An Analysis of the Flora of Southern Africa: Its Characteristics, Relationships, and Orgins

Abstract

Southern Africa, including Namibia (South West eur South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Botswana, covers an area of ca.2.5 million km'. e flora comprises ca.18,500 species in 1,930 genera.There are 10 endemic families, Sub 80% of the V epos and 29% of the genera are endemic.Of the five phytogeographic regions recognized, the Cape Floristic Region is the richest and most distinctive, and in this small area there are some 8,550 species in 957 genera.Most of the subcontinent is arid to semiarid.Its rich and diverse flora, conviolently during the Pleistocene.Peculiarities of the flora include an unusually high proportion of petaloid monocots, a wealth of succulents, mainly in winter rainfall arid areas, large numbers of sclerophyllous to microphyllous shrubs, and very few annualsThe first major collections of plants from southern Africa began to arrive in Europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century at the time when Linnaeus was formulating his principles of plant classification and nomenclature.These first examples caused great excitement in the scientific community, for many of them were remarkably different from anything known at the time: the first Proteaceae, Restionaceae, Cunoniaceae, and Bruniaceae, to mention a few families, as well great numbers of succulents and geophytic plants which were then and still are greatly sought after in the horticultural world.Such was the interest stimulated by these plants that southern Africa was one of the first areas outside the European sphere to be explored botanically, Linnaeus's most famous pupil Thunberg being sent there in 1765 for several years.Little did the botanists of northern Europe realize that the source of these amazing plants was entirely unrepresentative of the African flora as a whole.In fact, almost all the early plants were collected in or near the Dutch settlement of Cape Town at the southwestern tip of the continent.It was not until the early nineteenth century that exploring naturalists moving north across the semidesert Karoo, and eastwards, encountered the rolling savanna plains, with both the plants and animals we now associate with Africa generally.The area where these first southern African plants were found is now known botanically as the Cape Floristic Region, often regarded as one of only six wish to thank all those listed personally on page 373 who helped with this project, ae accurate data for oe groups.I also thank Peter Raven for his extensive an critical review of the manuscript, a .M. Hilliard and D. I.