Langeberg - southern arm
The major east-west trending mountain range of the Southern Cape. It extends from Montagu in the west petering out towards the east near Mossel Bay. It forms the boundary between the Agulhas Plain and the Overberg in the south, and the Klein Karoo in the north. Major conservation areas include Marloth Nature Reserve and Grootvadersbosch Nature Reserve.
Four major passes cross the Langeberg: Cogmanskloof Pass lies in the west between Montagu and Ashton; Tradouws Pass links Barrydale with Swellendam; Garcias Pass links Ladismith and Riversdale; and Cloetes Pass links Ladismith with Mossel Bay.
Floristically it is extremely rich with many endemics, particularly it is a hotspot for the Peneaceae. A PhD study was undertaken at the University of Cape Town by botanist David McDonald, who uncovered many rare and new species and wrote a thesis entitled 'Phytogeography, endemism and diversity of the fynbos of the southern Langeberg'.
Nodes
Langebergia
Thesium capitatum
Untitled
Mairia hirsuta
Syncarpha vestita
Langebergia
Untitled
Plectranthus fruticosus
Erica regerminans
Pages
Taxonomy term
Erepsia
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Gk. erepo = to cover (with a roof) or erepso = I shall hide; referring to the staminodes covering and hiding the stamens.
Erica
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Gk. ereike = to break. The name used for a heath by Theophrastus (372–287 BCE) and Pliny the Elder. The stems are brittle and break easily (Lindsay); or possibly but less likely because of the ability of the plant to break up bladder stones (Paxton’s Botanical Dictionary).
Erica blenna
(Lantern Heath){"type":"FeatureCollection","features":[]}
From the Greek blennos = 'mucous'; referring to the stickiness of the flower
Erica cordata
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From the Latin cordatus = ‘heart-shaped’; usually referring to the leaf shape
Erica polifolia
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Bearing leaves like Teucrium polium, Lamiaceae
Euryops
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Gk. eurys = large or broad; ops = eye or face; referring to the large showy capitula or flower head.
FABACEAE
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Faba, Latin, a bean.
Geissoloma
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Gk. gelsson = eaves of a roof, tiles, or hem of garment; loma = fringe. The leaves may be minutely ‘fringed’ when young, and the four perianth segments are imbricate, like tiles on a roof.
Gladiolus
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La. gladiolus = a small sword; referring to the sword-like shape of the leaves.
Gnidia
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Derivation uncertain. Linnaeus only states ‘habitat in Aethiopa’, Africa, where it is widely distributed. Possibly Gnidia was named after a Greek city, Knidos, where a kind of laurel grew, or Cnidus in Caria (modern Turkey) (Hugh Glen). Another possibility is that it could be a Greek word for Daphne or laurel; in Greek mythology, Daphne was a pretty nymph who was turned into a laurel bush (WPU Jackson). It might also have been named after Knossos in Crete (spelled Knidiossos in one version), with the G being substituted for K.
Hermannia
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For Paul Hermann (1646–1695), German-born Dutch physician and botanist. He graduated in medicine at the universities of Leiden and Padua, became a ship’s medical officer (1672–1677) for the Dutch East India Company and went to Sri Lanka via the Cape, where he made the first known herbarium collection of local plants, now housed in the Sloane Herbarium, British Museum of Natural History and at Oxford. In 1679 he became professor of botany at the University of Leiden and director of the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, Europe’s finest botanical garden. His 1687 publication Horti Academici Lugduno-Batavi Catalogus includes 34 Cape plants, and his proposed Prodomus Plantaerum Africanarum was to contain 791 items, but untimely death intervened.
Hippia
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Derivation unknown. Suggestions include after ‘Hippia’, a title given to the Roman goddess Minerva or possibly after Hippias of Elis, a Greek philosopher or Gk. hippos = horse.
Hypodiscus
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Gk. hypo- = beneath; diskos = disk; referring to the toothed or lobed disk that crowns the ovary in some species.
Kniphofia
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For Johann(es) Hieronymus Kniphof (1704–1763), German physician, lecturer, professor of medicine at the University of Erfurt (1737), becoming dean of the medical faculty (1747) and rector from 1661 until his death. Author of a folio of natureprinted illustrations of plants in 1733, followed by a significantly expanded second edition in 1747 and third edition in 1757–1759 containing 1 200 botanical images that were produced by a somewhat unique process, whereby dried plant specimens were coated with printer’s ink and pressed on paper, resulting in a silhouette effect. His book Botanica in Originali Seu Herbarium Vivum (1757–1764) was the first significant work to follow Linnaeus’s nomenclature.
Lachenalia
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For Werner de Lachenal (1736–1800), Swiss professor of botany and anatomy at the University of Basel from 1776, eminent for his knowledge of European plants. He obtained his PhD in 1763. He was a pupil of Haller, who was one of his main correspondents, providing him with details of flora and their location around Basel, the Jura mountains, Alsat and Bruntrutain. He was a friend of Linnaeus. He authored several monographs in Acta Helvetica. While at the university he substantially improved its botanical garden, the oldest in Switzerland, that had fallen into disrepair. He continually strived to obtain funds to reconstruct and develop the garden and to pay for its gardener. He opened the garden to the public to cover expenditures.