Dear All, Rachel Saunders will join us one of these days, but will be out and about for awhile so may wait until she is more stable. But she said I could post this weather/travel report from South Africa: "We went off to the Ceres Karoo for a day last week. The mountains were covered with snow from head to toe, and it was a beautiful cold blue sky day. We left at 6.30am in the icy cold, and by about 10am we were in the Karoo. We were looking for Tritonia florentinae which Andries told us was flowering, and we found it in sheets. The plants are about 5 - 10cm high with large bright yellow flowers - really worth finding. They only seem to grow in a few patches , but were in thousands in those patches. There were also Lachenalia obscura (pretty obscure it is!) and a Massonia with white flowers in flower. On the way home we found some Veltheimia capensis in very green seed. We finally got home after 7pm, so it was a long day, but very nice. The cold weather has spread to the Eastern Cape, and most areas are completely snowed in. There is a meter of snow in many towns, and we are not equipped to cope with those conditions, so we don't have things like snow ploughs, etc. It is pouring with rain today again, and all our mountains are covered with snow. The heaviest snow falls for over 70 years. The top of the Drakensberg and Lesotho have meter deep snow and many people are stranded in cars and on roads that are blocked. This cold front won't help either. But the rain is good for the flowers so let it fall!"