Abstract
Checklists play a fundamental role in biodiversity conservation by facilitating species monitoring, conservation planning and biogeographical assessments. The Cape Peninsula, South Africa, has a unique combination of nutrient-poor soils in a winter rainfall region, characterised by mountainous and coastal areas, all of which contribute to high levels of plant endemism. The Table Mountain National Park is a core conservation area within this global biodiversity hotspot, encompassing approximately 250 km2 of diverse vegetation types, ranging from Sandstone, Granite, Shale and Sand Fynbos, to Afrotemperate Forest, Renosterveld and Strandveld and covers roughly 50% of the Cape Peninsula. Historical land use and urbanisation have also introduced a wide diversity of non-native species. This study presents an updated checklist of the flora of the park and surrounding peninsula, incorporating recent taxonomic revisions and newly recorded species. The checklist was compiled using data from herbarium records, conservation agency databases, citizen science platforms and historical surveys. Nomenclature follows the South African National Plant Checklist as of March 2024. The resulting dataset comprises 2785 plant taxa, excluding cultivated and urban parkland species. Asteraceae (300 taxa), Fabaceae (210) and Poaceae (173) emerged as the richest families, with Erica (118 species) as the most speciose genus. A total of 437 non-native naturalised plant taxa were recorded, with Fabaceae, Poaceae and Myrtaceae among the most diverse families. Additionally, 261 species are currently classified as threatened, including 38 Critically Endangered taxa. The Table Mountain National Park flora stands out as being among the most diverse within the South African National Parks network.
Conservation implications: This updated checklist serves as a critical resource for conservation efforts, providing a baseline for future ecological research, climate change impact assessments, restoration initiatives and monitoring programmes. The data contribute to understanding species vulnerability and informing strategies for preserving the unique plant diversity of the Cape Peninsula.
Keywords: alien plants; Cape Town; diversity; Fynbos; hotspot; indigenous plants; iNaturalist; taxonomy.
Introduction
Checklists are a vital first step towards understanding, managing, conserving and exploring an area. Specifically, checklists allow a comparison of the area’s biogeographical significance within a larger region, and its representation of the surrounding area for conservation planning, the identification of focal threatened species that require monitoring or perhaps action, and a prediction of future trajectories because of threats of climate change, continued habitat loss or invasive species (Droege, Cyr & Larivée 1998; Foxcroft et al. 2009; Pomoim et al. 2022; Rebelo et al. 2011b; Spear et al. 2023).
The Cape Peninsula comprises a mountain range along the south-western tip of Africa, where the topography, winter rainfall, surrounding ocean and nutrient-poor soils have given rise to a highly biodiverse landscape, with high levels of species endemism of both plants and invertebrates (Cowling, MacDonald & Simmons 1996). Within this landscape, the Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) is one of the core endemic areas for the Cape Flora and is currently recognised as a national park within a World Heritage Area in a global biodiversity hotspot (Myers et al. 2000). The park was established in 1998 to consolidate conservation-worthy land on the Cape Peninsula and covers around 250 km2, roughly 50% of the Cape Peninsula. Previous lists recognise around 2285 plant species, including 158 endemics (Adamson & Salter 1950; Helme & Trinder-Smith 2006). The historical land-use and long history of urbanisation have also led to the introduction of a large number of non-native species (Macdonald et al. 1987; Spear et al. 2011).
The TMNP consists mainly of Sandstone Fynbos, surrounded by Granite Fynbos and Shale Fynbos on the lower slopes, and a small section of Sand Fynbos on the flats. In addition, Afrotemperate Forest occurs in the fire-sheltered kloofs, Renosterveld in the more arid north, and Strandveld along the coast (Rebelo et al. 2006). Peninsula Renosterveld and Cape Flats Sand Fynbos have largely been lost, but Peninsula Granite Fynbos is also categorised as a Critically Endangered veld type (Skowno et al. 2019). The area has been the focus of a review (Macdonald & Cowling 1996), as has the surrounding area of the City of Cape Town (Rebelo et al. 2011b). While historical checklists exist, these are largely out of date because of large numbers of new species and decades of taxonomic revisions. The latter complicates assessments of change in species abundance, threat status and the impact of conservation interventions. The purpose of updating the checklist was to obtain a comprehensive list of the endemic, threatened and non-native plant species, as a baseline for compiling trait data to investigate future trends and threats, for example, under climate change (Foden et al. 2018; Holmes, Stipinovich & Purves 2012).
