My new love is shimmering and flirty

I have fallen in love. Again. This time my passion goes by the name of homoglossum priori. Yes, yes, I know, not very compelling. Neither is its popular name, rooi Afrikaner. That makes me think of Eugene Terreblanche’s nek.

I spotted my new love when Jan and I walked up to the Saddle earlier this week (see previous blog). It was icy and windy and yet here were these red-velvet pointy flowers swaying in the wind, smiling at the cold. Six-pointed scarlet stars.  The other day someone said there aren’t many flowers on the mountain in winter. Well, wherever they were walking, it wasn’t in this gold-green fynbos with its red beauties. Homoglossum priori is the flirty younger sister of the red disa – the one I fell in love with four months ago. My new love, h. priori,  wears a flimsy red dress and pointy shoes and dances in the wind.

So, today, armed with a new 100mm macro lens for my Canon 40D, I went back to the Saddle again. Today there were blue skies and full-on sunshine, but it was still icy up there in the teeth of a very cheeky southeaster. You could feel the Antarctic on its breath.

H. priori is not shy. She performed for the camera. Smiling, weaving, shimmering her velvety petals. Oh yes, I am in love. And here she is, in full glory.

And here, just because Table Mountain is one of the oldest mountains in the world, is a rock. A very old one. In the last light.