The town of Garies lies about 40km south of Kamieskroon along the Cape-Namibia route. As you enter the town you are greeted by a 'Welcome to Garies' sign, and beneath it the town's motto. It is a single word - Volharding - which in Afrikaans means perseverance. Volharding is the essential quality in this austere landscape, where life, both plant and human, clings to existence. Our work, governed by the environment and vagaries of the weather, also has its own peculiar frustrations that require perseverance. On Tuesday we struck out to find Gorteria populations along the Buffels river. And after three hours of jaw-jolting driving had only covered 30km before being forced to turn back empty-handed, lest we tore out the bottom of the car. On Wednesday a cold front brought rain and freezing temperatures - both of which pose a challenge. In hot weather Gorteria flowers open diurnally between 10am and 4pm but in cold weather the flowers do not open at all and the populations are harder to find and difficult to photograph. As luck would have it, it is now snowing which is a phenomenally rare event in this part of the world. Furthermore we need to extract DNA from the leaves we collect, and DNA is best preserved by rapid dessication of tissue in silica gel. Rain-soaked material is far from ideal. So it was I found myself in the local shop yesterday with a packet of sanitary towels in one hand and a roll of toilet paper in the other, wondering which would work best for drying Gorteria leaves in the field. I'll let you know.
