Tylecodon paniculatus, three of them

Three has been made famous by the three bears, the three little pigs, the three witches of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the three Wise Men, the Three Sisters in the Karoo, The Three Musketeers and more. Here are three obscure botterboom plants like ghosts gathered in sinister collusion, repeating the significant archetypal number; having fun or conjuring delusion.

For those with no superstitions, children of explorers that don’t think twice before sleeping alone in the unknown bush, there is another take on the three:

Somewhere in the veld near Montagu a clump of three unremarkable, olive-green Tylecodon paniculatus trunks are shedding moisture during autumn under tangles of inflorescence stalks. The leaves are gone and so are the flowers; the stalks and fruits are dry, the seeds scattered or waiting in their capsules.