That's a caterpillar we found in an Erica bed near our garden at Kirstenbosch.
We've been in Capetown since Tuesday. Cindi, Carl, and everyone else showed up that night. Mark left for the U.S. a little before they arrived. On Wednesday we went to the gardens and chatted with Andrew, who was finishing up collections of leaf material for RNAseq. We also caught up with Tony Rebelo. We'll see him again at the Fynbos Forum this week.
On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, we collected data and leaf samples (for fresh weight, dry weight, area, and SLA). We have a few leaf samples drying in the oven, but other than that we're done here. We're going to spend 3-4 hours processing this morning, then we'll drive to Franschoek for the afternoon and a nice dinner.1
Tomorrow Jane, Nora, Christopher, and I drive about 8 hours to Cape St. Francis for the annual Fynbos Forum. It will be the first time I've managed to attend,many I'm really looking forward to it. If all goes well, I'll have a couple of reports on that meeting to post later this week.
We collected data from more than 700 individuals of Protea repens, but only about 65 Pelargonium scabrum. There were two reasons for the smaller sample from Pelargonium: (1) Seed collection began late, and germination and survival weren't as high as we had hoped. (2) Almost half of what had been collected as Pelargonium scabrum wasn't Pelargonium scabrum. Those plants were other members of section Pelargonium. We're not sure what we'll do with them yet, but Caroline will make new collections of Pelargonium scabrum, and I'm sure we'll find something interesting to do with the others.
1US taxpayers will not be paying for this dinner. I'm picking up the tab.
Location:Eksteen Ave,Cape Town,South Africa
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