After the flames

"Like walking through a sepia photograph" as my sister Vanesa described it, there is so much beauty in the wake of the fire. Although our beloved mountain is looking, and feeling, extremely stark and devastated, life wastes no time in showing itself. Within hours of the flames passing, Leaucadendron seeds lie pooled around the tree trunks, having waited many years for fire-heat to trigger their cones to open, while charred-tipped Watsonia leaves show the first flashes of green. Fire lilies (Crytanthus ventricosus) and blood flowers (Haemanthus coccineus), which will only be seen after a fire, push their way through the ash a few days after the fire. It is still eerily quiet, and what little bird song there is, seems somehow subdued. Lizards sun themselves on rocks, a tiny fieldmouse nibbles on a precious seed, probably stored underground by indigenous ants, and spiders spin new webs between the remains of charred branches. Mimetes bushes show a hint of protected green at the center of their bracts, and cotyledons of as-yet unidentified plants carpet the banks of a stream. In the coming weeks and months the landscape is going to change dramatically! Exciting times...