Fynbos – The Cape Floral Kingdom

Wikipedia

“All that I had pictured to myself of the riches of the Cape in botany, was far surpassed by what I saw in this day`s walk.  At every step a different plant appeared; and it is not an exaggerated description, if it should be compared to a botanical garden … so great was the variety everywhere to be met with.”

William Burchell (Nov 1810)

I love the Cape. To me it is the most beautiful place in the whole world.  The tremendous diversity in this tiny part of African nature, amazes me daily. Every time you turn a corner, it will be different… gorgeous beaches, the different hues in the colours of the ocean, the mountains seaming this picturesque place, the wonderful people... and obviously: Table Mountain. Tourists can visit our beautiful Peninsula for weeks on end and never be bored for a minute. But nothing comes near describing the true character, diversity, uniqueness and bigheartedness of our home and our people, as the treasure of fauna we have: fynbos, our pride and joy! 

Capetown.travel

From Van Rhynsdorp to just outside Port Elizabeth, gathered within an area of 90 000 km², are almost 9 000 species of flowering plants, two thirds of which are found nowhere else on Earth.  If we reduce the area and put our focus just on Table Mountain National Park, we see 2 200 species in an area of approximately 30 000 ha and at least 90 of these species only occur in this location. By way of comparison, the whole of Britain only offers 1 492 species! 

Fynbos diversity can be attributed to the quick change in species in different terrain. Places only 25km apart will see a change in 50 to 66% of fynbos species occurring in the 2 different areas.
  
Plants are subject to environmental factors such as exposure to wind direction, soil type, north or south facing slopes, access to water etc., which has resulted in adaptations to such environments and consequently a wildly varying diversity of species. There are, for example, over 160 species of plants in the Cape Peninsula found nowhere else in the world.

It is an industrious job to try and study and learn fynbos, because of the species changing in short distances of each other. The habitat of a specific plant can be very small; sometimes a species will only grow on one mountain slope not even covering a km².

The first inkling of this extraordinary African flora to reach scientists arrived in the form of a dried flower head of Protea neriifolia, gathered from the slopes above False Bay by the crew of a passing Dutch East India-man.  This was soon followed by the arrival of bulbs of several species of Amaryllis, Hyacinth and Iris.  The flowering of these bulbs in Holland in the first year of the 17th century ignited a passion for fynbos flowers that has shown no signs of abating.  Early botanical visitors to Cape Town were overwhelmed by the local flora.  Swedish naturalist Andrew Sparrman wrote in his journal for April 1772: “At first almost everyday was a rich harvest of the rarest and most beautiful plants; ... at every step we made one or more new discoveries”.  And this was written in autumn when relatively few species are in flower!

Wikipedia

Fynbos is not easy to define, but it is essentially a term for an evergreen, hard-leafed shrubland vegetation type, or collection of plants, that is primarily associated with nutrient-poor soils and often, though not exclusively, with a winter-rainfall Mediterranean-type climate.  The four main groups of plants found within the heath of fynbos are the proteas, the restios, the ericas and the bulbous geophytes.

Fynbos is  a fire-adapted vegetation and evidence suggests that, in the absence of fires, all but the drier fynbos types would become dominated by trees.  The infertility of fynbos soils means that recycling of soil nutrients is essential for fynbos survival.  Fire is the motor that drives this cycle, and fires at appropriate intervals are not only integral, but also an essential part of fynbos ecology. Fires are more common in fynbos than in any of the other heathlands around the world.  This is a result of the extreme flammability of the dried, often intricately branched shrubs and restoids, and it is rare to find stands of fynbos vegetation that are more than 20 years old.  Fires rejuvenate the vegetation by removing moribund growth and recycling precious nutrients back into the soil.  They also remove the choking canopy that has grown up during the intervening years, allowing light to reach the soil surface.

Fynbos has different strategies to exploit the effect of fires. Sunlight reaching the soil surface after a fire, germinate many annuals and perennials.  These plants use the newly released nutrients and favorable environment to complete short growing cycles.   They return to the soil in the form of seeds when the larger scrubs start to overwhelm them and they lie in wait for the next fire. A lot of the bulbs only grow when the canopy of the larger plants has been destroyed by fire and they can be easily seen by pollinating insects and birds. This way their seeds can be buried in the enriched soil. These bulbous plants will usually not flower (abundantly) in fire free years, they wait for the fire to clean the land. Some plants’ seeds need the light to reach the soil after a destructive fire, other plants’ seeds are stimulated by the chemicals in smoke to start germinating.

However, fires can also have negative consequences such as eradication of plants.  Therefor there are different fire strategies within fynbos species.  Many proteas ensure survival after fires by germinating only when they are exposed to alternating high and low temperatures on ground burned down completely.  Some species protect their seed in the period between fires by storing them in wooden fruits just above the ground. These plants use fire to let the protective shells of the seeds burst open and let the seeds drop to the fertilized soil, while the mother plant is destroyed in in the same fire. Another strategy to protect seeds against fire and predators, is to bury them. Several fynbos shrubs achieve this because their seeds have oily appendices which attract ants which carry the seeds to their underground nests. Ants eat the appendices, and leave the otherwise intact seeds in the soil where they lay buried until the next fire germinates them. Many fynbos plants ensure survival because a large part of their stems are underground out of reach of destructive fires, after a fire they will just sprout new plants. Various protea species protect their stems with cork-like, insulating bark.  These plants sprout new life from their above ground stems after a fire, it gives them a height advantage above those starting at ground level.

For optimal fynbos variety, fires are needed every 10-14 years. Ephemeral plants and bulbs thrive under regular fires with intervals of a few years. Slow growers would however prefer less frequent fires. Overly frequent fires (which often arises as a result of people's negligence) destroy such mature plants and exhaust their seed supplies, so they become extinct locally.

What can a person say but "Thank You".  Thank you that I may live in such a beautiful, diverse part of God's creation.  In a place where I am amazed by God's great works, every day. Thank you that I may daily sing His praise with such a big part of God's creation: Praise the Lord!

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