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Pteronia Incana
''Pteronia incana'' ("Asbos" or "ash-bush") is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, indigenous to the Karoo regions of South Africa. Description This species has small, light grey, woolly, fragrant leaves, and forms a low, dense bush. Its fragrant leaves have a variety of medicinal uses. The flowerheads appear in Spring, at the tips of the branches. They are solitary, yellow, 15mm wide, with non-sticky yellow-green bracts, and small of coconut. Relatives It often co-occurs with its close relatives, '' Pteronia paniculata'' or '' Pteronia pallens'', both of which have distinctive yellow-green leaves. '' Pteronia glauca'' ("Boegoekaroo") is a very similar species, which also has light grey leaves. However, unlike ''P.incana'', its outer branches are always down-turned. Distribution and habitat The distribution of this species is in the south-western Cape of South Africa. It occurs throughout the Little Karoo and Robertson Karoo, northwards through the Tanq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flowering Plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants that produce their seeds enclosed within a fruit. They are by far the most diverse group of land plants with 64 orders, 416 families, approximately 13,000 known genera and 300,000 known species. Angiosperms were formerly called Magnoliophyta (). Like gymnosperms, angiosperms are seed-producing plants. They are distinguished from gymnosperms by characteristics including flowers, endosperm within their seeds, and the production of fruits that contain the seeds. The ancestors of flowering plants diverged from the common ancestor of all living gymnosperms before the end of the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. The closest fossil relatives of flowering plants are uncertain and contentious. The earliest angiosperm fossils ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Karoo
The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is also not precisely defined. The Karoo is partly defined by its topography, geology and climate, and above all, its low rainfall, arid air, cloudless skies, and extremes of heat and cold.Potgieter, D.J. & du Plessis, T.C. (1972) ''Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa''. Vol. 6. pp. 306–307. Nasou, Cape Town.''Reader’s Digest Illustrated Guide to Southern Africa''. (5th Ed. 1993). pp. 78–89. Reader’s Digest Association of South Africa Pty. Ltd., Cape Town. The Karoo also hosted a well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago which is now represented by many fossils. The ǃ’Aukarob formed an almost impenetrable barrier to the interior from Cape Town, and the early adventurers, explorers, hunters, and travelers o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pteronia
''Pteronia'' ("resin daisies") is a genus of evergreen, woody perennial plants assigned to the family Asteraceae with currently 76 described species. Like in almost all Asteraceae, the individual flowers are 5-merous, small and clustered in typical heads, surrounded by an involucre of bracts. In ''Pteronia'', the centre of the head is taken by relatively few, yellow, disc florets, while a ring of ligulate florets is absent. These florets sit on a common base (or receptacle). Taxonomy A species of Gombos was first described and assigned to the new genus ''Pteronia'' by the famous Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the second edition of his groundbreaking Species Plantarum, the starting point of modern botanical nomenclature, that was published in 1763. He had not seen living plants or dried herbarium specimens, but based his description on an etching made by the English botanist Leonard Plukenet in 1700. This etching probably represents '' Pteronia camphorata'', which has b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renosterveld
Renosterveld is a term used for one of the major plant communities and vegetation types of the Cape Floristic Region (Cape Floral Kingdom) which is located in southwestern and southeastern South Africa, in southernmost Africa. It is an ecoregion of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. Etymology Renosterveld directly translated in the Afrikaans language means "rhinoceros-field", a possible reference to the high number of rhinoceroses seen by the Afrikaner settlers at the time. It may also derive its name from the renosterbos ("rhinoceros bush - ''Elytropappus rhinocerotis''), which is a common species of shrub found here. The dull grey colour of renosterbos is similar to the colour of a rhino's hide. Geology Renosterveld plants grow on rich soil, which makes them more nutritious than typical fynbos plants. Typically, renosterveld is largely confined to fine-grained soils - mainly clays and silts - which are derived from the shales of the Malmesbury and Bokkeve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breede River Valley
Breede River Valley is a region of Western Cape Province, South Africa known for being the largest fruit and wine producing valley in the Western Cape, as well as South Africa's leading race-horse breeding area. It is part of the Cape Winelands, Boland bordering on becoming Little Karoo towards the east. Geography The Breede River Valley is relatively broad and flat for a Western Cape valley, averaging at a floor height of 80m-250m above sea-level. Western regions are mostly alluvial and flat, while eastern regions have more hills of the Bokkeveld Group with narrow alluvial deposits. The valley is framed by the high mountains of the Cape Fold Belt, with the Hex River Mountains and the Skurweberge to the northwest, the Langeberg Mountains (up to 2000m) to the north, the smaller Boland Mountains to the southwest, and the Riviersonderend Mountains to the south. It stretches from Tulbagh in the north to McGregor, Western Cape, McGregor in the south and Rawsonville in the west to Ash ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overberg
