Notices for Users of the Albums

1. New Albums and some changes

 

The latest Albums on genera of South African plants added to the Operation Wildflower Site are the ones on Cyrtanthus, Dicoma and Strumaria. This means that photos and stories of plants belonging to these genera already on the Site, together with some new ones, have been moved from the more general Albums called Bulbs and Herbs respectively into their own new Albums under Genera. 

 

There is a genus Album in every case where enough material has been accumulated to warrant a stand-alone grouping of photos and stories. There are now more than 220 such genera Albums. The biggest ones (most photos) belong to the genera Crassula, Euphorbia, Pelargonium, Aloe and Erica. Keep watching, more will be added. If there is no genus Album yet on the plant you are looking for, check under Types, the grouping that the Site was started off with, accessible via the pictured items shown on the right. The Search Box may yield more, for plants and related material are also shown in Albums on Habitat, Regions and Parks and Gardens.

 

In order to access items on a plant of interest, enter its botanical name in the Search Box. Entering other words or names will access what is contained in the Albums database. The latest Regions Album is the one on Nature's Valley and the latest Parks and Gardens Album is on Tietiesbaai also known as the Cape Columbine Nature Reserve.

 

2. Want to talk about a plant or an Album item?

 

There is a new way of communicating with the Editor of this Site regarding any of the Album Items.
Comments, questions, corrections, information and suggestions can be put to the Editor by using the following email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

Please ensure that the Album Item concerned is clearly identified. Type its exact title as well as the Album Name in the Subject Line of your email. Please also state your name.

 

Similarly, communication regarding the functioning or technical aspects of the Site can be directed to the Webmaster at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

3. Reduced Mobile Site for Cell Phone Users

 

Operation Wildflower now also offers a reduced Mobile Site for cell phone use that only presents the Albums contents. This is aimed at overcoming display difficulties on some of the mobile devices in use for quick reference. The reduction found in the Mobile Site doesn't affect the full set of photos and stories of Operation Wildflower, only in diminishing the Site's secondary details that may make it hard to access the items on a small screen.

 

It is best to use the normal or full Operation Wildflower Site on computers, iPads and devices with bigger screens, as well as those that present unimpaired display of full details and access to all material on offer.

 

Should viewing difficulties be experienced on your device, click here to access the Mobile Site.

 

4. Subject Index

 

A Subject Index of a selection of topics touched on in Album Item text has been started, other than plant species. Access it via Information.

 

The Album Item Title should be clicked upon to open the Item dealing with the Topic.

 

Check in the Search Box for yet more subjects not added to the Subject Index list yet.

 

The Father of South African Amateur Botany

In April 1624 a 37 year old Dutch doctor and minister of religion from Leiden, Justus van Heurne, landed at the Cape when the sailing ship, the Gouda that he was travelling on to Batavia, stopped briefly for replenishing their supplies.  How many days they stayed is not known.  How far away from the beach he and his travelling companions ventured to look around, to exercise their tortured limbs after months at sea or to collect things of interest, we also do not know.  There were dangers, including lions, snakes and the unknown lurking in the dense bushes!   It was 28 years before the first Dutch settlement would be started at the Cape of Storms, later Good Hope.

But in the time available Justus walked far enough, probably on Table Mountain, to collect samples of plant material from ten species that interested him; things he had never seen.  He proceeded to describe and draw them adequately for us to know today what he had collected!  They were (although in his day the names we use now did not even exist yet):

Centella villosa
Cotyledon orbiculata
Haemanthus coccineus
Kniphofia uvaria
Manulea rubra
Micranthus tubulosus
Myrica serrata
Oxalis purpura var. alba
Oxalis versicolor
Stapelia variegata 

His notes, sketches and who knows, maybe even his plant material samples were sent to his brother, Ottho in Holland, who passed them on to Johannes Bodaeus van Stapel, who was at the time writing a book about the botanical work of Theophrastus, the famous Greek student of Aristotle who is regarded as the father of all botanical writing and studies in the civilized world ever! 
 
Well, poor van Stapel, or Stapelius, to use the Latin form of his name as was common at the time (both van Heurne and Stapelius wrote in Latin), died before he could finish his book.  Van Stapel’s father, however, completed and published this book (Theophrastii eresii de historia plantarum) in commemoration of his son and included four pages on the contribution received from van Heurne.

Justus never became as illustrious as his father, Johannes van Heurne, who was the first professor of medicine at Leiden University, was the personal physician to Prince William of Orange and repeatedly honoured as Rector Magnificus by the University.  Brother Ottho succeeded his father as professor of medicine and also wrote a notable book on the history of theological philosophy.
 
In the meantime Justus had proceeded to Batavia where he worked as a missionary for over 14 years under four successive, mainly hostile Dutch governors, the most notable being Jan Pieterszoon Coen.  Another of them, Governor Specx, even banished van Heurne to India for nearly a year in 1632, for criticism of governance practices from the pulpit.  The local Batavian rajahs were as hostile towards him, probably for the influence of his religious teachings.  In 1635 he was invited to a banquet where his food was poisoned and he suffered severely for over a year. 

On the positive side he managed to translate parts of the Bible into Malay after making a dictionary for the language he found there.  He also translated some theological material into a form of Chinese. He returned to Holland in 1638 to continue his church work in the parish of Wijk bei Durstede and received honours from the Chamber of Amsterdam for his work in the East.  He left a publication on missionary work and lived to 1652, or the year after, without ever having married.  A thesis on his religious work was written by J.R. Callenbach at the University of Utrecht in 1897.

Van Heurne was surely an amateur in the botanical field, making his career in theology (and originally medicine, which he gave up after two of his sisters died of the plague in 1604).  Would he be surprised to find that his primary life work and main struggle for what he believed in have centuries later become secondary to his name being associated with an admired genus of succulents?

Unbeknown at the time, he definitely rose to the occasion as a noted amateur botanist during his one brief but memorable visit to the Cape centuries ago.   The genus Huernia is named after him, albeit through incorrect spelling (transposing the second and third letters of his surname) by the first botanist to record the plants in 1809, Robert Brown, when he wrote the original and officially recognized description of Stapelia as four genera.  Today the conventions of nomenclature still prescribe adherence to this incorrect spelling!  Van Stapel is, of course, also remembered in the Stapeliaceae.  
 
The contribution of Justus van Heurne to Cape of Good Hope botany was years later praised in Flora Capensis (1759) by Carl Linnaeus, who laid the foundations of our global botanical nomenclature.   The question has been asked whether Linnaeus should have used van Heurne's name and not van Stapel's in naming the entire genus of Stapelia?

The indigenous gardeners in South Africa may well look upon Justus van Heurne as the founder of a great plant interest movement, comprising scientists, business people, gardeners, students and plant lovers that form a network of people sharing the need to care for our plants on a sustainable basis.  For how far would Justus have to walk from the Waterfront in Cape Town today before he would be able to collect samples of the same ten plants he found in 1624?


[Some of the information obtained from:  Gunn, M. and Codd, L.E. (1981)  Botanical Exploration of Southern Africa, Balkema, Cape Town

White, A. and Sloane, B.L. (1937) The Stapelieae (Vol III, Second Edition), Abbey San Encino, California]

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