The Cape Region occupies a small area on the southwestern tip of Africa. This landscape has ancient mountain ranges that have weathered over millions of years into acidic sandy soils that are low in nutrients critical to most plants. The Cape Region is renowned for a showy and diverse flora unlike that of any other […]

The Cape Region contains arguably the most unique and diverse flora of any temperate area of the world. Its status as a distinct floral kingdom is reinforced by the presence of five endemic families—Geissolomataceae, Grubbiaceae, Penaeaceae, Roridulaceae, and Stilbaceae. Moreover, 193 endemic genera comprise 19.5 percent of the total. Covering an area of only 78,500 […]

The Cape Region lacks a distinctive mammal fauna. This region contains 127 species of native mammals, with 90 being present in the Southwest Cape area. The regional total is less than half of the mammal species occurring within all of South Africa. The largest orders present are the Rodentia and the Carnivora. The rodents are […]

Human history in the Cape Region of South Africa dates back as much as 150,000 years, with evidence of active hunter-gatherer tribes in the region 21,000 years ago. Bushmen occupied the area until the seventeenth century, when European settlers arrived. Although little or no agriculture was possible on the poor fynbos soils, the Dutch brought […]