabilis			Felix Unite
7905	mirabilis			Felix Unite
7906	mirabilis			Felix Unite
7907	mirabilis			Felix Unite
7908	mirabilis			Felix Unite
7910	floribunda			Rietkuil
7912	mirabilis			Rietkuil
7913	mirabilis			Rietkuil
7914	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7915	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7916	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7917	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7918	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7919	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7920	retusa var nigra			Van Reenens Crest
7921	retusa var nigra			Van Reenens Crest
7922	mirabilis			Diepkloof NW
7923	variegata			Diepkloof
7924	variegata			Diepkloof
7925	variegata			Diepkloof.
7926	minima			Diepkloof
7927	variegata			Diepkloof
7928	minima			Diepkloof
7930	minima			W Diepkloof
7931	mirabilis			S 7516 Kleinberg
7932	minima			S Kleinberg
7933	mirabilis			S7496 Se Kleinberg
7934	mutica			Wolwefontein
7935	mutica			W Crodini
7936	mirabilis			Langvlei
7937	mutica			Platkop
7938	mirabilis			SE Stoffelsriver
7941	mutica			Ouplaas, SE Greyton
7943	mutica			E. Klipbankskloof
7944	mirabilis			SE Klipbankskloof
7945	mutica			SE Klipbankskloof
7949	marginata			Middelrivier Drew
7950	mutica			De Draai Kpbankskloof
7951	mutica			Klipbankskloof West
7952	mutica			NW Klipbankskloof West
7953	mutica			N Klipbankskloof West
7954	mutica			Rondeheuwel
7955	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7956	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7957	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7958	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7959	mirabilis			Van Reenens Crest
7960	mirabilis			Postdal
7961	retusa nigra			Postdal
7962	floribunda			Niekerkshek W STn
7963	floribunda			Niekerkshek SW STn
7964	mirabilis			W Spitskop De Hoop
7965	mirabilis			W Spitskop De Hoop
7966	mirabilis			W Spitskop De Hoop
7967	mutica			Spitzkop W Rd
7968	mutica			Spitzkop W Rd
7969	mutica			Spitzkop E Rd
7970	mirabilis			Die Kop East(dutoit)
7973a	mirabilis			NW Die Kop
7973b	mirabilis			NE Die Kop (Uys =7502)
7974	mirabilis			S Klipfontein, Potberg
7975	floribunda			Rotterdam W
7976	floribunda			N Rotterdam W
7977	mirabilis			NW Van Reenens Crest
7978	mirabilis			Schuitsberg S
7979	mirabilis			Nethercourt
7980	mirabilis			Ouplaas, SE Greyton
7982	mirabilis			Schuitberg N
7983	marginataXminima			S BlueCrane Rest.
7984	mirabilis			Droogerivierberg W
7985	mirabilis			Droogerivierberg SE
7986	mirabilis			Damsekop Montagu
7987	arachnoidea			Uitkyk Montagu
7988	mirabilis			SE Sandberg Trappieskraalkloof
7989	pumila			Lemoenpoort
7990	mirabilis			Klipkop Montagu
7991a	maculata			Top Moddergat E
7991b	maculata			west above
7992	maculata			Hammansberg Radio Stat
7993	maculata			Hammansberg top west
7994	maculata			Vreesniet, Kanetvlei
7995	herbacea			S Brandvlei Brickworks
7996	herbacea			E Brandvlei Brickworks
7997	pubescens			N Cilmor Cellar
7998	floribunda			Kruisriver N
7999	mirabilis			Kruisriver N
8000	mirabilis			Wegwysersriver
8001	floribunda			Kleinkruis, Platkop
8002	maculata/pubescens			W Cilmor Cellar
8003	retusa/mirabilis			350m W Bloekombos Rsdal
8004	retusa/mirabilis			50m W Bloekombos
8005	retusa/turgida			S Wegwysersriver
8006	floribunda			S Wegwysersriver
8007	retusa/turgida			650m W Bloekombos Rsdal
8008	retusa/turgida			1km W Bloekombos
8009	retusa			3km S Riversdale
8010	retusa			8km S Riversdale
8011	pubescens			SW point Sandberg
8012	herbacea			Klipkranz camp Sandberg
8013	pubescensXherbacea			SW point Sandberg
8014	herbacea			SE Sandberg, Ribbokkop
8015	herbacea			Spes Bona
8016	herbacea			N Spes Bona
8017	floribunda			Bontebok Park
8018	mutica			Sanddrift Drew
8019	maculata			Die Nekkies Yt Club
8020	maculata			East end Nekkies
8021	maculata			400 W above
8022	maculata			800 W
8023	maculata			1000m W
8024	maculata			1100m W
8025	maculata			1500m W
8026	maculata			2000m W
8027	maculata			500m W resort entrance
8028	mirabilis			S Klipport N Bromberg
8029	marginata			Bontebok N Pk
8030	mirabilis			SW Klipport
8031	mirabilis			SWW
8032	pumila			Iminga, N Ouhangsberg
8033	herbacea			Iminga, N Ouhangsberg
8034	maculata			Iminga, N Ouhangsberg
8035	mirabilis			Bontebok Pk SW
8036	minima			Bontebok Pk SW
8037	minima			E of 8035 and 6
8038	venosa			Felix Unite
8039	venosa			Elsies Camp BNPk.
8040	mirabilis			NE Greyton
8041	mirabilis			Eshuitsberg E
8042	maculata			E Iminga 8034
8043	mirabilis			Bontebok N Pk S6644
8044	mirabilis			with rossouwii minor
8045	rossouwii ‘minor’			SW t.loc Rooivlei
8046	mirabilis			Brakkloof SW
8047	mirabilis			Brakkloof SE
8048	mirabilis			Rooivlei W
8049	mirabilis			Rooivlei N of above
8050	mirabilis			Rooivlei NW
8051	mirabilis			E. Rooivlei
8052	mirabilis			S Welgegund S above
8053	mirabilis			S Welgegund S above
8054	arachnoidea			Grootkloof, DeDoorns
8055	mirabilis			Hammanskraal, Caledon
8056	mirabilis			E Uitkyk Greyton
8057	mirabilis			Uitkyk, N Breede
8058	mirabilis			Wolfkloof Swellendam
8059	floribunda			E Wolfkloof Swellendam
8060	mutica			Bontebok
8061	marginata			Adoonskop rd verge
8062	mirabilis			Rietkuil
8063	floribunda			W Keurenboom Estate

