notes about this website

More or less the only purpose of this website is a picture celebration of the beauty and variety of the fynbos growing in the reserve of farm 215. Other than that, this website has no ambition. Having said that, we barely achieve our mission. The pictures on this website show only a few hundred fynbos species, less than half of the estimated 1000 species growing in the reserve of farm 215 and a fraction of the over 2500 species occurring in the Southern Overberg, the coastal stretch between Stanford and Cape Infanta in De Hoop Nature Reserve.

The bulbs ("geophytes") are grouped together. For the rest the pictures are grouped by family and in alphabetical order. Scientific names are used. There are too many fynbos species for each of them to have a common name; sometimes the same common name is used for different plants and sometimes a plant has different common names. If there is a common name, this will be given in the text of the big picture which opens in a separate window. It will also be noted in the text if a species is listed as a threatened species in accordance with the IUCN Red Data List of South African plants (Interim red data list 2007). See the links section to download this list.

We had to be selective. We show favoritism towards bulbs of the Iris family, Orchids and the Erica and Protea families for no better reasons than that the plants of these families are photogenic and can easily be recognized, even by the untrained eye. Of the countless number of the Aspalathus genus of the Pea family on the other hand, we only show a few pictures. In order to tell them apart, your eye needs to be expertly trained. On the whole we have tried to show an adequate representation of the different kinds of fynbos species growing in the reserve. The pictures in this website will also give a fair idea of the fynbos vegetation naturally occurring in the whole of the Southern Overberg with the exception of areas with limestone soil and the dunes along the coast.

We know our fynbos, but this is a layman's website. We believe that the species pictured on this website have been accurately named, but if you choose to differ, please let us know. If you want to learn more about fynbos or want to have a deeper appreciation of beauty of the Cape Floral Kingdom, please check out the links and books page on this website.