Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Travel / Places to Visit => Topic started by: FrazerHenderson on August 26, 2007, 02:15:15 PM
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Just getting around to sorting out photographs of a trip taken in March this year. New to digital photgraphy and light was very intense but hopefully the pictures should give you some idea of the environment and its plants.
The Haggeher Mnts rise to about 1600m predominantly of peralkaline granite. Pinnacles and steeper slopes lack soli and vegetation. In shallow areas there is red fertile soil from the eroded granite.
Pictures:
1.
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Apologies, posted entry, in error, before I had completed the text and attached the pictures!
1. Haggeher Mountains
2. Hypericum fierense
3. Trichodesma scotti
4. Dracaena cinnabari
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A couple more shots of the mountains on the island of Socotra (which is located in the Arabian Sea some 380 kms south of Yemen and 240 east of Somalia)
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Hope you've got some more of these photos, Frazer, I'm enjoying this!
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Really amazing, Frazer; so many endemic plants here. I second Maggi's request!
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I hadn't even heard of the existence of this mountain range ??? let alone the plants that grow there...
More please - always eager to learn.
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Wonderful Frazer - please show more!!!
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sorry about the very long link, but this referes to an RBGE publication about the area, which has around three hundred endemic species:
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:YyRmneq73icJ:www.rbge.org.uk/servlet/com.conceptinternet.editors.servlets.FileServer%3Ftype%3Dapplication/msword%26id%3D57%26d%3Drbge%26t%3Dpress_releases%26f%3Ddocument+Haggeher+Mountains&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk
and another long one:
http://web.mac.com/michael.scholl/iWeb/Michael%20Scholl/Blog/DF06D343-6377-4AE2-A437-1D60761CD57D.html
to the blog of a marine scientist who has made trips in the area... some great photos here, too.There are a whole series of these blogs relating to the area... worth having a search through them.
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A few more pictures from the Haggeher. I'm doing a short 10 minute talk "A walk in the Haggeher" at the Edinburgh SRGC Members' night on September 11 if you wish to see more.
1-4 Dracaena cinnabari
5 Boswellia dioscorides
6 Kalanchoe farinacea
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Some more on the slopes up Haggeher
1. Euphorbia arbuscula
2 Euphorbia arbuscula (in close up)
3 Dendrosicyos socotrana (only arborescent member of Curcucbitaceae - Socotran Cucumber Tree)
4 Exacum affine
5 Arthrocnemum macrostachyum (close to sea level)
6 Adenium obesum subsp. sokotranum (what a great, comical shape)
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Before you all get bored with this run of pictures here's soem shots of geology
1.Knife karst
2. pressured rock
3. pinnacles of Haggeher
4. Punica protopunica
5 and 6 Unknown beauty
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What an amazing world....
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The Adenium obesum subsp. sokotranum looks like a strange rodent
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Frazer,
Never bored by such exciting pictures made in regions which are so interesting floristically.
Nice to see the ' Blaue Lieschen ' ( Blue Lizzy - Exacum affine) in the wild.
I hope you will receive an identification for the ' unknown blue '.
Gerd
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Well thanks a million for this collection of amazing plants from a strange and wonderful place. I asked (in the blue thread if that little plant could be an "alpine" given its Indian Ocean location, but obviously, yes, it could. I love the Adenium, almost cuddly, though perhaps not if it's really a rodent :D
Many thanks Frazer
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Interesting that others see the comically conical Adenium obesum subsp. sokotranum as a rodent.. I see a sea lion with a lettuce in his mouth!
How were you able to visit this wonderful place, Frazer? Was it a work-related trip?
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Maggi
Just decided to go for a 2 week jaunt to Socotra followed by a further week in Yemen near to Sana'a the capital (see Jebel Kwkaban thread)
Booked a flight out to Yemen via Qatar. Then another flight from Sana'a to Socotra. All very easy, just need a small rucksac, stout boots and a sleeping sheet!
Trekking in the Haggeher required camels to convey food, tents etc. Otherwise travelled around with 4 wheel drive with hired driver/guide. Good roads are now being built ...which means that everywhere is now more accessible (and prone to disturbance).
Not many tourists - no more than 1500 per annum and mainly Italians who spend the time on the beaches - which stretch for white mile after white mile. The main town Hadibo is not very appealing. One has to remember that the island has gone from a barter economy to the mobile phone era in only about 15 years.
I'm tempted to say to folk don't go for fear that it will be spoiled - on the other hand the plant life is absolutely amazing; over 37% of species are endemic (and unusual) and for the botaniclly minded the island provides a range of habitat types from coastal mosaic, through succelent shrubland and semi-evergreen wodland to montane vegetation. Something for every botanist!
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Just decided to go for a 2 week jaunt to Socotra followed by a further week in Yemen near to Sana'a the capital
Good grief! You must be the first person I know who has gone to the Yemen on HOLIDAY! :o Seems like it was a pretty good idea, though, judging by these photos os such interesting plants and beautiful mountains
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I thought people went to the Yemen to kill or be killed!
Maggi I thought seal lion too, or rather, seal or sea elephant, with SEA lettuce in its mouth. But Mark's rodent somehow struck a chord with that (well-known) shape :-\
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Frazer,
What a remarkable place. What remarkable plants. You give us tantalising glimpses of a flora that is so unlike anything that is known to me - the only thing I would recognise is the Hypericum. The Socotran cucumber tree (Dendrosicyos socotrana) seems like a product of a bizzare imagination and would not be out of place in a Dr Suess story. I guess the Socotran Dragon tree is not too dissimilar to Draceana draco from the Canaries which I have seen growing in the Sydney Botanic Gardens
Very much appreciated your posting - Have you any more pictures.
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There are more pictures of succulents from Socotra and Yemen on the following website:
http://www.aiaps-photos.org/contributeurs.en.php (http://www.aiaps-photos.org/contributeurs.en.php) with links in French and English
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Interesting that others see the comically conical Adenium obesum subsp. sokotranum as a rodent.. I see a sea lion with a lettuce in his mouth!
How were you able to visit this wonderful place, Frazer? Was it a work-related trip?
Maggi,
I can see this developing into a psychological test if we're not careful.... along the lines of the ink blot test but involving Adenium obesum subsp. sokotranum. Of course depending on what youre answers are you may have a visit fromthe men in white coats who'll take you on a holiday, but to an institution not to Yemen!! ;D
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Worrying though that, Paul... we'd better be more careful! Wonderful plants and landscape if we were to be carted to the Yemen, though, eh?
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All
If anyone wants to find out more about the island may I recommend contacting Abdullateef Saad who runs an efficient and highly recommended local eco-tourism company (with English and Italian speaking guides) and can be contacted at ecosocotra@socotraisland.org His local tours are extremely competitive.
Frazer
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Most useful, Frazer, thank you.
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I've just found out that Greentours are likely to be running botany/birding tours to the island of Socotra in late 2009/early 2010. Whilst that will prove beneficial for those not fond of independent travel I do feel that there will be a inevitable rush of visitors, as the various tour companies vie for trade, and the island will be irretrievably affected - especially since Italian companies have been arguing for a long runway at the airport to facilitate their international flights!
Well I suppose I must be less selfish and be resigned to the fact that even Eden didn't last long!