Cymbiformis Cooperi

Posted on December 6, 2022 by Bruce Bayer

I was musing over a whole lot of plants in a nursery all labelled cymbiformis and ignoring the formal classification and recognition of varieties. Gordon Rowley was very critical of my work because he felt that the lesser names were just being dumped. I agree that it is a problem and I was thinking of posting pictures that would facilitate the use of old existing names e.g. planifolia. I was very quickly disenchanted as I looked for pictures.

The field situation regarding cooperi and cymbiformis is as complex as the retusa/turgida/mirabilis/emelyae/pygmaea/mutica issue as well as the fact that each such species assemblage runs over in to still other species. I did google cymbiformis and planifolia to see what the internet had to offer and was amazed how poor and confusing that is. I welcome any questions that cooking up an answer for, may help rationalise and enlighten troubled minds.

The picture is from one population at Kaboega where it is evident to me that there is no distinction between cymbiformis and cooperi, and it gets worse.

There is a problem with the name obtusa as a variant of H. cymbiformis, and I think it, with the name translucence, that really covers the transition between cymbiformis and cooperi. Both those names obtusa and translucens can be applied to a large number of populations that belong in a twilight zone of neither “this nor that”. As I was pondering the other day, plant taxonomy is NOT good science. It is largely treated as a field for nomenclatural rules and recommendations and a stage for intellectual display. There is little connection between the minutae of nomenclature and the reality of what occurs in nature. These pictures are of plants in the Bosberg NE Somerset East and are in a geographical cooperi environment far from the range of cymbiformis. They could fit the concept of “obtusa” as so many other cooperoids do.

Let me add – cymbiformis are those green things that grow as clump formers on steep (rock faces, cooperi are those bluish plants that grow solitarily on the flat. They are the same!!! The names are just at the extremities and the more we know the more names we need??

When I posted those two items about cooper and cymbiformis, I had left gracilis somewhere in the closet. It is just a very difficult pill to swallow that all these amazing variants have (?) to be lumped under one species.

I had another look at the 3 DNA phyllograms in the work by Manning et al, and it can be noted that cooperi, cymbiformis and decipiens all see to pan out in the same lineage. So as I said it is far worse than imagined – although there are some improbables in the various lineages of the phyllograms. But this is just as far as sequencing has got and we have yet to see results from “next generation sequencing”. Here are two images of cooperi from different populations west of Uniondale pass that shocked even myself in saying they are the same species.

Many years ago you gave me a challenge to sort out the cymbiformis cooperi and so off I went to the Eastern Cape; many times. I didn’t understand then how plastic, how variable, the plants were and how rigid the names and descriptions. Some I couldn’t type.

