Meet the locals
Warwick sits where the Simonsberg meets its smaller outcrop, Klapmutskop. This mountainous area forms part of the Greater Simonsberg Conservancy, a partnership between local wine farms set up to protect the fynbos and renosterveld growing here.
Fynbos is the fine-leaved, highly fire-adapted vegetation unique to the Cape Floristic Region. It's the smallest of the world's six floral kingdoms and the only one found entirely within a single country. It holds close to 10 000 plant species, most of which grow nowhere else on Earth.
Each season, we collect a few cuttings from the Conservancy area, propagate them, and then plant them back all over the property. This amounts to thousands of baby plants every year. It's part of how Warwick stays farmed and wild at the same time. It's also part of why the WWF named Warwick a Conservation Champion.
Here are some of the species you can find on the farm:
Blue African Sage (Salvia africana)
Family: Lamiaceae (the mint/sage family)
Common names: Blue African sage, wild sage, blousalie, wildesalie
Description: A soft, grey-hairy shrub up to 2m with blue-and-white flowers that look like they're gaping open - because they are. Crush a leaf and you'll get a proper sage smell.
Conservation Status: Not threatened - this one's thriving.
Distribution and Habitat: Sandy fynbos slopes from Namaqualand down to the Cape Peninsula and Caledon.
Ecology: The flower is a mechanical trap for bees: a hinged "pedal" inside the bloom forces the anther down onto a bee's back as it reaches for nectar, stamping it with pollen. Pure engineering.
Uses and special features: Dutch settlers at the Cape used this as their sage substitute and brewed it into a cure-all tea for coughs, colds and stomach troubles - it was even shipped back to be grown in European physic gardens in the 1700s. Drought-resistant, fragrant, feeds honeybees.
Read more: https://pza.sanbi.org/salvia-africana
Lion’s Ear (Leonotis leonurus)
Family: Lamiaceae
Common names: Wild dagga, lion's ear, wildedagga
Description: A tall, architectural shrub (2–3m) with whorls of fuzzy orange flowers stacked up the stem like tiered candlesticks. The furry flower lip is what earns it "lion's ear."
Conservation Status: Least Concern - common and widespread.
Distribution and Habitat: Found right across South Africa, from rocky grassland to forest edges, sea level to almost 2000m.
Ecology: Sunbirds queue for the nectar, ants disperse the seeds (drawn by oil glands on the seed coat), and it's a larval food plant for the Bush Bronze butterfly.
Uses and special features: Despite the name, it's not cannabis - it's a legal, unrelated plant that's been smoked or brewed as a mild, non-narcotic substitute since colonial times, with reported effects ranging from mild light-headedness to nausea (drink the tea instead). Children traditionally suck the sweet nectar straight from the flowers. Attracts birds and butterflies, used medicinally for everything from snakebite to asthma.
Read more: https://pza.sanbi.org/leonotis-leonurus
