The Cape Flats Erica (Erica verticillata) – this is one of the original plants that wewre found in a garden in Austria.

Many people now know the story of this erica species that was only found in the southern suburbs of the Cape Flats and was exterminated by the 1950’s. It was thought to be extinct, but five individual plants were located around the world in gardens; in Pretoria, Kirstenbosch, England and Austria (two plants). The latter plants were taken from the Cape sometime in the 1790’s and were returned to the Cape in early 2000’s, having been out of Africa for over 200 years.

In 1997 Anthony Hitchcock (of Kirstenbosch) and myself (Dalton) planted over a hundred cuttings of these five plants on the “Erica field” which is found in Rondevlei at the northern end of Peninsula Rd (opposite the Peninsula Superette). This particular species has been classified internationally by botanists as “Extinct in the Wild”; and although plants had been established in the wild, it would take three generations until they can be removed from the extinct list.

These plants need fire to propagate and since the planted population had passed maturity, the need to put a fire through them arose; in March 2013 a large section of it was deliberately burnt. The adult plants died, as they are designed to do; but no new seedling plants were found during all of last year and it was feared that the adult plants had failed to produce seed and the preceeding 15 years had been in vain.

This has not been the case and today I located at least nine tiny seedlings that are the first generation of this species to come up after the fire and take the first step on the road towards the return of this species from the extinction list and to its natural habitat on the Cape Flats.

 Young Erica verticillata seedling with the old dead adult plant in the background.

 Young Erica verticllata (Cape Flats Erica) having germinated after last year’s fire; the first of its kind to have germinated in the wild in over 60 years.

My daughter pointing out the young seedling; behind her is the old skeleton of an adult plant that died during the 2013 fire.