FLOWERS OF THE DRAKENSBERG WILDERNESS

“GO OUT ALONE ON THE HILLS AND LISTEN,

YOU WILL HEAR MUCH,

THE WIND AND THE STREAMS TELLS STORIES,

ALONE AMIDST NATURE,

A MAN LEARNS TO BE ONE WITH ALL AND ALL WITH ONE”

FLOWERS OF THE DRAKENSBERG

WILDERNESS

The Drakensberg and its Wilderness is a forbidding, awe-inspiring territory caught amongst the mist and clouds of basalt peaks where waterfalls turn to columns of ice in winter. Long familiar to herdsmen and mountaineers, the area is largely inaccessible and still considered terra incognita by botanists.

The plants may differ with every fold of the mountains, with every change in altitude, aspect, drainage, from one valley or peak to the next, clinging to cracks in rock faces, taking hold in basalt gravels or floating in shallow rock pools on the summit.

The dramatic broken landscape of the escarpment and the harsh climatic conditions on the highlands of Lesotho account for the remarkable diverse plant life with about 2200 species and almost 400 endemics (plants found only in this area and nowhere else in the world).

The flora of these high mountains has been recognized as one of the world’s ‘hot spots’, a centre of plant diversity of global botanical importance.

Although the interior is exposed and windswept, its marshes, mires and sponges are the watershed of southern Africa, giving rise to rivers that flow to two oceanopposite sides of the continent, the Atlantic and the Indian.

The summit of the Drakensberg, which averages an altitude of 3000m, forms an almost inaccessible boundary between Lesotho and South Africa, with sheer cliffs falling 1200m in places. This beautiful area can be very bleak until the plants respond to rain and warm summer temperatures with a burst of colour, flowers carpeting the sheet rock and marshy ground on the summit.

The grasslands can be transformed into fields of flowers in response to fires, often started as a result of lightning (the area has the highest strike rate in southern Africa). People also use fire to bring on new grass for grazing.

May of the Drakensberg and Lesotho plants are already well known to gardeners in the northern hemisphere. Some were introduced to horticulture in Britain and Europe by intrepid explorers and collectors as long ago as the late 1800’s. Although mostly unknown in gardens of southern Africa, many plants are popular and available to gardeners in Europe, Britain, USA and Japan, while horticultural hybrids and cultivars abound.

A note of caution to both the professional and the amateur plant collector – feast on these plants with your eyes and your senses only. Growing them can be difficult and, more importantly, they are protected by the nature conservation laws of South Africa. You may not collect plants without a permit.

In 2000, the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg area was proclaimed a World Heritage Site for its rich diversity of plant and animal life, spectacular natural landscape and outstanding San rock paintings. Africa’s greatest concentration of rock art is to be found in the caves and overhangs of these mountains, with more than 600 recorded sites containing over 40000 images. The area is recognized as one of the world’s few sites that meets the criteria for both natural and cultural properties.

The region was formed by massive volcanic activity in the Jurassic period resulting in basalt lavas covering most of the plateau and the upper face of the escarpment with dolerite intrusions. It overlays the softer Cave Sandstone which is exposed as cliffs and overhangs below the escarpment and in great wind-sculpted boulders in the south.

The soils are black, very rich; thin on the summit plateau, deeper on the foothills. In summer the soils on the summit are often waterlogged. In winter they freeze every night. The freeze and thaw heaves the soil and stones making it an unstable habitat for plants. This activity also causes the crescent-shaped scars on the mountain slopes lower down.

The friend of nature who wants to get to know and experience the region at its best, must come here high or late summer when the richly coloured splendour of flowers unfolds most abundantly, then, like the Cape Flats in spring, this stunning and melancholy land, too, resembles a lovely garden, a more beautiful one than could hardly be imagined.

We as hikers, explorers, and adventurers have the absolute duty to respect and protect our Wildernesses. Nobody else will do it for us. Take ownership!

The End.

Safe Hiking.