Mimetes stokoei
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| E. Phillips & Hutch. |
Mimetes stokoei (English name: Mace Pagoda) is a rare species of the silver tree family(Proteaceae). This endemic to the Western Cape of South Africa was thought to be lost between 1967 and 2001.
description
Mimetes stokoei is an upright, twigless shrub that reaches heights of 2 meters. The opposite leaves are golden yellow in color.
Eight to ten individual flowers are grouped together in a pseudanthium . The oval bracts are colored silvery. The hermaphrodite flowers are pollinated by birds ( ornithophilia ). The yellow stylus are 50 to 65 millimeters long.
The seeds are spread by ants. In a fire, the plant dies and only the seeds survive.
Occurrence
Mimetes stokoei is endemic to the Western Cape of South Africa . It grows on sandy slopes in the highlands near the town of Kleinmond at altitudes between 560 and 600 meters.
Endangerment status
Mimetes stokoei was discovered by Thomas Pearson Stokoe in February 1922. However, he forgot the place where it was found until he rediscovered this plant species at a flower market in 1925 and the flower collector led him to the only known place in a highland forest above the town of Kleinmond on the Western Cape . Since then, only a few scientists have known about the habitat.
In the early 1960s, the South African botanist Marie Vogts wanted to use the habitat of Mimetes stokoei as an experimental garden for her sugar bushes ( Protea ). Since Vogts was not aware that Mimetes stokoei was present in the Kleinmond area, she let the original vegetation burn down and a surviving specimen of this species came to light, which died in 1967 due to a wind break.
After severe fires in the summer of 1999, 24 young plants of this species were rediscovered in the Kogelberg Nature Reserve in 2001 and bloomed for the first time in 2004. In 2007 two more colonies with six and three plants respectively were detected.
literature
- Andreas Julius Grams: Proteaceae. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8001-3869-7 .
- Peter Slingsby, Amida Johns: Redemption. The continuing story of Mimetes stokoei. In: Veld and Flora , Vol. 95, Issue 3, pp. 136-139, 2009 ISSN 0042-3203 .