GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - Two expert horticulturists from Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town were in Mossel Bay recently, 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.
Read more on sister publication, www.mosselbayadvertiser.com
Roger Oliver and Benjamin Festus. Photo: Sandra Falanga
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