Editing Table Mountain (section)

==Flora==
[[File:Peninsula Sandstone Fynbos - Table Mountain Cape Town 4.jpg|thumb|left|A [[Protea cynaroides|king protea]] growing in [[Peninsula Sandstone Fynbos]] on Table Mountain]]
[[File:4 Silvertrees on Lions Head - Cape Town.JPG|thumb| upright=.75|[[Leucadendron argenteum|Silver trees]] (''Leucadendron argenteum'') only occur naturally on the granite and clay soils of the Cape Peninsula, surrounding Table Mountain and the Back Table.<ref name=manning3>{{cite book|last1=Manning|first1=John|title=In: Field Guide to Fynbos|date=2007|publisher=Struik Publishers|location=Cape Town| isbn=9781770072657|page=258|chapter=Cone Bush, Tolbos}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.proteaatlas.org.za/cpldarge.htm|title=IDM Cape Peninsula - Ld arge|website=www.proteaatlas.org.za|access-date=30 March 2015|archive-date=3 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303215708/http://www.proteaatlas.org.za/cpldarge.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> A few tiny patches, possibly planted there early in the Cape Colony's history, occur near Stellenbosch, Paarl and Somerset West.<ref name=manning3 /> This photo was taken on Lion's Head, looking towards the Twelve Apostles.]]

[[File:RedDisa.jpg|thumb|The ''[[Disa uniflora]]'', also known as Pride of Table Mountain, is a showy orchid that blooms under waterfalls, along streamlets and seeps on the top and upper slopes of Table Mountain and the Back Table, in January–March.<ref name=terry>{{cite book|last1=Trinder-Smith|first1=Terry|title=In: Wild Flowers of the Table Mountain National Park|date=2006|publisher=Botanical Society of South Africa|location=Kirstenbosch, Claremont|isbn=1874999600|pages=104–105|chapter=Orchidaceae}}</ref>]]
[[File:5 Indigenous Afrotemperate Forest on Devils Peak - Cape Town.JPG|thumb|left|[[Southern Afrotemperate Forest|Indigenous forest]] on Table Mountain, with Devils Peak visible in the distance]]

Table Mountain and the Back Table have an unusually rich biodiversity. Its vegetation consists predominantly of several different types of the unique and rich Cape [[fynbos]]. The main vegetation type is endangered [[Peninsula Sandstone Fynbos]], but [[critically endangered]] [[Peninsula Granite Fynbos]], [[Peninsula Shale Renosterveld]] and [[Afromontane|Afromontane forest]] occur in smaller portions on the mountain.

Table Mountain's vegetation types form part of the [[Cape Floral Region]] protected areas. These protected areas are a [[World Heritage Site]], and an estimated 2,285 species of plants are confined to Table Mountain and the Cape Peninsula range, of which a great proportion, including many species of [[protea]]s, are endemic to these mountains and valleys and can be found nowhere else.<ref name=manning1>{{cite book|last1=Manning|first1=John|title=In: Field Guide to Fynbos|date=2007|publisher=Struik Publishers|location=Cape Town| isbn=9781770072657|pages=8–23|chapter=The World of Fynbos}}</ref><ref name=maytham>{{cite book|last1=Trinder-Smith|first1=Terry|title=In: Wild Flowers of the Table Mountain National Park|date=2006|publisher=Botanical Society of South Africa|location=Cape Town| isbn=1874999600|pages=19–35|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> Of the 2,285 species on the Peninsula 1,500 occur in the 57&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup> area comprising Table Mountain and the Back Table, a number at least as large as all the plant species in the whole of the United Kingdom.<ref name=manning1 /> The ''[[Disa uniflora]]'', despite its restricted range within the [[Western Cape]], is relatively common in the perennially wet areas (waterfalls, streamlets and seeps) on Table Mountain and the Back Table, but hardly anywhere else on the Cape Peninsula.<ref name=terry /><ref name=manning2>{{cite book|last1=Manning|first1=John|title=In: Field Guide to Fynbos|date=2007|publisher=Struik Publishers|location=Cape Town| isbn=9781770072657|pages=162–163|chapter=Disa}}</ref> It is a very showy orchid that blooms from January to March on the [[Cape Peninsula#Geology|Table Mountain Sandstone regions of the mountain]]. Although they are quite widespread on the Back Table, the best (most certain, and close-up) place to view these beautiful blooms is in the "Aqueduct" off the Smuts Track, halfway between Skeleton Gorge and Maclear's Beacon.

Remnant patches of [[Southern Afrotemperate Forest|indigenous forest]] persist in the wetter ravines. However, much of the indigenous forest was felled by the early European settlers for fuel for the lime kilns needed during the construction of [[Castle of Good Hope|the Castle]].<ref name=Dan>{{cite book|last1=Sleigh|first1=Dan|title=Islands|date=2002|publisher=Secker & Warburg|location=London| isbn=0436206323|page=429}}</ref> The exact extent of the original forests is unknown, though most of it was probably along the eastern slopes of [[Devil's Peak (Cape Town)|Devil's Peak]], Table Mountain and the Back Table where names such as Rondebosch, Kirstenbosch, Klassenbosch and Witteboomen survive (in Dutch "bosch" means forest; and "boomen" means trees). Hout Bay (in Dutch "hout" means wood) was another source of timber and fuel as the name suggests.<ref name=Dan /> In the early 1900s commercial pine plantations were planted on these slopes all the way from the Constantiaberg to the front of Devil's Peak, and even on top of the mountains, but these have now been largely cleared allowing fynbos to flourish in the regions where the indigenous Afromontane forests have not survived, or never existed.

