''Protea dracomontana'', the Nyanga protea or the Drakensberg sugarbush, is a flowering plant that belongs within the genus ''

Protea ''Protea'' () is a genus of South African flowering plants, also called sugarbushes (Afrikaans: ''suikerbos''). Etymology The genus ''Protea'' was named in 1735 by Carl Linnaeus, possibly after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his form a ...

''. The plant is found in the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

Lesotho Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked country, landlocked as an Enclave and exclave, enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the Thabana Ntlenyana, highest mountains in Sou ...

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 locate ...

and the

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''escar ...

of the Free State, as well as eastern

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

. In Zimbabwe this species is only known from a disjunct subpopulation confined to the summit of

Mount Nyangani Mount Nyangani (formerly Mount Inyangani) is the highest mountain in Zimbabwe at . The mountain is located within Nyanga National Park in Nyanga District, about northwest of Mutare. The summit lies atop a small outcrop of rock around above the s ...

. Another

vernacular name A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

for this plant is Drakensberg dwarf sugarbush. In

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

it is known as the ''Drakensbergse dwergsuikerbos''.

Taxonomy

This species was first described by

John Stanley Beard John Stanley Beard (15 February 1916 – 17 February 2011) was a British-born forester and ecologist who resided in Australia. Beard studied at the University of Oxford where he completed his doctoral thesis on tropical forestry. While working ...

in 1958, from a specimen, the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

, which he had collected on Mount Nyangani, Zimbabwe. ''Protea inyanganiensis'' is an (illegitimate)

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

for the Zimbabwe population created by Beard in 1993.

Description

It is a

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

which has numerous stems and grows up to 1.5 metres high, often less. The plant blooms mainly from January to March. This species is

monoecious Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. Monoecy is conne ...

with both sexes in each flower. The flowers are grouped together in a tight-packed

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

('flower-head'), surrounded by petal-looking bracts, which is 6–9 cm in diameter, and is coloured creamy-white, often tinged with pink at the tips of the innermost bracts and the flowers. The stems are reddish-brown to grey,

glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin ''glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

and smooth to the touch. It is extremely similar to ''Protea caffra'' subsp. ''gazensis'' in Zimbabwe, which occurs contemptuously at lower altitudes than ''P. dracomontana'', and ''P. caffra'' subsp. ''caffra'' in South Africa, for which the same applies. It is primarily distinguished from these

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

by having shorter inflorescences and a short, squat, bushy habitus. Rourke (1980) states possible hybrids between the two may exist.

Ecology

This species can re-sprout again after

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...

s from a bole-shaped rootstock, although it seems to need some protection from wildfires and is always found growing among rocks.

Pollination Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds, most often by an animal or by wind. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, birds ...

occurs through the action of birds and insects. The seed is not stored on the plant, is released nine to twelve months after the flowers are formed, and is dispersed by action of the wind. The plant grows in

alpine grassland Montane grasslands and shrublands is a biome defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The biome includes high elevation grasslands and shrublands around the world. The term "montane" in the name of the biome refers to "high elevation", rather than th ...

s and among rocks at heights of 1,600 m to 2,200 metres in South Africa, and peaty tussock grassland at 2,300 to 2,400 metres altitude, perhaps higher, at the summit of a single mountain in Zimbabwe.

Conservation

It is not in danger of

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

. It has declined somewhat in the

Drakensberg The Drakensberg (Afrikaans: Drakensberge, Zulu: uKhahlambha, Sotho: Maluti) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau. The Great Escarpment reaches its greatest elevation – within th ...

foothills due to

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

caused by agriculture,

timber plantations A tree plantation, forest plantation, plantation forest, timber plantation or tree farm is a forest planted for high volume production of wood, usually by planting one type of tree as a monoculture forest. The term ''tree farm'' also is used to ...

and expanding rural settlements. It may be locally extinct in Lesotho. Nonetheless, it is widespread and common in the Drakensberg Mountains of KwaZulu-Natal and adjacent areas in the Free State Province. It is rare in Zimbabwe.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18078973 dracomontana Flora of Zimbabwe Flora of South Africa Flora of Lesotho Flora of KwaZulu-Natal