| THE CAPE FLORAL KINGDOM |
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In a climate moderated by the sea, the coastal mountains of the Cape have one of the richest floras in the world. There is no other place on earth where so many different species can be seen growing in such close proximity. ‘Fynbos’ (literally “fine leaf”) is the term given to this collection of plants that covers an area of less than 90 000 square kilometres (the size of Portugal) and hosts 8 600 plant species. Roughly 70% are endemic to the area - that is, they are found nowhere else in the world.
To put this in perspective, the British Isles, three and a half times larger, have only 1 500 plants and less than 20 of those are endemic. So special is the Cape Floral Kingdom that it has been designated as one of the earth's six plant kingdoms and is in quite a league of its own. It contains 526 of the world's 740 erica species, 96 out of the world's 160 gladiolus species, 69 proteas out of 112, and over 600 heaths, wuth just 26 in the rest of the world. Many of these are threatened with extinction. |