Cymbiformis – Rosette to 130mm φ, partially stemmed, proliferous. Leaves broad ovate to lanceolate, flat to slightly concave, generally <1/3 as thick as wide, usually opaque, green turning yellowish to pink hued on exposure. Inflorescence to 250mm, 10-15 flowers, lax. Flowers white.

Cooperi – Rosette to 120mm φ, often proliferous, stemless. Leaves 20-40, fleshy, swollen, oblong-lanceolate, quickly tapering, acuminate or truncating, marginal spines <2mm long if present. Bluish-green in colour, slightly translucent, with veins usually reddening and leaves developing purplish hues in exposed situations. Inflorescence compact, firm peduncle with many closely arranged flowers, to 20cm long. Flowers 20-30, perianth white.

Maybe it’s time to come back for more field work.

Lawrence Loucka

Yes writing those descriptions was a really funny experience but actually they are remarkably as good as you can get. Cooperi is only distinguishable from cymbiformis by colour, inflorescence and habitat. So what do you do with all those other populations that fall in the small cracks between. The “fieldwork” necessary to establish a workable boundary is to weed out the vast majority of plants that will not fit these artificial strictures of botanical classification and nomenclature. And just what is this stuff we weirdly say is “fieldwork”?

Really! I put it best I think in Update Vol 2 or 3 where I wrote about the need for a starting hypothesis for field work and reporting. I can tell you right now what more unplanned field work will produce – more names and more confusion. I have shown time and again that planned field work shows the interconnectedness of all these “species” we so anxiously claim. But we are also very limited by our perceptions and our expectations. We are taught mechanistically and we are not taught about the illusion of time and space or what reality is or might be. We do not live in a finite fixed world that is the same for each of us. We live within our own perceptions and dreams of what we think is real? We work with definitions of words and things and if we do not agree with each other on these, we will not understand each other. The word “species” is the great catch point hen it comes to biology. Science presently defines it for us by default, as a measure of the similarity of DNA in some sort of sampling (ill-defined and inadequate) process. This is going to create serious problems into the future. The polymath who asked plant taxonomists if they knew what they are doing, is going to have his doubts proven too right – they do not.

Bruce Bayer

I am always on about definition, usually of “species”, but checking up some DNA information reveals that even things such as nucleotides, DNA, and what-not are not actually adequately defined. DNA is said in some meanings, to be the nucleotide chains in the cell nucleus. The nucleotides are said to be the four amino-acids that link the paired strands in the chromosomes. But how are the strands constructed?

Then there are different molecular combinations effectively forming short strands in all tissues and these are also referred to as DNA. The Haworthia sequencing used to establish the recent changes within the aloids is based on up to 7 molecular regions, some of nuclear DNA and some on extra-cellular DNA. It bothers me that the sequencing does not actually tell me very much that I was not aware of simple observing the plants. But I see things in each of the phyllograms for the different regions that persuade me that we have a LOT to learn about DNA sequencing. The lineages for each region are not the same and there are some very weird anomalies that people who do not know the species are clearly not aware of. If they were they would be less confident in their conclusions and their faith in the technology (as it stands to date).

Glad that Lawrence posted that DNA paper Manning et al, because those interested can now see the phyllograms and make up their own minds about what they tell us. My personal experience makes me highly suspicious of all this stuff as even in the paper the authors say they opine that the results give a reliable overview – despite limited sampling and despite the variations in the different lineages the phyllograms illustrate. I would actually like to see phyllograms for each of the 5 DNA regions as well as concatenated ones, for just H. floribunda sampled from many populations. also not just single specimens from each population.

Here we have a case where the plastid sequences do not agree with the nuclear. I also do not like using both regional sequences AND concatenated results. Either concatenation is better or it is not. It seems like the statistical ploy viz. if a test does not give you significance, you keep using different statistical tests until you get one that does. The most critical element is that while these results are used to arrive at a generic classification in the aloids, the exercise was initiated to examine the species relationships in Haworthia only. Had that initial intention been observed (using 3 specimens per population) it could have made a really significant contribution instead of leaving us all in vacuum of opinion and belief.

My present view is that classification has devolved into an intellectual exercise that perpetuates confusion and uncertainty, ensuring endless name changes! Posted (above) is a nice retusaXcooperi ‘venusta‘ hybrid. It does not darken when exposed to direct day-long sunlight.

