Kirstenbosch
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View roughly to the north from Kirstenbosch. The eastern faces of Table Mountain dominate the skyline. Devil's Peak rises at the far right. The rainfall on this side is much higher than on the other faces, hence the dense vegetation
Kirstenbosch is both the name of a suburb of Cape Town and of a famous botanical garden nestled at the foot of Table Mountain. (It is on the eastern slopes of the mountain, not on the northern side normally depicted in the standard tourist snapshots). The name has its origin in the word Kirsten, which is an English word for stone church and bosch, which is a Dutch word for 'forest' or 'bush'. The garden is one of eight National Botanical Gardens covering five of South Africa's six different biomes. When Kirstenbosch, the most famous of the gardens, was founded in 1913 to preserve the country's unique flora, it was the first botanical garden in the world with this ethos. Furthermore, what makes the Gardens so famous worldwide is that (with minor exceptions) only indigenous plants are cultivated.
The garden includes a large, indoor greenhouse exhibiting plants from a number of different regions, including savanna, fynbos, karoo and others. Outdoors, the focus moves to plants native to the Cape region, highlighted by the gorgeous collections of proteas. Kirstenbosch is a very popular spot. From the gardens several trails lead off along the mountain slopes and up them and these are much used by walkers and mountaineers. One of the trails, up a ravine called Skeleton Gorge, is an easy and popular route to the summit of Table Mountain. On the slopes above the cultivated parts of the garden a contour path leads through forests to Constantia Nek to the south. The same contour path can be followed to the north for many kilometres and it will take the hiker past the Rhodes Memorial to the slopes of Devil's Peak and beyond.
History
The land occupied by the Kirstenbosch Gardens was willed to the Nation by Cecil Rhodes, who died in 1902.
As of 1 September 2004, the National Botanical Institute has become the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).
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