Fynbos: The Cape Floral Kingdom.

	Fynbos. The Cape Floral Kingdom.
	The smallest but richest of the world's six floral kingdoms. Ecological Wonderland!
			Take a Virtual Tour into the Ecological Wonder- land of Fynbos.
	Protea. Aulax umbellata.			Restio. Cannomois virgata.
	The Fynbos Virtual Tour
		All the pages on the Beach House site that deal with fynbos is included in a virtual tour that is periodically expanded and improved. To avoid duplicating material specific navigation keys are provided on all the 'fynbos' pages. To continue the fynbos tour click on the restios navigation keys shown right. Clicking on other navigation keys on a page will initiate another tour. This page provides an introduction to fynbos. There are also lots more general information provided in the tour.				Clicking on this picture opens the previous page in the fynbos tour.
						Clicking on this picture opens the next page in the fynbos tour.
						Clicking on this picture opens the Fynbos main page (this page).

	Thamnochortus lucens. Male.	Restios are members of the family of Restionaceae, perennial, evergreen, grass-like plants. The are an integral part of fynbos. Fynbos is well known for its beautiful flowering plants like the Ericas (Ericaceae) Proteas (proteacae) and daisy-like flowers (Iridaceae).
	However, while any other group can be absent from a particular fynbos habitat, the family of Restionaceae forms the unique distinguishing part of fynbos. Restios can therefore be found in any fynbos habitat and often make up the most dominant components of fynbos vegetation. The Cape restios is a wonderful and unique experience. The plant right is the female of the plant above (Thamnochortus lucens).

							Female.

					Introduction to Fynbos.
					Fynbos plants are readily recognized by the sclerophyllous (hard, tough and leathery leaved) and microphyllous (small leaved) nature of almost all woody plants and is characterized by having more than 5% cover of Cape reeds. Additionally, it contains Proteas, ericas and members of seven plant families found nowhere else in the world.
				Fynbos plants include the King Protea, South Africa's national flower, the beautiful Red Disa, symbol of the Cape Province and the popular garden plants, pelargoniums, commonly known as geraniums. Over 7 700 plant species are found in fynbos, an astonishing number for such a small area.
				Of the 7 700 species roughly 70% are endemic to the area - that is, they are found nowhere else in the world. Many of these are threatened with extinction. The richness of the fynbos is well demonstrated by its ericas or heaths, of which there are over 600 different species. There are just 26 in the rest of the world.
			The largest family in number of species is daisy family, with just under 1 000 species of which more than 600 are endemic. The white Namaqualand daisies left comes up in spring all over the dune while the yellow gazania right propagated from seed from the gazania planted in the garden.
	Technical text adapted from: http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/envfacts/fynbos. A delightful and very informative site. The 4 pictures of the Protea above is from the Protea Atlas Project at: http://protea.worldonline.co.za, there are many more beautiful pictures in their gallery.
						Click for the Fynbos Virtual Tour
	Photographs of restios and text used on these pages from "Restios of the Fynbos" Els Dorrat Haaksma and H. Peter Linder. Published by the Botanical Society of South Africa. 2000. The rest of the pictures by Andre Botha most of them taken at the Beach House itself.
		Order Beautifully Illustrated Books on Fynbos for less than R 200.00 postage included from anywhere in the World!
		Click on the Logo of THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTH AFRICA to link to their Fynbos Book Ordering Page.

				Where to go?



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