It is interesting to look at the DNA lineages for H. marxii, H. semiviva, H. pulchella var. globifera. H. mutica and H. marumiana var. archeri. They are, in the three data sets, very conflicting. For me highlight the problem of sequencing where sampling is so limited and based on an identification or classification process itself not based on sequencing. Particularly so when the original intention of the project was to examine that very problem.

This might have been called Haworthia dekenah var. argenteo-maculosa! In my opinion all the retusoids east of the Gouritz river are referable to H. pygmaea. But the truth is that one cannot separate retusa, turgida, mutica, mirabilis, pygmea or even emelyae on the basis of any physically observable evidence.

Indeed there is a problem with correct and consistent naming. The fact is that it can be much like pinning the tail on the donkey. It is all very well having a nomenclatural system that can be a juristic nightmare and an intellectual challenge, but does it work?

Haworthia cymbiformis is a case in point. According to the system, if a variety is recognised and described, automatically every other variant becomes the variety cymbiformis. This creates an amazing treadmill and we then have to accommodate all those other variants in a practical working system. How does one deal with this when, apart from the problems of one complex system, H. cymbiformis is inextricably tied into H. cooperi.

My conclusion has to be that the system does not work. While there is the fancy intellectual footwork in the upper echelons of botany, there is also the difficulty of dealing with countless variations that are conveniently set aside because they do not fit. Looking at my own attempts to deal rationally with H. cymbiformis and its variants boggles my mind. How did I set the name ‘planifolia’ aside, or renege on an earlier decision to abandon the name ‘obtusa’, and subsequently change my mind again? No matter how one juggles these names, one is faced with the embarrassment of dealing with many more variants that are neither one nor the other of the names one does decide to recognise and use. Let us say that this picture above is typical of H. cymbiformis and then look at some others …

What I tried to do in Haworthia was establish what groups existed that satisfied some rational species definition in also geographic terms. So I abandoned many of the old names for that reason alone. “Planifolia”is a case in point. I could find no clear geographic evidence and recognised the difficulty of actually separating cymbiformis and planifolia as distinct groups. But it is a subjective decision as so many taxonomic decisions are despite the desperate efforts to hide the doubt and the justify them as objective. as you can see from the two pictures, “planifolia’ has broader and flatter leaves rather than the keeled “boathull” shape of cymbiformis. I did not intend that names in synonymy be abandoned and did suggest that such names be considered available for use by collectors and growers.

Quote … ”The location of this note is a powerful reminder that distinctions between species are highly blurred and that alternative solutions are possible”. This answers my question of the previous post and it comes from Haworthia Revisited after tortuous explanations of the varieties in H. cymbiformis. Here is a photo of a cymbiformis in cultivation that could have come from anywhere, including Plutos Vale where H. cooperi var. tenera (?) and H. cymbiformis var. incurvula obfuscate the difference between the two species.

At this late stage in life, I think an honest submission is called for. My life experience with identification of plants is that botanical classification and naming is largely delusional. Taxonomists name things in relation to their experience and seldom get to truly know all the species and variants. Herbarium cupboards hide scores of unusual specimens filed in doubtful places and many unidentified. I have found it very difficult to deal with variations as this posted picture demonstrates. It is a variant of H. cymbiformis that I initially recognised as var. umbraticola in the belief that it substituted for the name var. obesa. At the time I thought that was a name confused with H. cooperi. I did eventually change my mind and recognise obesa as a variant of cymbifomis. But the fact is that cymbiformis is a riverine cliff hanger versus cooperi that is a grassland element.

There fall is a large spectrum of populations occur in different habitats that are neither one nor the other. This situation is also represented in H. retusa and H. turgida where there is further complexity in plant appearance and behavioural character viz. H. mirabilis, H. pygmaea, H. mutica, H. emelyae and more. These are realities of plant classification that taxonomists seem to dismiss or are unable to recognise. Things simply do not follow the tidy branching nature that fancy evolutionary theory, cladograms, phylograms and revisions illustrate.