Research methods and design
Detailed methodology for the compilation of the checklist can be found in Rebelo et al. (2025). In summary, the checklist was compiled during 2021–2022 for the TMNP and its representative area: the Cape Peninsula, effectively the area west of 18.50°E and south of 33.89°S. Most of the natural vegetation in this area is within the TMNP. The checklist covers higher plants: namely, ferns and lycophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms. Red List data (October 2023) were obtained from SANBI (SANBI 2024a).
Species occurrence data were sourced from: (1) BODATSA; (2) Provincial conservation agency databases; (3) municipal agency databases; (4) SANParks databases, including CyberTracker and C-More records; (5) NGOs and universities [especially the Bolus Herbarium (BOL) and library at the Botany Department of the University of Cape Town; (6) Private conservancies, stewardship, reserve and other land owners; (7) Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers programme (CREW) and national programmes (especially important for Red List taxa); (8) The National Vegetation Mapping project (SANBI) and any relevé or plot data collected for mapping the communities or vegetation types within reserves; (9) Historical surveys: Protea Atlas Project (SANBI) (Rebelo 1991), and specialised plot data collected for monitoring or surveillance within the reserve (e.g., Taylor 1983) and (10) iNaturalist data.
Nomenclature follows the South African National Plant Checklist as of March 2024 (SANBI 2024b). In the checklist for TMNP and the surrounding areas, families are arranged alphabetically within each major group, followed by genera and species (alphabetically) within each family. Synonyms and common names have not been included, nor have taxa that are extremely unlikely to be present; these can be obtained from the database, which has been uploaded to the SANParks Biodiversity Information System (https://bims.sanparks.org/).
Ethical considerations
This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
Results
Some 3780 plant taxa were recorded in the TMNP area, but excluding those from gardens, urban parklands and marked as ‘planted’ on iNaturalist, resulted in 2785 plant taxa see Online appendix 1 for the full checklist. The richest family was Asteraceae with 300 taxa and 95 genera (Table 1). In addition, Fabaceae, Poaceae, Iridaceae, Cyperaceae, Ericaceae, Orchidaceae and Restionaceae had over 100 taxa. The Poaceae and Fabaceae additionally had over 25 genera. Two families with only one genus present in the TMNP area were in the top 20 most specious families, namely the Ericaceae (Erica) and Oxalidaceae (Oxalis).
| TABLE 1: Largest families (of more than 30 taxa) and genera in the TMNP area with numbers of threatened (CR, EN, VU), endemic and non-native taxa (including extralimital taxa). |
Erica, with 118 taxa, is the richest genus in the TMNP area, with Aspalathus and Disa having over 50 species (Table 1). Ericaceae (=Erica) contains by far the most endemic taxa at 38, while Fabaceae, Proteaceae and Polygalaceae also have more than 10 endemic species (Table 1). The following families had a single endemic species: Apiaceae, Celastraceae, Colchicaceae, Cytinaceae, Droseraceae, Hyacinthaceae, Lobeliaceae, Malvaceae, Menyanthaceae, Orchidaceae, Penaeaceae, Poaceae, Rosaceae, Santalaceae and Thymelaeaceae. The richest genera in terms of endemism are Erica (38 species, 32% endemism) and Muraltia (10 species, 36% endemism).
Herbs (1078) are the dominant growth form on the Cape Peninsula, followed by dwarf shrubs (607) and shrubs (590), although some taxa occur in several growth forms. These three growth forms account for 70% of the TMNP flora. Geophytes account for 17% and graminoids for 12%. Trees (70) account for only 2.5% of the flora on the Cape Peninsula, and succulents 5.4% (150 taxa).
Some 437 non-native taxa (naturalised and invasive flora) occur in the TMNP area and surrounds (Table 1). The Fabaceae, Poaceae and Myrtaceae feature prominently in the non-native flora. An unexpected result is the high number of Melaleuca (incl. Callistemon) species (20) in the Myrtaceae, which, with the Fabaceae (13 Acacia species, 11 Trifolium species), make the top three non-native genera. Among Cape Flora species, the widely cultivated genus Protea, with large wild populations and hybrids with local species (termed Frankenflora) is a particular problem.
Some nine taxa are globally extinct (two are extinct in the wild, although they have been re-established at Tokai Park), and another 261 species are threatened with extinction (i.e., Critically Endangered: 38, Endangered: 88 or Vulnerable: 135). A further 74 species are Near Threatened. Some 41 species are data deficient, nine of which have uncertain and as yet undetermined localities within the area, the remainder requiring taxonomic reappraisal. Thus, 385 of the 3087 (12%) taxa of conservation concern in the Cape Flora (Manning & Goldblatt 2012) can be found in the TMNP area. The Fabaceae and Ericaceae have the most threatened species, with Iridaceae, Proteaceae, Restionaceae and Aizoaceae each having more than 15 threatened taxa (Table 1).
