The first director of the botanical garden in Cape Town, the Kirstenbosch Garden, was Harold Pearson. Pearson is buried in what is one of the most famous reserves of the world, surrounded by the indigenous fauna and flora of Table Mountain. There is a grave marker in the shape of a Celtic cross that reads…”If you see his monument, look around”…which is poetry inscribed in granite. The garden was founded and constructed in 1913, and is filled with trees and plants native to the country, with water from the Liesbeek River flowing throughout. The natural forests are on either side of the slopes of the mountain range, leaving the area just about half cultivated and half natural reserve. Just outside of the gardens, many Cape Town five star hotels offer tours and maps of and for the gardens, and throughout the year this remains one of the top tourist destinations in the country.
The garden is a live display that features more that four thousand of the twenty thousand species of flora that is indigenous to the country. This makes up fifty percent of the flora for the entire Peninsula. In the central part of the garden, the cultivated flora and fauna are set up in a pattern similar to that of the spokes of a wheel. This is sectioned off with various themes, such as the Cycad Amphitheater. The Cycad hosts the fossils of the living South African world. Many famous species such the silver trees in the Protea Garden, exist here growing up and on the sides of the mountain slopes. Part of the “spokes” include a rock garden, named for the garden’s first curator JV Mathews, which is also the grounds for the various succulents that grow throughout the country and are so indigenous to all desert environments. While traveling throughout the city of Cape Town, this is a day trip that is so well worth, for the beauty and for the education and understanding of the natural culture of this incredible country.
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