This is now from an area in the Prince Alfed’s Pass where H. cymbiformis var. transiens, and H. planifolia var. translucens originated. It is to the west of general distribution of where more characteristic H. cymbiformis and H. cooperi occur. But my experience of these two species is that anything that resembles H. cymbiformis is actually a habitat derived variant of H. cooperi, which includes what was a very complex set of variants that I had treated as yet another species viz. H. gracilis. ♦

Gulag

Posted on February 11, 2023 by Bruce Bayer

This is the Soutpankoppies gulag. That beautiful handsome shrub at the gate is one of our most undesirable alien weeds; Australian myrtle. The plants are in an area of exposed surface rock with short arid renosterveld shrubbery neighboring a windblown sandy plain of restioid fynbos. Weed infested. Trees like pine and gum and myrtle. I can’t remember when Bob Kent and Kobus and I visited the area or who actually relocated these amazing plants. We did not see them where the gulag is – we never even looked there. They were in a sandy patch not far away. Huge stunning things. Kobus Venter must have pictures. It was plants from here that Nature Conservation required me to identify in a case pending against poaching and theft. The culprits trying to incriminate me with a picture of countless H. variegata vegetatively propagated at Sheilam in my KG drive to switch from field collecting to intention to benefit trade and collectors. Very funny because I was driven out of NBG effectively by a management that wanted to hog the trade it had no knowledge or expertise for. Enclosures like this are mindless. The problem and subject had been thrown about countless times in my contacts with Nature Conservation and considered hopelessly impractical for all the many miniature local endemics. 75 years of Botanical garden effort has indicated the difficulty of even doing this effectively for so many species by ex situ cultivation. What we all do not and will not grasp is that species are not these one-off wonders. They are either remnants of decadent systems or temporary showpieces of modern times. It is the systems and the greater system that needs focus. We cannot even grasp the whole while we fiddle with little bits here and there in total confusion fighting amongst ourselves. I forget to mention the drama about the gate!

The gulag is a small enclosure built around a spectacular variant of H. mirabilis that some insist must be a species. Nobody can deny that it is spectacular and as such worth making the effort to preserve for all time. So, this Gulag has been established to do so. I think it was funded by a British Cactus and Succulent Society. I wonder if I can explore the ramifications for this single population and for conservation in the wider sense.

In the narrow sense it is worth noting that there was a population virtually in a farmyard a bit to the west that seems to now be extinct. There is also the population that Bob Kent, Kobus Venter and I visited/found way back in history. It occupied about 25 sq m in a sort of sandy wasteland maybe with some small indication of shale. The plants were dramatic. Subsequent in history, Nature Conservation apprehended a plant thief in possession of too many plants from too many collections. The plants were brought to me to be identified while I was also shown a photograph presented to the officials of plants with my personal collecting number taken in a commercial nursery. I do not want to create a distraction but I should explain that my number and associated plants came from the Karoo Botanic garden and my relation with the owners of the nursery definitely suggests some sort of malfeasance on my part. This is actually a separate story altogether and I will explain elsewhere. Essentially the stolen plant hoard contained about 10 specimens of Haworthia “splendens” that from the size and spectacular beauty must have come from the site Bob, Kobus and I found. It must be about 100m from the subsequent Gulag. I have been back twice to re-locate the place but the alien weed infestation is now so bad I simply could find no trace. I consider I might have missed the spot. But it was on the same trip that I visited the Gulag. It was quite a mission to find the farm owner. He was elderly and had just recovered from a serious heart attack. But he was helpful and courteous and took us to the Gulag. First, through a locked farm gate that he struggled to deal with due to his health condition. Then he came to the Gulag that my photograph shows. He laboriously took out the key and tried to laboriously open the lock. After a long struggle he gave up and took out his cell phone. After a wait of about 15 minutes a small pick-up roared to the scene and came to a screeching halt at the gate. Presumably the farmer’s son otherwise engaged in some hard work necessary to production. Leaping out of the bakkie/pick-up with not a word to anyone, he attacked the lock with a vengeance, threw the gate open and left the way he had come – in a cloud of dust.

Now OK there were many plants on the small rocky outcrop or ridge above the sandy waste visited years before. But now let us look at the sense of this. The conception of the enclosure is that the population is now protected from animals and people and also to suggest it will be kept pristine from natural changes both as coming from farm activity, alien weed infestation and cosmic catastrophe? Who actually knows? It is again decidedly fuzzy around the edges. The conception is that the farm owner is idling away in a rocking chair while the farm produces an income other than, and in addition to, the additional revenue from a stream of enthusiasts lining up to pay for a chance to enter the Gulag and view these unique wonders. But hang on. Firstly farming is hard work. Visitors may arrive when the farmer is bound tight in a schedule of planting, or harvesting, or sorting stock, or vaccinating cattle in a tight period of a few days critical to the annual income. No wonder the violent attack on the gate. Some land owners resent the declaration of a rare something on their property and the onus of conservation. Haworthia “opalina” is a case in point. This very rare jewel and its fate involved the same individual who conceived the Gulag. It is interesting that the “opalina” landowner may have used Glyphosate (Roundup) weedkiller to end the GPS driven seekers breaking down his fences to plunder plants.

