Renosterveld types:

RenosterveldNorth-western Mountain RenosterveldEscarpment Mountain Renosterveld Central Mountain RenosterveldWest Coast Renosterveld

60. ESCARPMENT MOUNTAIN RENOSTERVELD

Synonym:

Escarpment Mountain Renosterveld

Mountain Renosterveld (A43).

Statistics:

5 900 km²; area transformed unknown; 0.13% conserved.

Locality & Physical Geography:

Located on the slopes and foothills of the Great Escarpment, from Calvinia to Sutherland and towards Beaufort West, on the Roggeveld, Koms and Nuweveld Mountains.

Climate:

Rainfall ranges from 200 to 300 mm per year, mostly during winter.

Geology & Soil.

The soils are primarily clays and silts derived from the Karoo Sequence shales.

Vegetation:

Dominated by Renosterbos Elytropappus rhinocerotis and Gumbush Relhania genistifolia. Very little is known about this form of Renosterveld.

Key Environmental Parameters:

Unknown. Presumably fire is as important as it is elsewhere where Renosterveld occurs, but data are not available. The historical incidence of large grazers and browsers in this vegetation type relative to adjacent vegetation types is unknown.

Economic Uses:

Mainly stock farming with sheep.

Conservation Status:

Very poor.

Key Reference:

Acocks(1988).

Author:

Tony Rebelo.