Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

The world-renowned Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens is the largest of South Africa's eight National Botanical Gardens and is considered one of the 'Seven Magnificent Botanical Gardens of the World.' Located in the western part of the country in the Cape Town area, it contains a unique collection of southern African plants and includes many rare and endangered species. Kirstenbosch was the first major botanical garden in the world to be devoted to indigenous plants. Cultivated areas filled with fynbos, proteas, cycads and African succulents are divided by rolling lawns, streams and ponds, and winding pathways for easy walking. The remainder of the Gardens is a nature reserve with a diverse range of native fynbos flora and forest. The interesting flora and the spectacular, sweeping views from the upper slopes make this a must-see when visiting Cape Town.

The area where the garden is located today has a long history dating back to colonial times. On April 6, 1652 Jan van Riebeeck arrived at the Cape to establish a permanent settlement for re-supplying the ships of the Dutch East India Company passing around the Cape on the spice trade route with the East.  The eastern slopes of Table Mountain had one of the few natural forests in the area, so an access track was built and timber was felled to use as building material and to repair ships. In 1657, concerned at the rapid destruction of the forest, Van Riebeeck appointed a forester to selectively harvest and manage the area. By 1795, when the British occupied the Cape, the area had become known as Kirstenbosch. In 1811 the land was sold by the colonial government to raise funds, with the southwestern section sold to Colonel Christopher Bird and the northeastern section to Henry Alexander. Colonel Bird found a permanent spring in a dell on his property, and below it built a pool, lined with bricks, in the shape of a bird. A year later Colonel Bird sold his part of Kirstenbosch to Henry Alexander, and after his death a few years later the property went through a succession of private owners. During that time the area was farmed and vines and fruit trees were planted. In 1895 Cecil John Rhodes bought Kirstenbosch. When he died in 1902, he left the estate to the people of South Africa. Cambridge botanist Henry Harold Pearson had been appointed as the first Professor of Botany at the South African College (now the University of Cape Town) in 1903, and in 1910 proposed that establishment of a South African Botanic Garden. Three years later the Kirstenbosch estate was handed over to a newly formed Botanical Society and Pearson was appointed honorary director of the new Kirstenbosch Gardens. Although he died three year later of pneumonia, he had already laid out and established the nucleus of the Garden, including the Cycad Amphitheater and The Dell around Colonel Bird's pool. Under successive directors, Kirstenbosch has grown in beauty and botanical richness to become one of the major botanical gardens of the world. 

The estate covers 1,305 acres that includes native fynbos flora and natural forest on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain. Eighty-nine acres are cultivated garden, displaying collections containing over a third of South Africa’s more than fifteen thousand species of plants, particularly those from the winter rainfall region of the country. In the cultivated areas related plants are grouped together and radiate from the central lawns like the spokes of a wheel.  The plants are labeled for easy identification.

The plants of the Cape are very different from the plants found further north in southern Africa or anywhere else in the world. This unique assemblage of plants, known as the Cape Flora, is the smallest of the six floristic kingdoms of the world. There are about 8,5000 species of plants in the Cape Floral region, and nearly three quarters are found nowhere else (including six entire plant families). There are several vegetational types. The unique fynbos, adapted to poor soils and periodic fires, is characterized by hard- or small-leaved shrubs. It includes a large number of species in the Proteaceae (proteas), Ericaceae (heaths and heathers), and Restionaceae (restios – which take the place of the grasses and sedges that are the dominant ground cover in the rest of Africa). The other vegetational types include strandveld, a shrubby vegetation found on lime-rich soils; succulent karoo veld with numerous succulent plants such as the “mesembs” (Mesembranthemaceae); renosterveld dominated by the renosterbos (Elytropappus rhinocerotis) and containing lots of bulbous plants; and Afro-montane forest. Many of these plants can be seen at Kirstenbosch.

The Conservatory includes South African plants which cannot be grown in the outdoor gardens.  There are plants from high mountain peaks, shady forests and hot, dry deserts. The main house, dominated by a baobab tree, features succulents from different arid regions of southern Africa. Other plants of note are the large kokerboom or quivertree (Aloe dichotoma) from the north-west of South Africa and numerous succulents from the Karoo. Special collections of bulbs, ferns and alpines are displayed in smaller corner houses.

Mathews’ Rockery was established by the first curator (JW Mathews), with construction starting in 1927 with the aid of mules and carts. The staff in those early years used Table Mountain sandstone boulders to build features, rockeries and retaining walls of a high standard. The area is devoted to succulent plants from semi-arid and arid regions that can adapt to the relatively high rainfall of Kirstenbosch because of the excellent drainage this raised area provides. In addition to the succulents, primarily in the genera Crassula, Lampranthus and Euphorbia and the winter-flowering aloes, there are some bulbs and many mesembs. The area is particularly colorful in winter when the aloes flower and the lesser double-collared sunbird comes to feed on their nectar. For a few weeks in spring, the rockery is ablaze with masses of mesemb (vygie) flowers.

Camphor Avenue is permanently shaded by camphor trees (Cinnamomum camphora) from China and Japan that were planted by Cecil John Rhodes over a century ago along an avenue which led to his Cecilia Estate south of Kirstenbosch. Shade-loving plants such as Plectranthus, Haemanthus, Crinum, Clivia and others, are grown under the massive, spreading branches. Rhodes also planted a row of Morton Bay figs (Ficus macrophylla, from Australia) that now form the eastern boundary of the main lawns.

