South African riches
Ursula Buchan
When I was a child, I pestered my mother to take us to Longleat. In the end she agreed, pleased perhaps to think that I was developing a precocious interest in Elizabethan architecture. In fact, I had longed — oh, easily for weeks — to see the newly installed lions in all their strange, foreign magnificence and, almost as much, to acquire a car sticker bearing the legend We have seen the Lions of Longleat'. The sticker remained until the lion face faded, a frequent reminder of an extraordinary day.
This spring, something of that childish excitement returned to me. I have longed, not for weeks but for decades, to see the native flora of the Western Cape in South Africa; ever since I was a student at Kew, in fact, when I caught a faint whiff of its glory, like the perfume of a woman who passes you in a shop doorway. In those Surrey glasshouses grew tender South African heaths and pelargoniums, and bulbs like Nerine sarniensis, Cyrtanthus elatus (Scarborough Lily), watsonias and moraeas. Outside, there were tubs of agapanthus, as well as amaryllis, tulbaghia, and osteospermum in hot borders. These all spoke of landscapes vastly foreign but alluring. About the same time, the august Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town (set, most beautifully, in the shadow of Table Mountain) began to exhibit at Chelsea Flower Show, stupefying the senses with exotic, colourful displays of proteas and restios. Finally, last month, thanks to the generosity of the National Botanical Institute which runs the eight botanical gardens in South Africa, I got the chance to look at some of these plants in their native land.
It is a truism that the British Isles has the smallest and least spectacular but the best-studied flora in the world, We love it, but are conscious that there are far greater riches elsewhere. Visiting the Cape underlines that strongly. The frnbos (pronounced faneboss') vegetation, which makes up four fifths of what has been designated the Cape Floral Kingdom, and covers an area about the size of Portugal, hosts 8,600 plant species, 5,800 of which are endemic, i.e., they grow naturally nowhere else in the world, The British Isles, on the other hand, which is three and a half times bigger, has 1.500 species (the same number as Table Mountain alone), fewer than 20 of which are endemic, and about half of which are actually introductions. The numbers are hard to encompass, but they point to an astonishing biodiversity and, moreover, because of the high level of endemicity, a hugely threatened one.
The .6,nbos flora's individuality comes from both geology and climate. The soil is acid and desperately poor in nutrients. Very particular plants have evolved to survive the conditions: there are three main families — proteas, heaths (Erica) and Cape reeds (Restio) — together with geophytes, that is, bulbs. The rain mainly comes in winter (June to August) and is heaviest in the west, and the fynbas is raked by fierce winds in summer. Plants have evolved to cope with periodic fires. Nothing in the landscape — unless encroached upon by alien species like wattles and pines — is taller than six feet. Even at the end of summer, when I was there, the colours, predominantly green and yellow, came from the evergreen shrubs; only if you look closely can you discern thepresence of flowering plants, Spring — September to December — is the most floriferous time in the ftnbos, when everyone — not just botanists, ecologists and geeky gardeners like me — can revel in the rich variety in colour and form.
Perhaps surprisingly. I find I am pleased I cannot begin to grow most ftnbos plants at home. Many simply won't thrive, even
when you understand their requirements. Kew itself lost the trick of getting proteas to flower between 1826 and 1986. In British gardens, you will find that far more South African plants come from the temperate grassland 'veld' of the north and east. This is where crocosmias, most red-hot-pokers and schizostylis grow. But it was the very apartness of the fynbos flora that appealed to me so strongly. I could simply enjoy the sight of it, unfettered by that low-grade longing that gardeners feel at the sight of beautiful plants they do not grow. Envy was irrelevant, even bad taste.
The Western Cape has long been popular with Britons as a winter sun destination. No doubt greater numbers will be lured this year by enthusiastic travel articles written to coincide with the tenth anniversary of democracy, praising the wine, seafood, whales, birds and spectacular landscapes. I hope those that come will drive out from Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve, not just to see the baboons, the cliffs and the South Atlantic Ocean, but to travel through a landscape of such diversity and splendour that it must live long in the memory. No need for any 'We have seen the Cape Floral Kingdom' sticker, believe me.
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