Secondly, how many enclosures are we going to need to apply this conservation ethic or methodology equitably to “rare species” of all kinds – plant and animal? For how long? Twenty years, 50 years, 200 years? Are we thinking of a museum to even house dinosaurs we re-create from their DNA. It comes down to what we know of creation and the species that comprise it. When we cannot even be sure what a species is and how it varies, or remotely how it is distributed and perpetuated in nature. We do not know how it came to be in the first place. Darwin’s theory is just that viz. another fuzzy attempt to mechanistically explain what we do not know.

Addendum: Since writing this note my attention was drawn to articles extolling the conservation project and construction of the Gulag. It necessitates me saying that there is a considerable about more to the topic than I can possibly write. If the plants are so enchanting, spectacular and valuable aesthetically, surely the most obvious recourse is to ex situ cultivation. There are no doubt already thousands in the possession of collectors worldwide. There are other aspects too. If grazing animals are such a threat why not extol the merits of vegetarianism with porcupines allowed in the diet. The threat of thatch harvesting vehicles in this case is a bit of a thumb-suck to strengthen a point of view. People are involved here and those involved should not see my point of view as a criticism or personal attack on them, or as a defence on my part.

All very fortuitous. Synchronicity. Not aesthetically pleasing but these pictures are to tell a story illuminating this absurd Gulag nonsense. I cannot count how many times I have been in the close vicinity of these plants. This small population is in the road verge. I have seen it 3 other places approximately here. I stole 3 seedlings because they were in a thicket of seedlings in a roadside drain. Who knows how road maintenance engineers are intently destroying road verge and the immense value they have as conservation sites. I once saw a unique population of Aloe humilis on the road verge east of Calitzdorp on the road to Volmoed. But it was a roadside embankment and can you believe on this minor backroad, harming and threatening no one, it was graded away to fulfil the insane policy to maintain roads to the fences. I have not otherwise seen that I can remember or never registered Aloe humilis east of Baviaanskloof in all my extensive travels. If nature conservation had seen me as I nabbed these doomed seedlings of marginata, I faced confiscation of my vehicle, a fine and a criminal record. Who can explain the humiliation I have been exposed to in my life as a naturalist applying for endless permits and being scrutinised by dimwits and ignoramuses who have never been off their office chairs. Here in cultivation they are doing extraordinarily well and a visiting solitary bee religiously combs the peduncles on a daily basis if not hourly. Whatever a Botanic garden may do with a collection like this, this seed is valueless for field conservation – but invaluable for collectors and enthusiasts who want to see and grow these magnificent plants that they may never encounter otherwise. It is a basic human right that we have this access to nature. Who the hell are these bureaucrats taking away our freedoms and our sovereignty? Do we build a roadside enclosure? Because sheep are devouring them on a place across the fence. Do we re-locate them to a spot that nature has never assigned to them, and so mess with that plant association? Who asks these questions? Who can answer them truthfully.

Emile Heunis adds

I once saw a color coded map of the Western Cape that showed all areas that have been developed and therefor destroyed by human activity. Those areas were shown in white. 90+ percent of the Western Cape shows in white!! The question that follows is, what effect this has on understanding what is left out there? Whatever we come to understand , does not include the full story.

In 370+ years humans have destroyed 90+ percent of natural land in the Western Cape. It is also said that more than 90, perhaps 98% of all living creatures, plants etc. have become extinct!!

The next question is, should we care about the preservation of Haworthia mirabilis f. gulagii? If we do, it is only to allow future generations to do what we did the last 300years. To need it, to enjoy it, to kill it.

Our time on planet earth is limited to +/- 80 years per generation. Keep in mind, mankind’s time on earth is ticking away. The sun is expanding and there will come a day when the last spacecraft will leave earth on its way to Mars.

Perhaps scientists have already begun to freeze cells of all the material we might need or care about, and take that to our future destination. Whether there will by space on Noah’s space Ark 2 , for Haworthia mirabilis f. gulagii‘s tiny icy cells, is for our future Facebook Haworthia Shucked followers to fight for. By then ,there will be no Department of Nature Conservation, and therefore no officials to post the parcel.

The only hope is that Darwin’s theory is already at work on Mars and that by the time man set foot on Mars, Bruce and Daphne’s descendants would live up to their predecessors good intentions and explore the hills and valleys of Marsian country. It would be very amusing if all the localities they find, are fenced and locked with rusted locks.

Until then, long may the Gulag locality live in peace, thrive and spread its genes on the surrounding sandy areas.

