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| A rare white King Protea |
The Cape Floral Kingdom is one of only six in the world. It
is easily the world’s smallest as it encompasses only about 4% of the southern
Africa land area and exists solely within South Africa. In contrast, the
Holarctic kingdom incorporates the whole of the northern hemisphere north of
the tropics.
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| Protea |
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| Protea |
The plant diversity here is comparable to tropical rain
forests. In its small area, more than 8000 plant species exist. About 6200 of
those species are endemic to this small stretch of South Africa within 100-200
km of the coastline. That is more than then entire United Kingdom. The
Netherlands which is ¾ the size of the Cape Floral Kingdom has only 1400
species and none of them are endemic.
Amazingly, the Table Mountain area
includes over 2000 species just within its small area.
The general name for most of these plants is fynbos. Fynbos,
which means fine-leaved bush, includes protea (over 350 species), pelargoniums,
ericas (over 625 species just in the southwestern cape), reeds, and irises,
most of which are endemic to the area. About 30 species of erica exist in the
rest of the world.
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| Bird of Paradise |
I am afraid I don’t know the names of most of the flowers in these
pictures, but hope you will enjoy seeing some of them.
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