Whitehouse Bird Seed Zip
Violetta Wagganer
According to Cornell, The seeds that attract the greatest number of species are black-oil sunflower. These seeds have a high meat-to-shell ratio, they are nutritious and high in fat, and their small size and thin shells make them easy for small birds to handle and crack. (Striped sunflower seeds are larger and have a thicker seed coat.) Cornell has performed their own Seed Preference Test and it shows overwhelmingly that this high-energy food is the flock-pleasing favorite of the majority of bids that visit feeders.
Plain beef suet that you find at the supermarket is an excellent high-energy food. Put it in a mesh bag (an onion bag works). Peanut butter is another favorite of chickadees, woodpeckers, and nuthatches.
Giving birds a dependable supply of fresh water will keep birds coming. Not only do they need to drink, but they need to bathe. Clean feathers provide the best insulation. Consider an immersion-style water heater in your birdbath and save yourself the hassle of keeping it unfrozen.
Copyright: 2018. The Author(s). Licensee: AOSIS.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution,and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Method: Herbarium vouchers of newly collected material were compared against the vouchers of indigenous members of the genus and with the relevant botanical literature to confirm the identity of the species.
Results: Nymphoides peltata is confirmed as occurring outside of cultivation for the first time in South Africa. The species was recorded from two dams adjacent to the Umgeni River in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands.
Conclusion: This is the first record of a non-indigenous species of the Menyanthaceae family for South Africa outside of cultivation and adds to our knowledge of the alien aquatic flora of the region. Nymphoides peltata is listed as a Category 1a species, which means that it should be eradicated.
Nymphoides peltata is cultivated as an ornamental plant in garden pools (Chester 1996) and aquaria (Allgayer & Teton 1987). In 2007, a landowner from Gauteng, South Africa, reported a cultivated population growing so prolifically that he needed assistance in its control (Henderson 2017). It was growing in an artificial, contained pond and was probably destroyed, as recent attempts to find this population have been unsuccessful (D. Cindi [South African National Biodiversity Institute], pers. comm., 01 November 2016).
Nymphoides peltata was discovered in two dams that are part of a series of interconnected dams that are also connected to the Mgeni River, upstream of where the Mgeni joins the Karkloof River. The two dams have areas of 3.2 and 0.2 ha, and have N. peltata concentrated along the dam edges amongst indigenous sedges (Figure 2). In 2016, the N. peltata flowered from January to April, dying back in the winter months, and in 2017, it flowered again in January. Hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius L.) on a game farm on which the dams are located were seen eating N. peltata (P. le Roux [Karkloof Safari Spa], pers. comm., 09 February 2017).
The origin of this N. peltata population is currently unknown. The seeds are dispersed through water and by birds, being disc shaped with marginal trichomes that can stick to waterfowl (Cook 1990). This is a possible pathway through which the plant could have arrived at these dams.
In its native range, N. peltata shows pioneer plant characteristics and can colonise large areas through vegetative growth in a season (Brock et al. 1983). Nymphoides peltata has had a significant impact on habitat structure and competitive interactions in the Swedish lakes where it has become established (Josefsson & Andersson 2001) and a weed risk assessment by the United States Department of Agriculture ranked the species high for impact and spread potential in the United States (USDA 2012).
The author is grateful to H. Grobler and P. le Roux of Karkloof Safari Spa for alerting them of the plant and for field support, as well as M. Nxumalo for assistance in the field. Many thanks to N. Tippery for verifying the identity of the collections and to H. Terrapon for providing Figure 1. The author is also grateful to L. Henderson and D. Cindi for discussions around the Gauteng record, to A. Homrani-Bakali for information on N. peltata in Morocco, as well as M. Hamer and two anonymous reviewers for constructive criticism on earlier drafts.
BACKGROUND: Nymphoides peltata is a hydrophyte with a nymphaeid growth form and is known to be an invader of aquatic ecosystems.
OBJECTIVES: To document the presence of N. peltata outside of cultivation in southern Africa.
METHOD: Herbarium vouchers of newly collected material were compared against the vouchers of indigenous members of the genus and with the relevant botanical literature to confirm the identity of the species.
RESULTS: Nymphoides peltata is confirmed as occurring outside of cultivation for the first time in South Africa. The species was recorded from two dams adjacent to the Umgeni River in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands.
CONCLUSION: This is the first record of a non-indigenous species of the Menyanthaceae family for South Africa outside of cultivation and adds to our knowledge of the alien aquatic flora of the region. Nymphoides peltata is listed as a Category 1a species, which means that it should be eradicated.
Considering its impact elsewhere, this species warrants further research and a detailed weed risk assessment as laid out by Kumschick et al. (2015). A management plan has already been submitted to the Department of Environmental Affairs (Cindi 2016). However, surveys of nurseries and water bodies would help to get a more accurate delineation of N. peltata's distribution and possible origin.
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