There's always something

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During a recent trip to the Mountain Zebra Park in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, I spent a lot of time driving around. In fact, over three days, I drove every kilometre of the roads in the park. If game viewing is the reason for your visit to a park, you might want to choose the Kruger Park where there are substantially more animals and a greater variety. While the Mountain Zebra brochure lists a diverse range of animals, you’ll be more than lucky to spot lion, cheetah or brown hyena, for example. Someone did because they put a picture in the brochure. Unfortunately, I’m not the lucky kind.

But there’s always something to see in Mountain Zebra Park, other than zebra, that is. For example, the scenery is spectacular and boasts roads that wind you up steep hills (okay, mountains) to provide a wide angle view of the plains and valleys below. There’s something peaceful about sitting on a mountain and looking down. It calms the soul. And there’s other stuff to see as well.

To the observant, the park reveals a variety of plants and flowers to catch the eye – as did the one pictured above. When I showed it to Mrs Google, her response was, ‘an aquarelle sketch of iris flowers on old parchment poster.’ I was flattered and didn’t tell her that it was a photograph processed in Photoshop to appear as a watercolour sketch and I don’t possess anything resembling parchment paper. I mean, you don’t correct Mrs Google in case she sends you a nasty virus or error message, just out of spite.

iNaturalist, however, being less arty and more down to earth, suggested it is a Karoo Tulp or Iris (moraea polystachya), a member of the iridaceae family, believe it or not. I believe it because my mate agrees with them – although I won’t mention his name in case he’s wrong and he starts getting hate mail from irrational phytophiles. Sadly, farmers hate the plant because it’s deadly toxic to livestock.

To me, it is simply a lovely purple flower and when I saw it, my immediate reaction was, ‘that will make a super watercolour pic.’

I think I’m right and any floraphile will agree with me.