Ericas on a mountainside

Many ericas grow mainly in winter when it is cool and moist in the Western Cape, one of the renowned areas of Erica endemism. They flower more in spring and summer when it is hot and dry. The height of the mountains and closeness to the sea create suitably moderate conditions for these plants that make such flowering possible.

Adaptation of a plant means that it copes with particular intervals on scales of moisture, temperature, seasonal variation, wind, soil acidity and many other factors that have impacted on it all through its natural selection history in a specific habitat. Those life ensuring scale intervals may be quite small, hard to replicate and alien to the needs of the next species.

So to people visiting plants in places that may seem harsh to humans, a plant may appear very tough. Remove it from the normal setting of life-giving conditions and its survival becomes threatened (Baker and Oliver, 1967).