Discussion
The Cape Peninsula has an extremely species-rich flora, which is expected for this global hotspot. The average number of species per unit area on the Cape Peninsula (and in Table Mountain National Park) far outnumbers that of other parks except Bontebok NP, where the number of species per unit area is affected by the small area of the park (Table 2). Furthermore, Cape Town is the extinction capital of the planet (Rebelo et al. 2011a). It is thus no surprise that many species now extinct are documented to have occurred in the TMNP area.
| TABLE 2: The number of species and/or terminal taxa documented from each national park within the SANParks network, with numbers standardised per 100 hectares (ha) for comparison. References for the checklists providing the number of species in each park are detailed in the last column. |
The richest families are very similar to those of the Cape Flora (Manning & Goldblatt 2012), except that Poaceae, Restionaceae and Orchidaceae are richer in the TMNP area. The families with the most endemic species have a lower proportion of endemics than the Cape Flora (Manning & Goldblatt 2012), where most species in the typical Fynbos families and genera are endemic.
Compared to the Cape Flora (Manning & Goldblatt 2012), the TMNP area has a slightly lower occurrence of shrubs and subshrubs (54% for the Cape Flora), and more graminoids (8%), but herbs are very much richer (18%; as annuals and perennials), with trees making up the same proportion of the flora. Comparative data for succulents in the Cape Flora are not available. The top four genera largely mirror the pattern for the Cape Flora in terms of species richness. However, Disa is richer; the prominent Cape genera Agathosma, Pelargonium and Phylica are not in the top 10 for the TMNP, and Thesium is well represented in the park (Manning & Goldblatt 2012).
The high number of alien species, while concerning, is well documented (e.g. Cheney et al. 2018), with most species well controlled by the clearing programme in the park. Alien Fabaceae are widespread, but only occur at high density in a few areas, and following fires, after which their removal is prioritised (Cheney et al. 2021). Grasses are not included in many of the mapping exercises, as they are notoriously hard to identify, but alien grasses tend to be confined to disturbed areas (Table Mountain management, pers. comm.).
This checklist of the flora of the Cape Peninsula has a number of immediate practical applications. The list, along with plant trait information, is being used for assessing the vulnerability of the flora of Table Mountain National Park to climate change. Sub-sets of the list are also being used to prioritise species for inclusion in the restoration of particular habitat types.
Conclusion
A number of species lists have been published for the Cape Peninsula previously. The current list has around 500 more species than included on previous lists (e.g. Adamson & Salter 1950). The main reason for this increase is the inclusion in our list of alien taxa on the peninsula that are known to have naturalised. Taxonomic changes may also have resulted in minor changes to the number of species recorded (e.g. where species have been lumped and split). Inclusion of these taxonomic updates is critical to improve prioritisation and reporting on species representation and conservation.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank following people, and organisations and individuals for providing data: Trevor Adams, Chad Cheney (SANParks), Llewellyn Jacobs (CapeNature), Leighan Mossop (City of Cape Town), Corinne Merry (Friends of Silvermine Nature Reserve), Hannelie Snyman, Brenda Daly (SANBI), Ismail Ebrahim (CREW), Victoria Willman (Millenium Seed Bank), Rene Navarro (University of Cape Town), Jasper Slingsby (SAEON), iNaturalist. While their contribution was important, it did not meet the criteria for authorship.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
Authors’ contributions
N.J.v.W. and A.G.R. conceived of the presented idea. All authors attended a workshop on the suggested species listing process. A.G.R. and P.M.H. consolidated available data in consultation with N.J.v.W. to find additional sources. R.R.K., P.M.H. and A.G.R. worked together to correctly assign taxonomy. R.R.K., D.S. and N.J.v.W. cleaned the list for publication and conducted analysis on the list contents. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.
Funding information
The author D.S. was funded by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation (grant number: 60916), which is also supporting the development of species data management tools in SANParks. The author, P.M.H., was supported for this work through a grant from the Table Mountain Fund (grant number: TM 5856).
Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available in Online appendix 1 and will also be made available through the SANParks Biodiversity Information Management System: https://bims.sanparks.org/
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and are the product of professional research. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency or the publisher. The authors are responsible for this article’s results, findings and content.
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