ABSTRACT
Southern Africa, and in particular South Africa, is home to a vast variety of endemic flora and fauna which, besides its intrinsic value, is vital for sustaining human livelihoods as well as many formal and informal economic sectors. Seven broad terrestrial ecological zones (biomes) occur in this region: the savanna, grassland, nama karoo, succulent karoo, forest, desert and fynbos biomes (Rutherford and Westfall, 1994). Some authorities also recognize an eighth biome, the thicket biome (Low and Rebelo, 1996). Of these, the fynbos biome in the Cape region and succulent karoo biome in the succulent karoo region possess particularly high levels of plant biodiversity and are two of the eight centres of plant endemism identified within southern Africa (Cowling and Hilton-Taylor 1994; Cowling and Hilton-Taylor, 1997).
