Poets have a long history with landscapes. AI tells us the earliest to focus specifically on natural landscape were Chinese poet Xie Lingyn (385-433) and poets of the Sangam landscape tradition in classical Tamil literature. Readers of this piece are probably more familiar with Wordsworth’s spiritual connection with nature.
But when a seasoned scientist waxes lyrical, it can take you by surprise.
So it was when respected, widely published (and widely lived) ecologist Rina Grant-Biggs confessed her relatively newfound passion to a rapt audience in Settlers Park’s Don Powis Hall recently. She had their undivided attention as she described the intimacy with which the diverse plants making up the Thicket biome co-exist.
Grant-Biggs’s love affair with Subtropical Thicket (formerly known as Albany Thicket) began 11 years ago when she and husband Harry Biggs retired to Bathurst – the heart of the biome.
A biome, in layperson’s terms, is an interactive system with its own characteristic vegetation, animal life, soil type and climate. There are five main types of thicket biome: arid (think Addo and spekboom); dune (let the white milkwoods on the coast be your reference point); mesic (think of warm, moist Port Alfred); valley (let those prehistoric-looking euphorbias that characterise the skyline when you drive through the Bloukrantz Pass be your marker); and mosaic (there’s a lot of that in and around Makhanda – typical thicket trees and shribs interspersed with grassland and/or fynbos).
Grant-Biggs qualified as a vet in 1974 (Onderstepoort Veterinary College was where she met Harry, who spent much of his working career in veterinary practice). The co-author of the Sappi Tree Spotting series diversified into botanical research through her research into so-called “grazing lawns” – patches of veld where different animal species prefer to graze. She has authored and co-authored numerous journal articles on this topic. A later question by another scientist in the room, Paul Skelton, about the effect that large herbivores like rhinos and buffalo (or the lack thereof) had on thicket vegetation was particularly relevant, considering Biggs-Grant’s research area.
She really did wax lyrical.
“Thicket is an ancient type of vegetation,” she said, suggesting that a reason it has survived so long is that it adapts to almost any conditions.
The soil under subtropical thicket’s thick, dense patches of vegetation is rich in humus and the trees in thicket are multi-stemmed.
“Plants grow on top of each other, yet they don’t compete for space,” Grant-Biggs said. “The way they intertwine, they seem to be in love.”
She compared that cooperative “behaviour” with (for example) savannah, where trees compete for nutrients.
Grant-Biggs referred to research done at Nelson Mandela University that identified between 10 and 20 species within a single 6m x 6m patch of thicket.
‘Let me count the ways’…
Speaking of her own Bathurst property which had been completely cleared 40 years previously, Grant-Biggs said through rehabilitating the natural thicket vegetation, there were now more than 100 thicket species growing there. And then she listed some of their very special qualities. Thicket plants:
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Store carbon, helping to limit climate change;
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Stabilise the soil;
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Create rich humus beneath them;
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Are evergreen;
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Are fire- and drought-resistant;
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Have specialised photosynthesis so that they don’t lose water during the day.
The combined Friends of Bathurst Nature and U3A audience was charmed, and quite possibly converted.
More information about Thicket
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Friends of Bathurst Nature (previously Friends of Water Meeting) has joined forces with U3A and now holds its monthly talks on environmental topics at Settlers Park’s Don Powis Hall. Read Talk of the Town’s What’s On Diary for news of those talks and follow the Friends of Bathurst Nature Facebook page (facebook.com/WatersMeetingBathurst)
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The Gardening with Nature monthly column in Talk of the Town explains how to grow Thicket plants in your garden (Grant-Biggs is one of its writers).
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Find more resources on the websites of Bathurst Ratepayers and Residents Association https://brra.org.za/wp/natural-environment/ and the Rhodes Restoration Group https://restoration-research.co.za/fobn/
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This article was first published in Talk of the Town, September 11, 2025. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays
