Recording Plant Life for Posterity
Back in November 2001, the Zandvlei Inventory and Monitoring Programme (ZIMP) was initiated. A group of volunteers was assembled under the leadership of Professor Tim Hoffman. They learnt the basics of plant identification and received a permit to pick plants when necessary. They visited the Bolus Herbarium at the University of Cape Town and devised a method to record their findings including learning how to press plants properly.
In time a Herbarium for the Zandvlei Reserve was mooted, with two steel cabinets donated by Rotary for this. In July 2011 the Herbarium was placed at the Education Centre at the Zandvlei Reserve offices in Coniston Park. One cabinet holds all the monocotyledon specimens and the other has the dicotolyledons. There are also lists of all the plants found, their Family, Genus, Species and common names and advice on using the facility. More than 500 plants have been recorded (mostly endemic to the area but including those that have been introduced).
Currently our Herbarium is under lock and key, while the City vacillates around the various issues of building a new education centre – somewhere – to replace the inadequate facilities at the old Coniston Park complex. (For the record, in 2024 developments elsewhere in the provincial administration derailed the City’s well-advanced plans for the construction of a new super-modern centre so new options had to be considered.)
Our efforts to curate natural fauna are only possible with your support. Help us continue this vital work.