When flames race across the mountains consuming everything in their path
and leaving a smoking blackened landscape of devastation behind,
it is hard to imagine the robust regrowth waiting in the wings.

Two weeks almost to the day comes the Fire Lily, Cyrtanthus ventricosus,
which blooms scarlet and beautiful for a short period before wilting away
to sleep another ten years or more. Ten years is given by the experts as
the minimum acceptable time period between veld fires. That way some good
is achieved in refreshing the fynbos by burning senescent bush and species
have a chance to reseed in time.

During the three years following a burn , "fire ephemerals" , flora which
flower after fire or disturbance, sheet the mountain slopes with carpets of
colour. Small special orchids, bulbous plants of every description, pink and
white watsonias, navy blue agapanthus and pale blue aristeas delight the eye.
The slopes turn green with resprouting restio plants, asparagaceae, some
proteaceae and grasses, while seeds from protea and everlasting bushes, as
well as erica and other, bury themselves happily in the nutrientfull ash
and sprout when the first rain arrives.

The most devastating veld fires in the Hermanus area in recent years were
in 1986, 1996 and 2001. Below are some of the fire ephemerals seen on the
mountain slopes of Fernkloof.