»About Fynbos

Why water-wise garden? In order to conserve water, the government is formulating new policies, legislation and water tariffs. Water tariffs are likely to increase considerably over the next few years. By reducing water usage wherever possible, you can help prevent the need to build new dams, water pipelines and other costly infrastructure. Water-wise indigenous gardening is a responsible choice that we should all be making towards our country's future.

The flora of the Cape Region of South Africa is so unusual that it is regarded as one of the world's six floral kingdoms. In an area of just 90 000 km² there are an estimated 9000 species of plants. Of these an amazing 69% are found nowhere else on earth. To put this into perspective, the British Isles, three and a half times larger, have only 1500 plants, fewer than 20 of which are endemic.

Nearly one-third of the original fynbos has been lost to burgeoning urban settlements, relentless agricultural expansion and invasion by alien plants. More than 1400 species are listed as being critically rare, endangered or vulnerable, and at least 29 species have already become extinct.

Of all the earth's "hot spots of biodiversity" (areas with exceptional biodiversity and exceptional habitat threat) the Cape Floral Kingdom ranks amongst the very hottest.
(Norman Myers 1995)

Fynbos is the term given to a collection of plants (a vegetation type) that is dominated by shrubs and comprises species peculiar to South Africa's southwestern and southern Cape. Fynbos is characterised by four growth forms : tall protea shrubs with large leaves (proteoids); heath-like shrubs (ericoids); wiry reed-like plants (restioids); and bulbous herbs (geophytes). When the Dutch arrived at the Cape in the mid 17th century they required timber for building. The Cape offered little exploitable forest, although there were a few patches near Kirstenbosch and at Hout Bay. Remnants of these forests can still be seen today. The predominant vegetation had timber too slender or fine for harvesting, and was thus apparently given the name 'fijnbosch'. Restioids, all members of the southern hemisphere family Restionaceae make up the growth form which uniquely characterises fynbos.

With more than 7000 species crammed into 46,000 square kilometres, biodiversity at the species level is the highest in the world. The Cape Peninsula alone hosts 2285 plant species in an area less than a hundredth of the size of the British Isles, in which only 1500 different plant species occur.

There are 4 major physical forces in fynbos : summer drought, low soil nutrients, recurring fire, and wind. The Western Cape region is characterised by nutrient-poor soils, a Mediterranean climate that brings winter rains and summer drought, strong south-east winds in summer and north-west gales in winter, and regular fires that burn at a natural interval of 10 to 15 years.

Fynbos has the world's richest flora of bulbous plants or geophytes, and also some of the most beautiful. Most geophytes belong to the lily families Amaryllidaceae, Iridaceae, Liliaceae and Orchidaceae, but there are also many fynbos geophytes in the daisy, geranium and oxalis families. Fynbos includes some 1000 species of fire ephemerals, plants which complete their life cycles during a relatively brief period after fire, and survive until the next burn as dormant seeds. Included in this group are many of the everlastings, some of which are valuable cut flowers.

Fire is a natural and normal process in fynbos. Fynbos plants have lifestyles which have been shaped by fire, and without it they perish, leaving no offspring and so not reproducing. On average most fynbos plant communities burn every 12 to 15 years. After a fire the landscape looks bleak and black, but life immediately prepares to re-emerge. The fynbos plants may have been killed by the flames, but the heat of these same flames has opened the woody cones of the leucadendrons and proteas and the seeds have dropped out. The seeds are not only the products of the previous year's flowering, but the yield that has accumulated over several years. The plants release few, if any, seeds during their lifetime, but store them in anticipation of fire. As the plants die in the flames, that very fire ensures the birth of a new fynbos community.

Ants also contribute to the process of rebirth and seed dispersal. The pugnacious ants Anoplolepis are attracted by the food bodies (eliaosomes) attached to the seeds of the plants, and carry the seeds into their underground chambers, where they are safe from rodents, and also from the heat of the scorching fire. The ants eat the food body, and the seed then remains dormant until the fire comes, and the heat and smoke above ground stimulate its germination.

Fire-stimulated seed release and germination are two ways of synchronising reproduction with fire, but there is a third, even more spectacular way. A few weeks after a fire various bulbous plants flowers emerge from their dormant underground state and erupt into a sea of colour. Most of these species flower in spring, but many are unable to flower because dense bushes have crowded them out. Fire opens the canopy, fertilizes the soil and results in spectacular flowering shows.

[Reference: Cowling R.M. and Richardson D. Fynbos South Africa's Unique Floral Kingdom]