♦

Tulista pumila

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Bruce Bayer

Wheee! I want to give some Tulista pumila seed with a name to the Arboreta Nurseries propagator. … Just what does the nursery use for a community that at some levels calls Aloes cactus? I started a draft of an addition to my book chapter on name issues. Here is the start.

Tulista pumila into commercial markets.

Perhaps it would be useful to follow a path of the introduction of a new species into a commercial nursery. Tulista pumila is the name accepted by the South African National Botanical Institution (SANBI). The International Organization for Succulent Plants (IOS) does not agree and uses Haworthia maxima. I did write in Alsterworthia an article about this truly ridiculous process of name changes that this poor species has gone through since Linnaeus fluffed the issue. It is a mind boggling tale of sheer nonsense that we call science. A short version of the story is that I settled on Haworthia pumila following Dr. Codd (assisting Col. C.L. Scott) and my own simple understanding of the nomenclatural rules and my own intellectual grasp of the process. It is carefully explained in my Haworthia revision (Haworthia Revisited, 1999) including several statements that I was trying to minimise the impact of a name change on the community that might need such a formal name. Do not get me on to the even more idiotic change of names from my H. minima to Tulista minor.

This is not T. pumila (or do you use H. maxima). It is that genetic anomaly at Lemoenpoort that another authority has a species name for. Adding to the confusion (conflation) of names between “science” and the “layman”. Should it be T. pumila ‘Lemoenpoort’ to send purists conservationists into a frenzy?

Half a century ago, as a very small child, I wandered the then named Karoo Garden reading and recognizing “Haworthia margaretifera” on standardized garden labels. Later in my early teens the name “pumila” arrived and brought with it a measure of confusion as to what this meant and why it may be necessary. With it came almost a personality change in my experience of the plants. In hindsight, it feels to me a name change invalidates all preceding literature and interrupts the easy flow of language and the communication I expect it to bring.

The variation of T. pumila around Worcester is interesting. With so many populations of the more “typical” colour and shape, Lemoenpoort looks like just extraordinarily beautiful variant. If “maxima” ought ever to apply, I wish the author of the name had seen the huge plants at the airfield in the 1980’s. And this speaks to my speculation on the almost infinite age of these plants and the continuous growth via a terminal bud.

~ Warwick Bayer

Arthur Dixon asked “How big is big?”

Bruce Bayer answered … 20cm diam and 35 cm tall? In some populations they are small and a population in the Bontebok park that I did record as minima (8cm diam) is possibly T. pumila? If they are separate systems and depending on just what your perception is of “species”

Maxima actually referred to one of 4 variants of aloe pumila (the smallest aloe) and maxima was the largest of them. So the nomenclatural rules have a flaw. Firstly it does not take into account the descriptive nature of Linnaeus names and secondly it doesn’t prioritise the actual hypothesised evolutionary changes. Forget here also the vexing question of chronology of species descriptions. The “law” does not allow for nor prevent the different interpretation of the “law”. See the way in which Australian “scientists” hijacked the name Acacia and South Africa has to settle for the name change of Vachelia. When did that happen and how long to filter through to nurseries and their clientele? When it comes to the age of these plants??? Also the nature of stemmed and stemless. Why is T. pumila (H. pumila/maxima not stemmed? I once saw a single plant in the KG veld that was about 35cm tall and stemmed. Why is it seldom ring clumped as in Aloe claviflora? But Lemoenpoort and some other populations do. Sometimes, I would say most times, they do not offset at all. Longevity? Plants have to grow to live at all. So life span is a delicate balance between the shedding and decomposition of the older leaves as the annual flush of new leaves occurs. A delicate balance of decay of the stem and capacity of the plant to keep its crown at ground level? Like Aloe dichotoma. It has often been speculated that these plants are hundreds of years old. My experience suggests a life span of about 120 Years. But it is VERY fuzzy around he edges. The story of Aloe ferox as a single plant east of Prince Albert I estimate its age at about 600 years with a single germination event about 1973 when this self-sterile single plant produced seed. No sight of another plant for miles around. More to that story and how it survived that long. Thudichum collected Aloe ferox as large seedlings at Stormsvlei, and planted them as that avenue up the KG drive, they died slowly one by one. Some were still there as those 3.5-4m giants near the nursery. This suggests a life span of about 60 years IF intervention does allow near root development and leaves getting too far away from the roots. Never once did I see a self-established seedling in the cultivated area surrounding them, nor in he natural veld also about them. Very fuzzy indeed. Do we need more evidence we live in an illusion? A dream? A projection? ♦

References:
Aloe pumila, Haworthia pumila; what or who is confused?
A new combination – Tulista minor.

