Flora of South Africa
by Michael L. Charters

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Plant List and Index Names in South African Botany

Plant geographers currently divide the world into six floristic kingdoms, each of which has a characteristic flora and numerous endemic species.  The largest of these kingdoms is the Boreal Kingdom, at 20 million square km comprising almost the entire northern hemisphere north of 30°.  The smallest (90,000 km2) yet most diverse of all the kingdoms is the Cape Floral Kingdom, which consists solely of the Mediterranean vegetation of the Western Cape Province of South Africa and some adjacent areas, a biome which contains the greatest concentration of plant species in the world.  In an area less than one quarter the size of California, there are approximately 8,600 species, of which an astounding 5,800, or 68%, are endemic!  I travelled to South Africa in 1998, but due to the constraints of being with a group was not able to do much on my own.  I spent only one week in the Western Cape Province both north and east of Capetown, and another week in the vicinity of Kruger National Park.  Regrettably, since I had such a limited amount of time and no good floras with me, I was not able to properly determine the identifications of many of those lovely flowers which I saw and photographed, and therefore they were displayed here originally mostly with incomplete or with no identifications, and even those that were given were in some cases incorrect. Additional photographs presented here were taken in the South African section of the Los Angeles Arboretum, in the protea garden at the Wild Animal Park, and at the Quail, University of California Riverside, Mildred Mathias (UCLA) and Huntington Botanical Gardens. The identifications given are as were recorded on garden signs or given to me by garden staff.  Until I can get back to South Africa, the majority of my photos will of necessity be from our local collections. Also, although I am primarily interested in the Cape Floristic Region, some photos displayed here are from other parts of South Africa.     I am extremely indebted to Mr. Eugene Nel who contacted me from Worcester in the Western Cape and very kindly went to a lot of trouble to help me put correct identifications on many of the photographs for which I had either sketchy or no identifi- cations at all. I further express my gratitude to Mr. Deon Viljoen of the Karoo Botanical Gardens in Worcester for his time and effort. Anyone who is able to shed further light on any of the uncertainties is welcome to contact me at the e-mail address given below. My hope is that the photos will impress the viewer with their beauty and diversity, and possibly stimulate an interest in this vastly complex and interesting floral community. I have just (as of January 2008) returned from a fantastic botanical excursion to the Eastern Cape, where we spent two weeks hiking and photographing wildflowers, and have many memory cards full of photographs of for me new species and a whole new appreciation for the phenomenal diversity that exists there. It is my intention to soon reorganize this site to incorporate these new taxa.     For a more detailed discussion of Cape flora, please click HERE. For an etymological listing of South African generic and specific epithets derived from personal names, you may click HERE. For a list of shared genera between Southern Africa and California, click HERE. And for a plant list and index of the site, click HERE.

Home Page All photos by Michael L. Charters except the one at the top of the this page. (Credit Spectrum Photos) I wish to express my appreciation to Dr. Tony Rebelo at the Protea Atlas Project, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Capetown, for his kind assistance. I also received invaluable help from Mr. Eugene Nel, Worcester, Western Cape, on identifications of many of the included species. Additional acknowledgements:  Kurt Stueber for the identification of the grass on Page Two. Composed with Dreamweaver 4 software.  If requested, my consent will gladly be given for the non-commercial use of these photographs.   Contact me at:  mmlcharters[at]calflora.net. © 2003-2006 Michael L. Charters, Sierra Madre, CA.