Southern Africa’s amazing plants.

Southern Africa is well known for its richness and diversity of flora, South Africa alone accounting for over 23000 species. For the last four hundred years this great wealth of botanical material has attracted botanists and artists to paint and record the characteristics, the beauty and strangeness of the plants growing in this area.

The great diversity and uniqueness of these plants offers endless opportunities for the botanical artist and this page, through photographic images and artistic paintings, will illustrate some of these possibilities.

The succulent Karoo

The succulent karoo of Southern Africa boasts the richest succulent flora on earth with 69%of flora endemic to the area. It consists mainly of winter rainfall desert and is one of only two hotspots which is entirely arid.  Dwarf shrubland dominated by leaf succulents is found throughout the succulent karoo. These drought-adaptable plants have thick, fleshy leaves or stems for water storage. There are approximately 1,700 species of leaf succulents and this dominance is unique among the world’s deserts.

Botanical artist Wilna Eloff- Laydon, gold medallist at Kirstenbosch Biennale 2008 illustrates four plants typical to the southern part of the succulent karoo: Aloe perfoliator, Haworthia reinwardtii, Aloe sp, Aloe melanacantha.

Wilna Eloff-Laydon (wilnaeloff@mweb.co.za)

SOUTH COAST – SAND VELD PLANTS

The first example is Haemanthus coccineus, the first South African plant to reach Europe (Manning, J; Goldblatt P; Snijman D; 2002) this was dug up at the Cape in the first years of the 17 century, later flowered in Belgium in 1603 and illustrated in 1605. The first European to record observations on Cape plants in their native habitat was Justus Heurnius. In 1624 he prepared sketches of a few local Cape plants including Haemanthus coccineus which was subsequently published in Amsterdam in 1644.

Haemanthus coccineus (Fam: Amaryllidaceae) is seen here in its natural surroundings at Bettys bay at the most southern tip of the African continent. This bulbous plant grows in coastal scrubby dunes and It flowers in autumn , leaves only appearing once the flower has died.

Vicki Thomas

Brunsvigia orientalis (Fam: Amaryllidaceae). This very unusual plant grows up to 50cm high, has up to 40 flowers spread out in a wide spherical umbel. It flowers in late summer. Once the flowers have dried out the coastal wind breaks off the fruiting head which then tumbles across the veld dispersing its seeds. Brunsvigia orientalis has its habitat in sandy costal dunes, there are either 4 or 6 very large dark green, velvety leaves which lie flat on the ground appearing once the seed head has been dispersed.

Vicki Thomas

The North Eastern Lowveld

This area is occupied by Savanna vegetation, which typically grows at attitudes below 1800metres and enjoys summer rainfall and warm dry winters.  The Kruger national park and various private nature reserves are situated in the North eastern lowveld, the dominant vegetation being open grass savanna, mountain bushveld, rocky outcrops with short shrubby trees and small trees especially acacia species and woody succulent shrubs.  The beautiful plant described below (Ipala lily) falls into the last category.

Adenium multiflorum (Impala lily) is familiar to visitors to the Kruger national park situated in the Mpumalanga Province in north eastern area of South Africa.  This specimen was painted by Rosemary Pearman, who found it in the Shingwedzi camp in the northern section of Kruger and so admired the magnificent flowers she purchased a plant from the Kruger nursery.  She planted it in her rockery garden in Durban, Natal and this painting is taken from her own flowering specimen.

Flowering takes place from may to September during the dry season. The attractive twin fruits are about 150mm in length and are joined at the base. When the seed splits open it releases its fine silky hairs to the wind.  The shrub grows in sandy or rocky woodland in the hot low-lying regions of eastern Southern Africa.
Painting by Rosemary Pearman (pearman@webafrica.org.za)

DISA UNIFLORA 

This famous red orchid is endemic to the Table Mountain and the mountainous areas of the Western Cape. The Disa uniflora is strictly protected in the wild.  The showy flowers in red, pink and occasionally yellow are borne during summer with peak flowering period during February. It is found along mountain stream banks or on wet mossy cliffs.  Early naturalists at the Cape searched for 20 years to discover the pollinator of the Disa uniflora, in 1895 Rudolf Marloth found the Mountain Pride butterfly (Meneris tulbaghia) with pollen from the disa attached to its legs.  The bright red colour appears to play a central role in attracting Table mountain’s largest butterfly to the Disa uniflora. 

Phil Scott a Cape Town based botanical artist has a special interest in the Disa family of plants and has painted many species. Her paintings of Disa uniflora and Disa maueria and are shown here.

Highveld Mountain Bushveld

The Gauteng cities of Pretoria and Johannesberg are included in this vegetation zone with the landscape made up of high altitude low broken ridges varying in steepness.  The vegetation is short, semi open thickets dominated by woody species such as Acacia and Rhus.  The lower storey is made up of grasses and in winter the veld is dotted with bright red aloes.  The High veld is characterised by cold dry winters and hot rainy summers.

Aloe peglerae is found mainly on the Magaliesberg and Witwatersberg from Pretoria to Rustenberg. It grows in rocky areas, usually on northern slopes, at altitudes of 1400 – 1700 metres.        
Painting by Gillian Condy (condy@sanbi.org)