Urgent quest to rescue rare plant

MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Two expert horticulturists from Kirsten-bosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town were in Mossel Bay last week on a field trip to assess how to save vulnerable plants in town.

One of these, critically endangered, is a buchu species, Diosma aristata, which occurs nowhere else in the world but in Mossel Bay.

This species of buchu does not have any recorded medicinal uses.

The horticulturists, Roger Oliver and Benjamin Festus, took samples of this buchu to cultivate at Kirstenbosch.

Mission

They were in town on a fact-finding mission to establish what the status quo is with the buchu and other endangered plants.

The buchu grows in two areas of the suburb of Heiderand. One of these areas has been earmarked for development, a great concern to environmentalists.

Mossel Bay resident Sandra Falanga, a member of the Botanical Society of South Africa and the Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wild Flowers (CREW), says: "Diosma aristata faces threats such as urban expansion, habitat destruction and alien invasive plants."

Oliver is a specialist in devising cultivation and growth strategies for buchus and the geranium family and Festus, for heaths or Ericas.

In Mossel Bay, Falanga and municipal assistant conservation officer Rudi Minnie joined the two horticulturists for their field work.

Driving rain

The group had to work between bouts of driving rain and wind last week.

After the visit to Mossel Bay, the horticulturists went to the Garden Route Botanical Garden in George.

Part of the horticulturists' mission was to forge ties with locals to ensure future collaboration in conserving plants and to establish a "way forward" to preserve Garden Route flora.

The South African National Biodiversity Instutute (SANBI), under which botanical gardens fall, has tasked its horticulturists with conducting field trips such as last week's one, to assess how best to preserve endangered plants.

Falanga says: "On the Garden Route, there is a a lack of awareness and also irreverence regarding the amazing biodiversity of indigenous vegetation. It's to do with large numbers of new residents not familiar with Garden Route ecosystems.

Dire need

"A dire need is the availability of appropriate, locally indigenous and genetically-the-same plants for people to grow around their homes. This needs urgent action.

"One hopes cultivation and the availability of suitable local, indigenous plants will be the positive spin-offs of the new collaboration between the Garden Route conservationists and SANBI specialists."

Rudi Minnie standing in the original fynbos in which the rare buchu is found.