-----Original Message----- From: Crawford Neil Sent: den 26 mars 2007 13:30 To: 'pbs@lists.ibiblio.org' Subject: New member and questions about Eastern Cape Hi all, First I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a Swedish plant lover, married to Ragnhild who loves botany. We have a big garden full of plants, unfortunately we don't have time to look after it properly, plenty of bulbs and geophytes, although I'm afraid nothing very special. We have Leucojum vernum beginning to flower now, later on we have some nice cypripediums, but I don't think they count here, hepatica is another doubtful sort that we have. Other bulbs we have are Hemerocallis, various Irises, and the usual Narcissus,crocus and colchium. Our pacific bulbs are mostly limited to the ones we see on holiday trips, which is really why I'm writing. We had a wonderful holiday on the Western Cape last September, we visited Darling, the West coast NP,then the Bokkeveld plateau, Glenlyon, Papkuilsfontein and Matjesfontein, after that we did Kirstenbosch, Red Hill and the Cape of Good Hope NP. Next stop was the Overberg at Napier, where we visited DeHoop, and Stephen Smuts a local botanist showed us lots of plants. Finally we drove back to Cape Town via Hottentots-Holland where we saw more plants, which Mary-Sue, Cameron and Rhoda have helped us to identify (that was when I found the pbs-list) To top all this we went to Kruger and saw the big five. We really want to do it again, but this time we'd like to go during Febrary, because that's a dismal time in Sweden, and I've heard (from Camerons site) that the summer rainfall flora is good on the Eastern Cape. So we've been planning a trip from Cape Town, through the Overberg again, so we can stay with Stephen, then Wilderness NP or Knysna, stay some time at St. Francis bay (near Port Elizabeth) and then perhaps do a trip up to the Somerset East, Hogsback, Cathcart sort of area. Wainek flower preserve and Barrydale, are places I've read about. We did think of going with Cameron, but I think it's too advanced for us, we want to relax, and even common plants in South Africa, are marvellous to us, so we don't need to hunt for rare plants. We've been reading Tony Avents trip report with Cameron, which has been very helpful, we'd like to do a sort of "light" version of it. What I'd like help with, is what we mustn't miss on a trip from the Cape to Port Elizabeth? We haven't booked anything yet, so if anyone knows a good plant site along the way, or on the Cape, I'd love to hear, I hope this is a suitable subject for the list, as I know many of you do trips to SA to see geophytes. Best regards Neil Crawford