Serruria aemula

After a long silence, here is another design : Serruria aemula, or the Strawberry Spider head. It had been a long time that i wanted to feature proteas since hundreds of different ones ornate the fynbos of our beautiful South Africa. Proteas are magnificent, every single one, when i come across one of them i immediately have this fantastic pattern unravelling in my head. During a visit in the Western Cape we stopped in the fynbos around Franschoek, Greg had to drag me back to the car. I had found yet another one i didn't know!

I chose this protea in particular because not only it is stunning, it is endangered.
Apparently there are only 1000 or so survivors.
The habitat of the plant has been dramatically reduced by farming and urbanization.Veldfire is extremely necessary to the life cycle of the plant (triggering the germination) but regular "man-made" fires have a negative effect since the plant has no chance to produce a significant store of seeds. And if it was not enough, the indigenous ants that carry their seeds underground are now in competition with another type of ants from Argentina. It seems immigration is never exempt of problems. By the way, after five month of waiting i finally have my visa! Yeah, i am legal here! No, i won't neglect the local flora, promise! I'll help with crochet-propagation!

Serruria Aemula

The necklace of the same name

 The necklace was sold as it was coming out of my workshop... I miss my Serruria.... i've started another one in the same vein!

Serruria on a rock

For more info go to :
http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantqrs/serruriaaemula.htm