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Fynbos
| Gansbaai falls within the Cape Floristic Kingdom, the smallest, yet by area, the most diverse of the world’s six floral Kingdoms. The Cape Floristic Kingdom is one of the world's natural wonders with more than 8 600 plants, 5800 of which are endemic in an area of less than 90 000 square kilometres.
Despite its amazing diversity and conservation value, the flora of the Cape is a vanishing natural resource. Pressures from agriculture, alien plants and urban development are continually eroding natural areas with more than 1400 species featuring in Red Data lists as being critically rare, endangered or vulnerable. This are nearly as many species as the entire flora of the British Isles. More than one-third of the original area occupied by fynbos has already been lost and new areas are coming under pressure from these threats all the time.Fynbos (fine bushes, pronounced "fain-bos") is the popular name for
the shrublands of the winter rainfall area of the Western Cape Province of
South Africa. This hardy vegetation has adapted to the dry summer season
and strong coastal winds in special ways: by producing large, hard,
leathery leaves (as in the protea family); or fine, tiny leaves, often
with rolled edges (the erica family); by having long stems with no leaves
(the reed family); or by means of undergroumd storage organs (lilies and
orchids).
The fynbos experiences a
mediterranean type climate, with cool wet winters and hot dry summers. The
summer droughts, together with the extremely poor soils that occur in most
areas, and the intense fires that occur at intervals of between four and
twenty years, have been the major driving forces in the evolution of the
extraordinary assemblage of plants that comprise fynbos communities. The
importance of fire in fynbos is frequently overlooked or misunderstood.
Many people think of fire only as a killer of plants and animals, but it
also creates space and increases the availability of nutrients, light and
water that otherwise limit regeneration in mature fynbos. Fire is a
natural part of fynbos and without it there would be no fynbos. It acts as
the major mineralizing agent, returning elements held in living plants and
litter to the soil. The flush of nutrients released after fire increases
the availability of nitrogen, phosphorus and other essential elements,
enabling plants to re-establish in the nutrient-poor soils. Recurring
fires over millions of years have led to the evolution of many
life-history features in fynbos plants. These include the stimulation by
fire of seed released from cones held on the plant, seed germination and
even flowering. Recent research has shown that the dormant seeds of many
fynbos species are stimulated to germinate by the chemical substances
found in smoke. Substances leached from healed or charred wood can also
stimulate germination. Many fynbos plants are killed by fire, and rely
entirely on seeds for reproduction. Others survive fires and re-sprout
from beneath fire resistant bark or from below ground. A major reason for
the bewildering diversity of plant species in fynbos is to be found by
exploring the many routes that different plant groups have followed in
evolving adaptations to deal with fire.
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