__NOTOC__ Overberg is a region in South Africa to the east of Cape Town beyond the Hottentots-Holland mountains. It lies along the Western Cape Province's south coast between the Cape Peninsula and the region known as the Garden Route in the east. The boundaries of the Overberg are the Hottentots-Holland mountains in the West; the Riviersonderend Mountains, part of the Cape Fold Belt, in the North; the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the South and the Breede River in the East. The area has always been considered as the breadbasket of the Cape and is largely given to grain farming — mainly wheat. The wheat fields are a major breeding ground for South Africa's national bird, the blue crane. Another important crop in the Overberg is fruit, with the Elgin Valley producing about 60 percent of the total annual apple crop of about 819 000 tonnes (2012 data). Nestled in the Overberg, one can find the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve (recognised and registered with UNESCO) populated wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Namaqualand
Namaqualand (khoekhoe: "Nama-kwa" meaning Nama Khoe people's land) is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over and covering a total area of . It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River into two portions – Little Namaqualand to the south and Great Namaqualand to the north. Little Namaqualand is within the Namakwa District Municipality, forming part of Northern Cape Province, South Africa. It is geographically the largest district in the country, spanning over 26,836 km2. A typical municipality is Kamiesberg Local Municipality. The semidesert Succulent Karoo region experiences hot summers, sparse rainfall, and cold winters.Discover South Africa: Your Online Travel Directory. Discover Namakwa. Great Namaqualand in the Karas Region of Namibia, is sparsely populated by the Namaqua, a Khoikhoi people who have traditionally inhabited the Namaqualand region. Tourism The area’s landscape ranges from an unexploited coast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robertson Karoo
Robertson Karoo is a semi-arid vegetation type, restricted to sections of the Breede River Valley, Western Cape Province, South Africa. It is a subtype of Succulent Karoo (geographically an extension of the "Little Karoo") and is characterised by the dominance of succulent plant species, and by several endemic plants and animals. Location and extent This vegetation type occurs in several large patches within the Breede River Valley, in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. It occurs in the area between Worcester in the north-west, Ashton in the east, and the Riviersonderend mountains in the south. Landscape and climate Robertson Karoo typically consists of low hills and flats covered in small succulent vegetation, usually growing on rocky shale-based soils. The climate is semi-arid due to the region lying in the rainshadow of the large mountain ranges to the south-west, but the rainfall does tend to occur mainly in winter. This vegetation type has a large number of ende ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pteronia Glauca
''Pteronia glauca'' ("Geelboegoekaroo") is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, indigenous to the Karoo regions of South Africa. Description A shrub of roughly 60 cm, usually with downwards-drooping outer branches (especially when growing in very rocky ground). Branches can root where they touch the ground. It has small (5x3mm), light grey, woolly, fragrant leaves, and forms a low, dense bush. The flowerheads appear in Spring, at the tips of the branches. They are yellow and small (5mm wide), with non-sticky yellow bracts. Relatives It often co-occurs with its close relatives, '' Pteronia paniculata'' or '' Pteronia pallens'', both of which have distinctive yellow-green leaves. ''Pteronia incana'' ("Ash-bush") is a very similar species, which also has light grey leaves. However, unlike ''P.glauca'', its outer branches are not down-curved. Distribution and habitat The distribution of this species is across the arid interior Karoo regions of South Africa. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asteraceae
The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae were first described in the year 1740. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchidaceae, and which is the larger family is unclear as the quantity of extant species in each family is unknown. Most species of Asteraceae are annual, biennial, or perennial herbaceous plants, but there are also shrubs, vines, and trees. The family has a widespread distribution, from subpolar to tropical regions in a wide variety of habitats. Most occur in hot desert and cold or hot semi-desert climates, and they are found on every continent but Antarctica. The primary common characteristic is the existence of sometimes hundreds of tiny individual florets which are held together by protective involucres in flower heads, or more technicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pteronia Pallens
''Pteronia pallens'' ("Scholtzbos" or "Aasvoëlbos / Witbas") is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, indigenous to the Karoo regions of South Africa. Its natural habitat is dry, rocky slopes. It often cooccurs with its close relatives, ''Pteronia paniculata'' or ''Pteronia incana''. Description A small shrub with pale woody stem. The leaves are slender, blunt-ended, channeled and green. One to three rounded, discoid flower heads appear at the tips of the branches. This helps to distinguish it from the otherwise similar species ''Pteronia paniculata''. Distribution This species occurs in the western Little Karoo, the western Great Karoo and into the Northern Cape Province. It usually grows on lower slopes on silt or sand that is often calciferous (often overlying calcrete). References Pteronia, pallens Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces Least concern plants Plants described in 1917 {{Astereae-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pteronia Paniculata
''Pteronia paniculata'' ("Gombos" or "gum-bush") is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, indigenous to the Karoo regions of South Africa. Description This aromatic species has sticky leaves but, unlike some other ''Pteronia'' species, the flowers are not sticky. It has slender, furrowed, needle, incurved, green leaves, held in opposite pairs. It forms clusters of flowers (several capitula) at the tips of its branches. This helps to distinguish it from the otherwise similar species ''Pteronia pallens''. Distribution This species is widespread, occurring from Namibia to the Robertson Karoo in the south, as well as eastwards into the Eastern Cape. Its natural habitat is dry, rocky apronveld and it is extremely common. Due to its being inedible for livestock, it achieves unnatural densities in areas that are overgrazed. It often cooccurs with its close relatives, ''Pteronia pallens'' or ''Pteronia incana ''Pteronia incana'' ("Asbos" or "ash-bush") is a sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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