Fynbos Retreat in the rain

Once you know it, fynbos doesn’t look drab, even from a distance. To become familiar and acquire the affinity, you have to walk in it. 

Fynbos vegetation is defined by three necessary components:

1. reedy, grass-like plants, the restios,

2. low-growing shrubs with small, needle-like and sometimes grooved leaves, typically the ericas and

3. larger leaved, taller shrubs, typically the Proteaceae family.

The restios replace grass in this vegetation. Many kinds of Cape reeds, as they are also commonly known, form the lower layer of the dense vegetation. They bind the soil, increase water retention and prevent erosion. The conspicuous Erica and Protea flowers are often the most admired, but fynbos offers much more.

Diversity involves detail with challenges to memory. There is more to learn about fynbos than most people manage in a lifetime. Average curiosity and you'll never be bored here.

A view of tall fynbos not burned for years sends a compelling invitation for a walk once you’re hooked. Recently burned fynbos presents a totally different species mix on the same land, equally attractive. There is a time-share system between the big and the small in the fynbos regulated by fire. The plants manage their sharing intervals of unequal duration themselves, via cycles of ebullient renaissance. Humans are only required to keep pyromaniacal tendencies to a minimum.

Visitors that melt in rain will be daunted by the conditions depicted here. Rain commonly interferes with winter walks here. The photo, taken in February, i.e. summer, proves the old adage on Cape weather: four seasons in a day (Paterson-Jones and Manning, 2007).