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Silverglen Nature Reserve
Silverglen Nature Reserve is a 460 hectare conservancy on the Umlaas River located aside the suburb of Silverglen, Chatsworth, KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The reserve is the largest piece of coastal grassland and bush clump mosaic in Greater Durban, and is home to the first medicinal plant nursery in Africa, established in 1986. Plants and Animals Silverglen Nature Reserve has the highest number of tree and bird species of any of the nature reserves in Durban. Over 280 grassland plant species, and over 35 grass species are naturally occurring in the reserve. Of the 120 tree species in the reserve, notable specimens include the forest milkberry, red beech, forest bushwillow and the silver oak. The reserve attracts a number of bird species, including the Narina trogon, green malkoha, and Burchell's coucal. Crime and Land Invasions The nature reserve was closed to the public during the 1990s due to violent crime, but was reopened in 2017. In 2018, residents fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is located in the southeast of the country, with a long shoreline on the Indian Ocean and sharing borders with three other provinces and the countries of Mozambique, Eswatini and Lesotho. Its capital is Pietermaritzburg, and its largest city is Durban. It is the second-most populous province in South Africa, with slightly fewer residents than Gauteng. Two areas in KwaZulu-Natal have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park. These areas are extremely scenic as well as important to the surrounding ecosystems. During the 1830s and early 1840s, the northern part of what is now KwaZulu-Natal was established as the Zulu Kingdom while the southern part was, briefly, the Boer Natalia Repu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chatsworth, KwaZulu-Natal
Chatsworth is a large township (South Africa), township in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa established in the 1950s to segregate the South African Indians, Indian population and create a buffer between the white suburbs of Durban to the north and the black townships of Durban to the south. Located in the Southern Durban basin and roughly bordered by the Umhlatuzana River in the North and Umlaas River in the south, the suburb is made up mainly of Indian/Asian and Black African people. History In the 1940s, the Pegging Acts and the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act, 1946 were passed. These acts gave the government the right to remove and destroy shacks and small self-made shelters, with the putative intention of improving sanitary conditions. This led to the Group Areas Act of June 1950 being enforced directly by the Government, in which certain residential areas were designated for Whites, Indians, Coloureds, and Blacks only. Indians were removed from areas such as Mayvi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EThekwini Municipality
eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality created in 2000, that includes the city of Durban, South Africa and surrounding towns. eThekwini is one of the 11 districts of KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The majority of its 3,442,361 people speak Zulu. It was formed from seven formerly independent local councils and tribal land. Etymology In an 1859 Zulu grammar book, Bishop Colenso asserted that the root word ' means "bay of the sea" taken from the Thabethe tribes clan name Mtheku which were the leaders of the Nguni people. Furthermore the original local inhabitants and noted that the locative form, ', was used as a proper name for Durban. An 1895 English-Zulu dictionary translates the base word ' as "bay", "creek", "gulf" or "sinus", while a 1905 Zulu-English dictionary notes that ' is used for Durban. Geography eThekwini is surrounded by: * iLembe (DC29) to the north * the Indian Ocean to the east * Ugu (DC21) to the south * Umgungundlov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protected Area
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the enabling laws of each country or the regulations of the international organizations involved. Generally speaking though, protected areas are understood to be those in which human presence or at least the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewood, non-timber forest products, water, ...) is limited. The term "protected area" also includes marine protected areas, the boundaries of which will include some area of ocean, and transboundary protected areas that overlap multiple countries which remove the borders inside the area for conservation and economic purposes. There are over 161,000 protected areas in the world (as of October 2010) with more added daily, representing between 10 and 15 percent of the world's land surface area. As of 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umlaas River
Umlazi is a township in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, located south-west of Durban. Organisationally and administratively it forms part of the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality and its South Municipal Planning Region. It is the fourth largest township in South Africa, after Soweto, Tembisa and Katlehong. Umlazi is the only township in the country that has its own registration plate, which is NUZ. It is divided into 26 sections, A through to Z, with the exception of I, O and X, but with an addition of AA, BB and CC. Etymology According to legend, the name Umlazi comes from "umlaza", the Zulu word for the sour acid produced from fermented or sour milk. It is believed that when King Shaka was passing through the area, he refused to drink from a local river claiming it had the taste of "umlaza". The area was called Umlazi after this incident. Geography Umlazi is situated on a series of undulating hills at an average elevation of 101 metres above sea level between the uM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EThekwini Metropolitan Municipality
eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality created in 2000, that includes the city of Durban, South Africa and surrounding towns. eThekwini is one of the 11 districts of KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The majority of its 3,442,361 people speak Zulu. It was formed from seven formerly independent local councils and tribal land. Etymology In an 1859 Zulu grammar book, Bishop Colenso asserted that the root word ' means "bay of the sea" taken from the Thabethe tribes clan name Mtheku which were the leaders of the Nguni people. Furthermore the original local inhabitants and noted that the locative form, ', was used as a proper name for Durban. An 1895 English-Zulu dictionary translates the base word ' as "bay", "creek", "gulf" or "sinus", while a 1905 Zulu-English dictionary notes that ' is used for Durban. Geography eThekwini is surrounded by: * iLembe (DC29) to the north * the Indian Ocean to the east * Ugu (DC21) to the south * Umgungundlo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medicinal Plants
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection against insects, fungi, diseases, and herbivorous mammals. The earliest historical records of herbs are found from the Sumerian civilization, where hundreds of medicinal plants including opium are listed on clay tablets, c. 3000 BC. The Ebers Papyrus from ancient Egypt, c. 1550 BC, describes over 850 plant medicines. The Greek physician Dioscorides, who worked in the Roman army, documented over 1000 recipes for medicines using over 600 medicinal plants in ''De materia medica'', c. 60 AD; this formed the basis of pharmacopoeias for some 1500 years. Drug research sometimes makes use of ethnobotany to search for pharmacologically active substances, and this approach has yielded hundreds of useful compounds. These include the common drugs asp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Beech
Red beech is a common name applied to several species of trees: *'' Dillenia alata'', native to Northern Australia and New Guinea *'' Fuscospora fusca'', native to New Zealand *'' Protorhus longifolia'', native to South Africa {{Plant common name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combretum Kraussii
''Combretum kraussii'', the forest bushwillow, is a medium-sized to large tree of eastern South Africa, Eswatini and southern Mozambique, which is found within, or in the vicinity of forests. The specific name commemorates Dr. F. Krauss who undertook a collecting trip to South Africa from 1838 to 1840. Description The trees are semi-deciduous, as spring leaves only partially replace old foliage. These forest trees become conspicuous in late spring, when the fresh leaves turn to a pale, almost white colour, before returning to green by mid-summer. In winter the foliage turns partially red or purple, which is shed just before flowering starts. The fresh clusters of four-winged fruit are a colourful red or yellowy red colour, before they dry to mid-brown. Biochemical Combretastatin B-1, a type of stilbenoid Stilbenoids are hydroxylated derivatives of stilbene. They have a C6–C2–C6 structure. In biochemical terms, they belong to the family of phenylpropanoids and share most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grevillea Robusta
''Grevillea robusta'', commonly known as the southern silky oak, silk oak or silky oak, silver oak or Australian silver oak, is a flowering plant in the family Proteaceae. It is a tree, the largest species in its genus but is not closely related to the true oaks, ''Quercus''. It is a native of eastern coastal Australia, growing in riverine, subtropical and dry rainforest environments. Description ''Grevillea robusta'' is a fast-growing evergreen tree with a single main trunk, growing to tall. The bark is dark grey and furrowed. Its leaves are fern-like, long, wide and divided with between 11 and 31 main lobes. Each lobe is sometimes further divided into as many as four, each one linear to narrow triangular in shape. It loses many of its leaves just before flowering. The flowers are arranged in one-sided, "toothbrush"-like groups, sometimes branched, long. The carpel (the female part) of each flower has a stalk long. The flowers are glabrous and mostly yellowish orange, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Narina Trogon
__NOTOC__ The Narina trogon (''Apaloderma narina'') is a largely green and red, medium-sized (32–34 cm long), bird of the family Trogonidae. It is native to forests and woodlands of the Afrotropics. Though it is the most widespread and catholic in habitat choice of the three ''Apaloderma'' species, their numbers are locally depleted due to deforestation. Some populations are sedentary while others undertake regular movements. The species name commemorates Narina, mistress of French ornithologist François Levaillant, whose name he derived from a Khoikhoi word for "flower", as her given name was difficult to pronounce. Description left, 160px, It is sexually dimorphic, with males more brightly coloured. Both sexes have vivid, gingery green upperpart plumage. The tail feathers have a metallic blue-green gloss. The outer three rectices on each side are tipped and fringed white, giving the undertail of perched birds a characteristic white appearance (compare bar-tailed trog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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