Just three hours north of Cape Town lies a little-known biodiversity hotspot, where tiny succulents battle the elements amid hectares of white quartzite gravel. Bababoudjies (Argyroderma), krapogies (Oophytum oviforme) and tuim-en-vinger (Mesembryanthemum digitata) hunker down under the gravel pebbles, their thick leaves belying their delicate natures as endemic plants that scrape a precarious existence from the harsh arid surrounds of the Knersvlakte.
Now these scrappy succulents have an ally in the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act as it protects the 85 500 hectare area a nature reserve.
...
AllAfrica Subscription Content
You must be an allAfrica.com subscriber for full access to certain content.
You have selected an article from the AllAfrica archive, which requires a subscription. You can subscribe by visiting our subscription page. Or for more information about becoming a subscriber, you can read our subscription and contribution overview.
For information about our premium subscription services:
You can also freely access - without a subscription - hundreds of today's top Africa stories and thousands of recent news articles from our home page »
Already a subscriber? Sign in for full access to article