Flowering Time Redux

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Bruce Bayer

Two very smart blokes who are a lot more competent than me. They know who they are. One of them asked the question about flowering time and all that in relation to speciation and the obvious implication for recognition of species. No I have dealt with that in detail throughout the Updates. We have the problem of retusa (nomenclaturally correct but phylogenetically, if there is such a thing, wrong) and mirabilis (technically, and even perhaps nomenclaturally a later name for atrovirens). The same conundrum crops up in Tulista – are there four species or is it one system. Opalina comes to mind because it flowers November (or it did for me) but I observed without anything to substantiate what I say, a putative hybrid marginataXpumila did (it is extinct now due to its place on the verge of a National highway through Swellendam. Marginata near Swellendam flowers wrongly in Nov. too. The flowers were also identical while a bigger, and whiter than is normal for T. minima. Just who is the taxonomic lunatic that made the change from my Tulista minima to T. minor or even H. minima to H. minor? This is total conflation of purpose. Marginata and pumila should flower in Jan/Feb. There are anomalous populations at Ashton that “we” dismiss as hybrids of those two species, with adjacent plants undoubtedly the same as the two species “we“ insist on. If they can hybridise like this, we have to ask how could it possibly have happened. I have other records and even published pictures and comments about this hybrid conundrum. It is dramatic in Tylecodon aborescens, Tylocodon cacallioides and T. wallichii where I have grown the arborescensXcacaliodes from seed to find it fully fertile. This picture shows an inflorescence of Haworthia pumila (some authorities recognise it as Tulista pumila and attempted to demand the name Haworthia major to confound us all. I unkindly point to these as idiots that totally conflate the issue of a name system that serves people, and one that serves egocentricity and intellectualism). Not that there is flower, and ripe capsules on the same inflorescence. Does this have any significance? It touches on another problem. This is of how seed ripening time relates to conditions for germination events and indeed it needs special conditions for seed to germinate and establish. A vast subject. Of nurse plants, allopathy and inter-species plant communication? Of my paper cabbages and kings. (to music). ♦

Personal Names

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Bruce Bayer

Names of persons commemorated in Haworthia – and just what do those names mean? What motivated them? If you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours?

Browniana, dodsoniana, poellnitziana, resendeana, revendetii, batesiana, gordoniana, schuldteana, uitwaaliana, ryderiana, hammeri, bayeri, comptoniana, rycroftiana, rossouwii, geraldii, breueri, wimii, devriesii, davidii, cummingii, mortonii, bobii, groenewaldii, jakubii, marxii, joubertii, morrisiae, kingiana, longii, emelyae, zantneriana, fergusoniae, vlokii, bruynsii, tauteae, armstrongii, woolleyi, lateganae, eliseae, esterhuysenii, otzenii, koelmaniorum, marumiana, vincentii, dekenahii, beukmanii, fouchei, venteri, herrei, mcclarenii, meiringii, hurlingii, paynei, triebneriana, maraisii, scottii, joleneae, blackburniae, leightoniae, batteniae, stayneri, andriesii.

I am sure many more. How many of the collectors among them had permits or any sort of credentials modern times may demand, for the plants they collected and distributed (sometimes widely). In G.G.Smith’s time there were a hoard of collectors sending material from all over the country and even the world.

More personal names…walmsleyi, helmiae, engleri, hilliana, oertendalii, whitesloaneana, taylori, luisieri, tisleyi, stephaniana, palhiniae, starkiana, schoemanii, smitii, skinneri, bijliana, schmidtiana, rodinii, archibalbii, dielsiana, pearsonii, peacockii, nortieri, maughanii, lockwoodii, marlothiana, kraussi, krausiana, jonesiae, jacobseniana, haageana, greenii, carrissoi, chalwinii, beanii, baylissii, britteniae, o’donoghueana, archeri.

There are somewhere near 100 names, presumably these were all names for plants of some degree of interest. So we ask now the awkward question of conservation ex situ. Just how many of those names are still with us today and attached to a propagule of the originals. Oh come now! I worked for 18 years in a botanic garden dedicated to conservation, preservation and maintaining some sort of reference collection. Just to maintain the genetic diversity of say a group of 3 plants ex field is a monumental task. Within single figure years, the diversity is down to that of one clone no matter how hard or conscientiously the matter is pursued. ♦

Haworthia Updates

Thoughts and observations on Haworthia

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