God`s flower garden

On hearing the name Namaqualand, one's thoughts immediately picture colourful fields of bright orange, yellow and white flowers and thousands of visitors flock to Namaqua National Park every year to experience the breath-taking sighting of flower carpets dominating the landscape. One cannot help but wonder why the Lord chose this place - right in the middle of nowhere - to be so artistically abundant in creating an enormously diverse flora kingdom. It seems as if the Lord Creator, after completing his wonderful creation, was left with a handful of seeds He needed a place for. Or maybe it was just his omniscience that decided to bless the one part of our country which would suffer the most under human greed, with the most beautiful and spectacular wild flower display in the world.

The Namaqua National Park has been declared specifically to protect this flower spectacle. To truly understand the unbelievable size of the flower magic, I need to first give you the numbers. Remember, we are talking about a park situated in semi-desert...

The park is located in the Succulent Karoo biome and has annual precipitation of roughly 160 mm winter rain in the east and 100mm in the west.  Despite this, it is one of the 34 biodiversity hotspots in the world (South Africa has 3 of these hotspots), with the largest concentration of succulent plants in the world.  The succulent Karoo has approximately  6356 plant species, of which 40% are found nowhere else in the world.  Namaqualand alone has about 3000 species (half of those are endemic). Compare this to other regions in the same semi-arid environments, the wealth in this terrestrial biome is exceptional.  Here we  do not only find the renown skaapbos (Tripteris oppositifolia), Namaqua marigold, honey flower, Namaqualand daisy and other annuals which attract not only butterflies and bees, but also thousands of tourists at the end of winter and the beginning of spring; we see how many plant varieties have found different strategies to survive in spite of the low and sporadic winter rainfall. The annuals bypass the dry season by germinating quickly, growing, blooming and producing seeds in the moist winter and spring, after which it dies and survive the dry hot summer and autumn as seeds. Geophytes survive with their underground storage organs and succulents sustain themselves with the water stored in their leaves and stems.  Evergreen dwarf shrubs have succulent leaves or small leaves that limit the area of transpiration of the plant. Other shrubs lose their bigger leaves during summertime to limit their water loss during the hot summer months. Another characteristic of plants in Namaqualand is the fact that they produce a lot of seeds. These seeds lie dormant in wait of the big rains, even if it takes a few years. And then Namaqualand is the embodiment of brilliant aesthetics:  all the millions of seeds from previous years germinate and show the world their radiant and alluring little flower faces. Other seeds may only germinate after another rainfall season, or after being dormant for a couple of years.

Unfortunately now is not a good time to be in Namaqualand if you're looking for flowers. But it doesn't matter, I have my plant-books with me, and exploring with them in hand we discover many a small miracle. And this is the true reason this location is actually so amazing: we do not need the flowers to be aware of the diversity. There is huge variety of shapes in leaves - specially when it comes to the vygie species - which is fascinating enough to keep you occupied for a couple of hours. Just check out the pictures for yourselves.

If you really want to discover and enjoy the park's flora, you cannot do so from your vehicle. You'll have to use your feet, and most of the times your knees as well... take a walk and kneel to take a closer look. The true wonder of God's creation cannot be absorbed in a moment, you have to take the time. And come again... and again... at different times of the year... because God did not create and bless for only one season, but He did so in different ways for all the months of the year. God's flower garden sings his praise - all year and around the clock!