Fynbos is a fire adapted vegetation, and providing fires are not too frequent, regular or intense, they are important drivers of fynbos diversity.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Fire and Plants|last=Bond|first=William J.|publisher=Chapman and Hall|year=1996|location=London}}</ref> Regular fires have dominated fynbos for at least the past 12&nbsp;000 years largely as a result of human activity.<ref name=maytham /><ref name=kraaij>{{cite book |last1=Kraaij |first1= Tineke |last2=van Wilgen |first2=Brian W.|chapter= Drivers, ecology, and management of fynbos fires.|editor1-last=Allsopp |editor1-first=Nicky |editor2-last= Colville|editor2-first=Jonathan F. | editor3-last=Verboom |editor3-first=G. Anthony | title=Fynbos, Ecology, Evolution and Conservation of a Megadiverse Region.|location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2014 |page=47 |isbn=9780199679584}}</ref> In 1495 [[Vasco da Gama]] named the South African coastline ''Terra de Fume'' because of the smoke he saw from numerous fires.<ref name="pauw">{{cite book|title=in: Table Mountain|last2=Johnson|first2=Steven|publisher=Fernwood Press|year=1999|isbn=1-874950-43-1|location=Vlaeberg, South Africa|pages=37–53|chapter=The Power of Fire|last1=Pauw|first1=Anton}}</ref> This was originally probably to maintain a productive stock of edible bulbs (especially [[Watsonia (plant)|watsonians]])<ref name= pauw /> and to facilitate hunting, and later, after the arrival of [[Khoikhoi|pastoralists]],<ref>{{cite book |chapter= A way of life perfected|editor1-last=Saunders |editor1-first=Christopher |editor2-last= Bundy|editor2-first=Colin| title=Reader's Digest Illustrated History of South Africa.|location=Cape Town |publisher=Reader’s Digest Association Ltd|date=1992 |pages=20–25 |isbn=0-947008-90-X}}</ref> to provide fresh grazing after the rains.<ref name= pauw /><ref name=kraaij /> Thus the plants that make up fynbos today are those that have been subjected to a variety of fire regimes over a very long period time, and their preservation now requires regular burning. The frequency of the fires obviously determines precisely which mix of plants will dominate any particular region,<ref name=Mary>{{cite book|last1=Maytham Kid|first1=Mary|title=In: Cape Peninsula. South African Wild Flower Guide 3|date=1983|publisher= Botanical Society of South Africa|location=Kirstenbosch, Claremont| isbn=0620067454|page=27|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> but intervals of 10–15 years between fires<ref name=manning1 /> are considered to promote the proliferation of the larger [[Protea]] species, a rare local colony of which, the ''Aulax umbellata'' (Family: [[Proteaceae]]), was wiped out on the Peninsula by more frequent fires,<ref name=Mary /> as have been the silky-haired pincushion, ''Leucospermum vestitum'', the red sugarbush, ''Protea grandiceps'' and Burchell's sugarbush, ''Protea burchellii'', although a stand of a dozen or so plants has recently been "rediscovered" in the saddle between Table Mountain and Devil's Peak.<ref name= pauw /> Some bulbs may similarly have become extinct as a result a too rapid sequence of fires.<ref name= Mary /> The fires that occur on the mountains today are still largely due to unregulated human activity. Fire frequency is therefore a matter of chance rather than conservation.

Despite intensive conservation efforts the Table Mountain range has the highest concentration of [[threatened species]] of any continental area of equivalent size in the world.<ref name=manning1 /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://perceval.bio.nau.edu/downloads/grail/climate_seminar/section2/Hannah_etal05.pdf|title=Perceval|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120505133331/http://perceval.bio.nau.edu/downloads/grail/climate_seminar/section2/Hannah_etal05.pdf|archive-date=5 May 2012}}</ref> The non-urban areas of the Cape Peninsula (mainly on the mountains and mountain slopes) have suffered particularly under a massive onslaught of [[Invasive species|invasive alien plants]] for well over a century, with perhaps the worst invader being the [[Maritime pine|cluster pine]], partly because it was planted in extensive commercial plantations along the eastern slopes of the mountains, north of Muizenberg. Considerable efforts have been made to control the rapid spread of these invasive alien trees. Other invasive plants include [[black wattle]], blackwood, [[Acacia saligna|Port Jackson]] and [[rooikrans]] (All Australian members of the acacia family), as well as several ''[[Hakea]]'' species and [[bramble]].<ref name=manning1 /><ref name=Mary /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/EnvironmentalResourceManagement/publications/Pages/BrochuresBooklets.aspx |title=Brochures, booklets and posters |publisher=Capetown.gov.za |access-date=2013-01-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121223125053/http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/EnvironmentalResourceManagement/publications/Pages/Brochuresbooklets.aspx |archive-date=23 December 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Burning Table Mountain: an environmental history of fire on the Cape Peninsula|last=Pooley|first=Simon|publisher=Palgrave / UCT Press|year=2014|isbn=978-1-349-49059-2|location=London / Cape Town|pages=162–183}}</ref>

[[File:Table Mountain Dassies.JPG|thumb|Dassies (rock hyrax)]]