Kirstenbosch Centenary

many of the 100+ year old trees were marked in celebration

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens was founded 100 years ago in 1913 and dedicated to the cultivation and study of the indigenous plants of South Africa. But before it was a botanical garden, it served as the habitat for prehistoric man, a vineyard of Muscat grapes planted by some shipwrecked French in 1659 (love those French!), and an orchard and hardwood forest planted by the Dutch East India Company as an outpost boundary during the British occupation.

It was bought by mining magnate and former Prime Minister of the Cape Colony Cecil John Rhodes in 1895 with the intention that the land would be conserved to protect it from urban development. Smart man, Mr. Rhodes! There should be a scholarship named after him ... Oh yeah, there is.

One of nine botanical gardens in South Africa, Kirstenbosch is also a World Heritage Site. This is important as it is a refuge for endangered and almost extinct native South African plants. There is even a garden called the Garden of Extinction on the grounds which displays many of the plants which are nearly extinct, vulnerable, threatened, critically endangered, rare, declining, and several other sad descriptions of plant status.



One plant that is exhibited has an uplifting story though, erica verticillata, a fynbos which once grew wild in the area in the Cape between Rondebosch and Rondeviel. A native of South Africa, it had become extinct here, and therefore the world, not growing anywhere in the wild. The last recorded collected plant in the wild was in 1908! To the rescue came The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, the Heather Society of America in California and the Heather Society of Britain in Southampton. Each had display specimens which they promptly sailed to Cape Town enabling Kirstenbosch to reintroduce erica verticillata to South Africa! That is why seed and plant exchanges between gardens is so very important!

But I did not come for the endangered plants. I came to see the national flower of South Africa, the King Protea (protea cyaroides) in bloom. Magnificent! The Protea Walk had mounds of them, also known as sugarbushes due to its attraction to the native Cape Sugarbirds. Also in bloom were the protea's close fynbos relatives, the pincushions (leucospermum), the conebushes (leucadendron), and the pagodas (mimetas).





Another winter beauty in full bloom was the crane flower or bird-of-paradise cultivated by Kirstenbosch and and named in honor of Nelson Mandela in 1996.  Mandela's Gold is a beautiful yellowish gold and purple-blue variety with touches of scarlet red and purple-black. With the green leaves you could almost see the South African flag in its colors.

Here's to another 100 years Kirstenbosch. Cheers!