I grew up in the in the eastern most part of Southern Africa, surrounded by giant Baobab trees and prickly Euphorbia’s. In this wild part of Africa Elephants and other large and constantly hungry herbivores such as Giraffe are common place, always sweeping the landscape for food, and as a result the plants have to protect themselves from a constant attack by animals and insects. That meant most of the wild plant life that I grew up with were hostile, they were either covered in needle sharp spines or dripping with poison when damaged.
I have had a keen interest in flora since I can remember. I grew up going on hikes with my dad and the local Orchid society looking for weird and interesting plants. My dad was the curator of the Lowveld botanical gardens, and sometimes he would fly to Cape town to visit the Botanical garden’s headquarters called Kirstenbosch, which in my very biased opinion is still one of the best botanical gardens in the world. On my Dad’s return I would be besides myself with excitement, as with most parents returning from a long trip away, a small gift would be surely expected for all the kids, but I knew what my gift was already beforehand, as there was only one thing I wanted from Cape town, and that was a bunch of fynbos. The soft foliage, strange alien-like flowers and the unmistakable scent is a memory that will stay with me forever, back then wishing I could see the fynbos in real life… perhaps someday.
Fast forward quite a few years ,and I’m living in a small town called Franschhoek, famous for its incredible wine, but most importantly its located in the heart of the fynbos or the Cape floristic region.
What does the word fynbos mean, it’s a term loosely used by the local people to describe all the woodland growth, except for the trees (as in most areas of the Cape trees are noticeably absent). Fynbos generally have smaller finely shaped leaves, either needle like or short and densely packed, hence the word fynbos. Fynbos is mostly defined by being evergreen, hard or leathery-leaved small shrubs mixed with grass like Restios, growing on nutrient poor soils such as leached sandstone or limestone.
Fynbos is well known for being the smallest of the six floral kingdoms, but size does not matter as the cape floristic region hosts around 9000 species of plants in a 90 000 square kilometre area and most of them occur nowhere else on earth. The Cape Floristic Region averages about 94 unique species per 1000 square km, compare that to other Mediterranean regions such as California or Southwestern Australia who respectively have 14 and 12 unique species per 1000 square km.
Not only is the diversity in the fynbos so intense but the sheer beauty and longevity of the fynbos flowers have caused a run on fynbos flower production globally, especially on the Proteas and Leucospermums.
Horticulturally the Fynbos region has contributed immensely to the world of gardening with this region’s plants found in most garden centres around the world, such as Agapanthus, Nemesia, Scabiosa, Diascia, Kniphofia, Erica’s and hundreds more. But nothing beats seeing these commercial plants in their natural habitat, and that is where flower tourism is so important to the Western Cape, as people from around the world visit the fynbos to view the beauty first hand, weather dependent the best time to see the fynbos would be between August and October.
The climate of the South western cape is moderate and that is due to its close proximity to the ocean, the coastal fynbos has a temperature that averages between 7 and 15 degrees Celsius in winter, and between 15 and 25 in summer. but the valleys inland can reach into the early 40s in summer. There is not a lot of frost in the region, although the mountain peaks can get a few dustings of snow during winter.
The rainfall varies depending on the area within the region, it can be between 250mm and 650mm of rain per season ,but the precipitation higher on the mountains can easily reach a 1000mm a year. The rain mostly occur during the winter, making it a true Mediterranean climate with the exception of the far western coastline of the south western cape. The area between Mossel bay and Port Elizabeth is non seasonal and rain can occur on a monthly basis, and that is why we have some pockets of temperate forests within the fynbos, that are filled with giant Podocarpus trees, Strelitzia’s and tropical looking ferns.
Fynbos has a close and very dependent relationship with fire, but lately it has become more of a love-hate relationship.
The soil fynbos prefer are very poor in nutrients especially nitrogen and phosphorus, and a fire is essential to restore the balance of nutrients in the soil.
As fynbos shrubs get older and bigger the nutrients get less because it’s all used up, the plants get woody and create dense shade over the smaller shrubs, bulbs and annuals, this causes most of the smaller plants to lie dormant in the ground in the form of seed or bulbs, waiting for sunlight and nutrients to return. When a fire finally burns through the fynbos it would kill most of the shrubbery, there are only a few Protea and fynbos species that has a corky thick exterior to their base trunk in order to help them survive the heat of the flames and then sprout thereafter, but with most of the fynbos the flames are a death sentence.
