This is Charlie.
Charlie is a parrot. He is an African Grey. This type of parrot is approx. the size of a large pigeon and has a red tail. They are mostly attached to only one person of the household and should be kept solitary. They are very jealous of every other member in the household, be it a person or another pet. They are omnivorous, but generally live from fruits and seeds. They are very tame and unless frightened do not fly off. Nevertheless, they are easily startled and their wings should therefore be clipped regularly. They do not fly very far, however. When lost, one should first search close by.

They originally come from the tropical forests of Africa and are threatened by logging of the tropical forests. African Grey's are now successfully bred in captivity.

They need a loving family environment and lots of attention. They readily learn languages and I am under the impression that they can understand the meaning of some words. He knows my nickname and the name of my cat. He is able to express likes and dislikes vocally. He has a very good hearing and is able to detect the car of my husband long before it has reached the gate. He then barks like our electronic security dog, that comes into action once the motion detector senses movement in front of the gate. He associates frequent occurances with sounds that correlated with the occurences.

This is an Orange River Lily, Crinum bulbispermum. It belongs to the genus of Amyrillidaceae. Colours range from white to whitish-pink. The leaves are very long and strap-shaped. the flowers appear from September to November and are borne at the end of a long stalk in umbels. Pollinators not known, but propably moths. The capsule is very large and bears egglets that root spntaneously when falling to the ground, where a cotyledon appears shortly thereafter, which is feed by the egglet, until the roots ae sufficiently developed. The flowers could be used for commercial purposes, because they are showy. The drawback is, that a butterfly uses the plant as host for its eggs, which develop inside the bulb into caterpillars and turn the plants into a pulpy mess in a very short time. Luckily, the plant recovers later in summer, but new flowers will only appear the following spring.

This is one of my spring flowers that grow in my garden. It is an Albuca species and indigenous to South Africa. The Albuca belongs to the genus of the Amyrillidaceae. The flower stalks are about 60 to 80 cm long. this ist just one of about a few dozen species that occour in South Africa. They range from about 6 cm to about 1m in size. The flowers are mainly white, but there is also a yellow species that flowers from November to December. It developes a woody capsule after fertilisation. I have not yet discovered which insect polinates the plant. I think it must be polinated by moths during night time, because I could not observe any polinators during day time. The plant is very hardy to drought and occurs mainly in dry grasslands. In cultivation when watered, it can also tolerate some encroachment from trees, but it prefers well-drained organic compost. The leaves exude a sticky sap when broken and could be used as an adhesive. The plant is not used commercially.