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Flora - SA plantlife
Southern Africa is boasting with an astounding diversity of habitats and wildlife. The small Cape floral kingdom situated on the Southern is regarded as the second only to the tropical rain forests in the number of species. A great deal of the species are endemic. Southern Africa has the largest number of land tortoise species (13), and is home to no less than approximately 300 mammal, 900 bird, 130 frog, 130 snake, 250 lizard, 1,500 tree, 24,000 flowering plant and an estimated 80,000 insect species! A great list indeed! We share our landscape with viable populations of the fastest (cheetah), tallest (giraffe) and biggest (elephant) of earths land mammals.
Flora:
There are five major habitat flora types in South Africa: fynbos, forest, Karoo, grassland, and savannah. 10% of the world's flowering species are found in South Africa, the only country in the world with an entire plant kingdom inside its borders: the Cape Floristic Kingdom, home to over 8 600 species, 68% of them endemic. The Cape Peninsula alone boasts more plant species than the whole of Great Britain.
Fynbos
The fynbos feels most at home in the southwestern area of South Africa. Fynbos is comprised of ericas (heathers), proteas and the grass-like restios. South Africa's amazing proteas include the king protea (the national flower), the pincushion leucospermum types and spiky leucadendrons found in a vast colour range.
The delicate ericas, repays close examination of their almost infinite variety of colour and form. Some of these species bloom at almost any time of the year.
The red disa orchid, one of South Africa's 550 wild orchids, which grows in the mountains, as well as numerous irises, pelargoniums ar a familiar site in the Cape region.
Carpet of flowers
During spring time, Namaqualand is a breath-taking sight. It's during the spring time that this usually dry, dessert-like terrain undergoes a complete transformation, yielding its floral wealth in a dazzling sheets of colour for a few weeks. The golden yellow and orange Namaqualand daisies are predominant, but in between are a wide variety of flowers, such as the iridescent succulent mesembryanthemums
Forests
South Africa has more than a thousand indigenous trees, but large species are relatively. Some areas, such as the Knysna-Tsitsikamma forest, on the other hand has no short-fall with its tall stinkwoods, black ironwoods and yellowwoods/ The northeastern region in Mpumalanga and Limpopo is home to the ancient cycads and Lowveld species such as the fever tree. The famous thick-stemmed baobab, which according to African myth was accidentally planted upside down, can be located in the north. The forests of KwaZulu-Natal, iis the habitate for the orange Clivia miniata, a cultivated member of the amaryllis family. The strelitzia originates from the Eastern Cape. In much the same colour range (orange and purple), South Africa's winters are marked by the flowering of some of the country's 140 species of aloes.
Medicinal plants and thorn trees
Floral treasure or species of special beauty or interest can be found all over the South African landscape. Succulents almost look exactly like stones, mangroves, tree ferns and one of the most promising fields of study in South Africa - a large number of plants of medicinal value. Aloe ferox is a purgative which was discovered to be medicinally useful by the early European colonists.
The landscape that most eloquently conjures up the spirit of South African flora is the typical savannah, with its (often dry) grasses and more-or-less thickly scattered shrubs and thorn trees.
Lingering images may vary widely, from fynbos field to subtropical forest, but for many South Africans the thorn tree is the nesting place of their hearts.
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