Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve - city of Cape Town

Protea nitida - Kogelberg Mnts - South Africa 6

Kogelberg Sandstone Fynbos is a critically endangered vegetation type occurring in the far south of the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. This type of mountain fynbos contains an extremely high number of threatened species and a great number of the plants that occur here can be found nowhere else on earth. It naturally occurs from the eastern outskirts of

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, eastwards through the

Kogelberg The Kogelberg is a range of mountains along the False Bay coast in the Western Cape of South Africa. They form part of the Cape Fold Belt, starting south of the Elgin valley and forming a steep coastal range as far as Kleinmond. The Kogelberg ...

and

Hottentots-Holland The Hottentots Holland Mountains are part of the Cape Fold Belt in the Western Cape, South Africa. The mountain range forms a barrier between the Cape Town metropolitan area and the southern Overberg coast. The range is primarily composed of Ta ...

mountains, as far as

Kleinmond Kleinmond is a small coastal town in the Overberg region of the Western Cape province, South Africa. It is situated inside a UNESCO-declared biosphere about 90 km east of Cape Town between Betty's Bay and Hermanus. The town's name, meaning " ...

, and it is conserved within the

Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve Kogelberg Nature Reserve is a nature reserve of comprising the Kogelberg Mountain Range, to the east of Cape Town, South Africa. With about 1600 plant species, it contains a floral diversity per unit area that is greater than anywhere else in t ...

. This particular vegetation grows on rough, mountainous, sandstone terrain. It was extensively planted with commercial timber plantations of invasive

pine trees A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garde ...

. These trees pose a major threat to the unique and endangered biodiversity and have yet to be completely removed.

References

External links

IUCN Red List.org: Threatened Ecosystems in South Africa: Descriptions and Maps
— ''Kogelberg Sandstone Fynbos pg. 58−59''. {{Cape Town, natural Fynbos ecosystems Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub in South Africa Vegetation types of Cape Town

See also

References

External links