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Dermatobotrys saundersii; Dermatobotrys Article by Geoff Nichols
Late winter with the days starting to lengthen again brings
this plant out of its dormancy to flower before the leaves are fully grown
to their maximum size.
This is one of our more interesting plants in that it belongs to the snapdragon
family and its first cousin twice removed is the familiar Tree Fuchsia –
Halleria lucida. It is also one of our rare plants that is confined to living
as an epiphyte in the canopy of our coastal forests from the Transkei up
into the localised forests of KwaZulu-Natal like Ngoye, Nkandla, Qudeni,
Ngome and Gwalaweni.
This plant hitches a ride in the support trees and is not a parasite. An
interesting phenomenon is that Dermatobotrys is a common sight growing in
the old leaf bases of the Pondo Palm or Coconut – Jubaeopsis caffra colonies
in two localities in the Transkei. These palms only occur in these two rivers
in the whole wide world.
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This plant
is always settled in a fork of some forest giant. It is usually in fairly
high sunlight and will always flower best in full sun.
Dermatobotrys forms a multistemmed herb of about 600mm tall. The leaves
are broad and have a darkish purple red tinge to them. This red colouring
helps to trap light and reflect it back through the leaf to make maximum
use of any light striking the leaf.
The tubular flowers are a lovely red crimson colour that encircle the top
of each stem just below the rosette of leaves.
The fruits are produced in a few months and are ready to be eaten by monkeys,
hornbills and birds in spring and early summer ensuring that the fine seeds
within, many hundreds of seeds per fruit, are produced and ready to germinate
in the next leaf litter lined tree fork at the height of the rainy season.
Like many of the family Scrophulariaceae the seed capsules and even the leaves
when rubbed have a pungent smell. I presume the chemicals involved help to
keep browsers at bay. Although the fruits are eaten by forest birds which
seem not to mind this acrid taste.
To propagate this species is a cinch, it grows from cuttings in summer and
seed when they are ripe. Fruits are relatively large and spinning top-shaped
about 25mm long by about 20mm in diameter at their widest. The fruits have
a bitter pungent smell and taste. Just sow the seeds in seedling mix and watch
them grow like the proverbial hairs on a dog’s back.
The seedlings will flower in about their second year but this is where life
gets a bit more tricky. Treat this plant as an epiphyte make a loose well
drained soil mix with plenty of leaf litter or compost. Keep the plant off
the ground I find that eelworm will kill a plant in a conventional pot so
hang the pot or hanging basket above the ground or growing benches to prevent
these pests from getting at the roots. The roots are thickened and not quite
succulent but they do store nutrients and water to kick start the flowering
and then growth in late winter.
Dry the plant off completely in winter and let it rest. Your reward will
be a mass of flowers just before the new leaves appear.
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