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New plant records for Tankwa Karoo National Park, South Africa
Koedoe | Vol 54, No 1 | a1066 |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/koedoe.v54i1.1066
| © 2012 Stoffel P. Bester, Ronell R. Klopper, Hester M. Steyn, Hugo Bezuidenhout
| This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 13 October 2011 | Published: 12 November 2012
Submitted: 13 October 2011 | Published: 12 November 2012
About the author(s)
Stoffel P. Bester, National Herbarium, South African National Biodiversity Institute; School of Environmental Sciences and Development, North-West University, South AfricaRonell R. Klopper, Biosystematics Research & Biodiversity Collections Division, South African National Biodiversity Institute; Department of Plant Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Hester M. Steyn, National Herbarium, South African National Biodiversity Institute, South Africa
Hugo Bezuidenhout, Scientific Services, South African National Parks; Applied behavioural ecology and ecosystem research unit, University of South Africa, South Africa
Abstract
The Tankwa Karoo National Park has been enlarged from 27 064 ha to 143 600 ha. This whole area is severely under-collected for plants in general and therefore it was an obvious target for the South African National Parks (SANParks) Programme, a component of the Pretoria National Herbarium (PRE) Plant Collecting Programme. This programme not only aims to survey national parks that have been poorly surveyed, but also inadequately known taxa, unique habitats, remote and inaccessible areas and plant species flowering at irregular times, especially after events such as fire or unusual timing of, or high, rainfall. General collecting in the Tankwa Karoo National Park has already led to the description of two new taxa, from two families. It furthermore resulted in new distribution records for the park and for the Northern Cape Province. These are reported on here.
Conservation implications: Although the Tankwa Karoo National Park falls within the Succulent Karoo Biome (a biodiversity hotspot of international importance), information on its plant diversity is insufficient because it is an under-collected area. Results of this study will guide conservation and supply occurrence and distribution data required to compile management plans for the park.
Keywords
distribution records; National Herbarium Plant Collecting Programme; Northern Cape; range extension; Tankwa Karoo National Park
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