The flames might have killed the parent plants but the seeds required the heat of the flames to burst out of their sealed capsules where they have been waiting patiently for years, chemicals in the smoke causes the seed to germinate quickly after the first rains, it will take many years for the bigger shrubs to return to their adult size, but in the meantime the dormant bulbs, new annuals and small perennials can now enjoy the nutrients that the ash of the fire has provided and most importantly-the sunlight.
A well balanced fynbos area would normally receive a fire between every 10 and 14 years, but human activity has greatly increased the frequency of fires, and if the fires burn too often then the plants will never mature to make seed and so a species would go extinct in that affected area.
Fynbos are at their flowering peak in spring where nearly 60 percent of the species will be in flower, but unlike other regions of the world where there are times of almost no flowers due to weather conditions, in the fynbos nearly a fifth of the fynbos species will always be in flower at any month of the year. Some plants have seized the opportunity to flower during the dry summer months when food would be more scarce, and so attract more pollinators. Other bulbs such as the Amaryllis would flower in autumn so their seed can be ready to germinate in the winter rains.
The Fynbos flowers have developed spectacular adaptations to attract pollinators. Producing nectar and large quantities of it is a specialty of a lot of the fynbos species, in order to produce nectar does not require a lot of soil-based nutrients as the soil does not contain much. But the synthesis of the sugars to nectar requires carbon, which is in the air and unlimited in quantity, and that is why our Protea’s are commonly known as sugar bushes.
The Cape is fairly poor in insect species, and rely heavily on only a few groups of insects to do most of the pollination duties, the hairy monkey beetles love brightly coloured cup shaped flowers. some flowers have even added markings on their petals in order to fool the beetle in thinking there is a potential mate on the flower waiting for him, the sunbirds prefer the larger flowers such as Erica’s and Proteas, and the Cape butterfly loves to visit all flowers that are scarlet in colour.
My favourite must be the ground Protea’s that has seized the opportunity to attract the fynbos rodents, at dusk the low to the ground and downward facing flowers emit a strong scent that resembles yeast, the rodents follow the scent and lick the nectar and so pollinate the flowers with their pollen dusted snouts. Wind also has an important role to play in pollination especially with the grasses ,sedges and Restios in which they are mostly pollinated by the gusting wind that occurs in the Cape.
For fynbos plants to produce seed takes a lot of nutrients especially nitrogen which is in short supply around the Cape, that is why seed production is relatively low in the fynbos. In order to overcome this obstacle some plants adapted by only making a single ovule per flower, or let the seed mature over a much longer period of time in order for the plant to slowly but surely collect the necessary nutrients needed to produce a mature seed. This valuable commodity needs to be protected and some species have developed hard spiky capsules to lock the seed in until conditions are favorable, they might remain in the capsule for many years.
Ants play a very important role in protecting the seed, some 20 percent of fynbos developed a mutual beneficial relationship with ants, the seed contain a fatty food parcel which the ants love, and is very nutritious to them, the ants harvest the seed and take them down into their nests, there the fatty nutrients are consumed by the ants and the seed is then discarded, but underground, so in return for the fatty nutrients the ants have successfully planted the seed underground for the mother plant, and as soon as the smoke of a passing fire above would come into contact with the seed it would start to germinate.
Conservation of the Fynbos remains of utmost importance, because of the difficult topography of this region filled with steep mountain ranges, urban development has mostly been happening on the low lying flat areas where the species that remain there are under major threat and many unfortunately already extinct. Agriculture and in particular vineyards and rooibos plantations are now also encroaching and threatening the higher parts of the mountains. The biggest threat on our mountain slopes must be from the invasive Australian trees such as Eucalyptus and Wattle species that deplete the soil of water and nutrients, and kill most plants growing under their canopy.
Farmers want to protect their properties from fire and so burn the surrounding land, and then prevent the development of mature fynbos plants to set seed. Illegal plant harvesting for export to collectors abroad also has a detrimental role to play. But in the light of things, the people of the Cape love the fynbos, it is part of the fabric of everyone living in this beautiful flower filled Eden, and account for a lot of tourism, improving people’s lives. Entities such as Cape Nature protect vast areas of the Cape to keep it in a pristine condition and control fires.
When visiting the Cape floristic region I would recommend the following places to see Fynbos at its best.
Kogelberg nature reserve
Westcoast nature reserve
Fernkloof nature reserve
Tygerberg nature reserve
Table mountain nature reserve
Mont rochelle nature reserve
Cape point nature reserve