The Dell is the oldest part of the Garden and one of the most popular visitor attractions. Clear water from permanent springs flows out of Colonel Bird’s Bath and around stepping stones down through the Dell to the small pond at the corner of the main path. Tree ferns and a variety of shade-loving plants, including a large number of Streptocarpus species, Plectranthus, impatiens, Mackaya bella and Gardenia thunbergii, fill the area under large yellowwood trees. The three species here (Afrocarpus falcatus, Podocarpus latifolius and P. henkelii) and a fourth (P. elongatus) nearby make up the collection of all four southern African yellowwood species.

Surrounding the Dell is the Cycad Amphitheatre, devoted to these gymnosperms that flourished on earth before flowering plants had evolved. This was the first plant collection established at Kirstenbosch primarily because Pearson had a special professional interest in this group of plants. It contains most of southern African species. Professor Pearson is buried at the southern corner of the amphitheatre. A granite Celtic cross marks the grave and bears a fitting epitaph: 'If ye seek his monument, look around.'

The Main Pond, fed from the natural spring in the Dell, sits in the center of a large lawn shaded by a majestic old oak tree. It contains blue water lilies and waterblommejies, and pink crinums at its edge. The main paths are paved and Weaverbird Walk and the Silver Tree Stroll are fairly level and wheelchair accessible. There are many impressive stone sculptures, large and small, amongst the plantings around the main lawns, which are part of a permanent exhibition of Shona art from Zimbabwe. Three other signposted, circular trail walks of varying lengths – Silvertree, Yellowwood and Stinkwood Trails – go through parts of the native forest where specimen trees are labeled with common and botanical names.

The Pelargonium Koppie (Afrikaans for “small hill”) is found in a relatively dry part of Kirstenbosch. In addition to the namesake pelargoniums, it includes some representatives of the drier types of fynbos, many types of bulbs, and some shrubs of Aloe plicatilis, one of the few species of aloe that grow in fynbos and the only tree aloe confined to the southwestern Cape.

The Herb Garden contains plants that are used for medicinal or culinary purposes, or for perfume. It includes two leguminous fynbos plants that are used to make herbal teas. Rooibos (Aspalanthus linearis) tea has become so popular that it is now a significant export crop in the dry fynbos area of the Cape. The Fragrance Garden is a collection of indigenous plants with aromatic leaves or flowers arranged in waist-high beds to make it easier to touch and smell. This garden includes many fynbos plants, fragrant-leaved pelargoniums and local mint plants, plus a number of plants with textured foliage. The adjoining Braille Trail goes through a wooded, marshy area with a guide rope leading the way to the 10 stops, each with signs in large print and Braille describing the native plants along the route.

On the higher slopes of the cultivated areas, beds largely devoted to fynbos plants surround the extensive lawns. The area is broadly divided into the restio garden, the protea garden and the erica garden, but despite the names, these beds are not limited to just those plants; there is also a huge diversity of fynbos plants of other families. The Restio Garden focuses on the incredible variety of texture and form found in the cape reed family (Restionaceae). The Protea Garden, with its profuse growth of silver trees (Leucadendron argenteum), is particularly nice in spring, when many of the genera, such as Leucodendron, Mimetes, and Serruria, as well as other spring-bloomers, put on a spectacular show. But it is still worth visiting at other times, as most of the fynbos protea species such as Protea repens and P. neriifolia flower in fall and winter and many of the pincushions (Leucospermum spp.) bloom in summer to the delight of visitors, sunbirds and sugar birds alike.

The Erica Garden contains a selection many of the over 600 species of Erica (heath) found in South Africa. There is almost always something in bloom, as the different species bloom in succession. Many species are striking because of the masses of flowers they produce, while others are noted for the beauty of the individual flowers.

The Garden is home to many bird species, including guinea fowl, sugarbirds, and several species of sunbirds, as well as small endemic mammals. In the wild the orangebreasted sunbird and Cape sugarbird are restricted to fynbos; both are resident in the fynbos area of Kirstenbosch.  In spring (August to October) annual Namaqualand daisies including Dimorphotheca, Felicia, Osteospermum, Ursinia and Gazania fill the Garden with sheets of color. Many other native annuals such as bokbaaivygies (Dorotheanthus bellidiformis) and blue flax (Heliophila coronopifolia) bloom at this time, too. The show is short-lived, as these plants set seed and stop blooming before the hot dry summer arrives.

Some other features include the Water-wise Garden demonstrates how to create a garden which needs far less water and maintenance than a conventional garden and remnants of van Riebeek’s Hedge. This wild almond (Brabejum stellatifolium) hedge was planted in 1660 by Jan van Riebeek, as a boundary to the newly-established Cape Colony.  The Useful Plants Garden is a redevelopment and extension of the Medicinal Plants Garden. It features a Xhosa Hut and demonstrates traditional ethnic uses of plants for medicinal and other uses.

The Visitors' Centre includes an information desk, various retail outlets and a coffee shop. There are also several restaurants on the grounds. The Centre for Home Gardening has outlets for plants and other services to support the home garden.

The headquarters of the National Botanical Institute that administers the national network of gardens and associated research institutes is housed on the grounds, as is the Compton Herbarium, named after a former director. Located at the top of Camphor Avenue, the herbarium is dedicated to research, particularly into Cape flora. It now preserves approximately 250,000 specimens, including its own collection and that of the South African Museum dating from 1825.

The gardens are situated on the slopes of Table Mountain, and provides a gateway to the hikes along and up the mountain’s eastern face. Forest Walk goes through groves of ironwood, yellowwood and red alder. Smuts Track leads through the mixed forest of indigenous trees up Skeleton Gorge (a steep climb up boulders, with some fixed ladders at strategic points) or Nursery Ravine to the panoramic summit of Table Mountain, and views of Cape Town from the other side – a strenuous 3 hour hike.

– Susan Mahr, University of Wisconsin

Additional Information:

• South Africa National Botanical Institute - Kirstenbosch

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