A checklist of the flowering plants and ferns of Swartboschkloof , Jonkershoek , Cape Province

A list of Dowering plants and ferns o f Sw artboschkloof is presented. This list represents a com bination of species recorded in Van der Merwe (1966), Werger, Kruger & Taylor (1972), McDonald (1983, 1985) and specimens collected from Swartboschkloof housed in the Government Herbarium, Stellenbosch (STE) and the Wicht Herba­ rium, Jonkershoek (JI ). The checklist is analysed and the flora of Sw artboschkloof compared with the respective floras of Cape Hangklip and Cape Point (sensu Taylor 1985).


INTRODUCTION
Checklists, although cumbersome to publish, have proved valuable to workers involved in vegetation research as well as to phytogeographers in their attem pts to deter mine the relationships within and between different floras (Kruger & Taylor 1979;Taylor 1979).C. Boucher and H.C. Taylor (pers. comms) have indicated that there has been much demand for checklists compiled by them selves (Boucher 1977;Taylor 1 9 5 5 ,1985)and by Olivier (1979Olivier ( , 1983)).This list has been compiled in order to facilitate iden tification of plant taxa encountered during the intensive research being undertaken at Swartboschkloof (cf. McDonald 1985, Van Wilgen et al. 1986).It will also serve as a record of species found since the last fire in Swartboschkloof (1958) and before the controlled burn of the 17th March 1987.Careful plant collecting after the fire will probably lead to a number of additions to the list of species, particularly of geophytic taxa.
STUDY AREA Details of the location and physiography of the study site are given in McDonald (1983McDonald ( , 1985McDonald ( , 1988)).

METHODS
The Government Herbarium, Stellenbosch (STE) and the Wicht Herbarium, Jonkershoek (JF), which are thought to house most of the plant specimens collected at Swartboschkloof, were systematically searched (by M. Morley) for all specimens collected in the area.Lists were made of species names with their respective collectors' names and numbers for future inclusion in a master list.
The checklist presented here is based 1, on the collec tions made by the senior author; 2, on collections made by Van der Merwe (1966); 3, on species contained in the Braun-Blanquet tables of Werger, Kruger & Taylor (1972) and of McDonald (1983); 4, on specimens collected by other collectors and 5, field specimens ('ecoscraps') collected by the senior author.Where 'voucher' speci mens are not indicated, taxa were identified in the field and noted as 'field observations'.
In the checklist, the collection numbers of herbarium specimens collected by the senior author (housed in STE) are indicated in parentheses e.g. ( 797); numbers in square brackets e.g.[910/2] refer to field herbarium specimens ('ecoscraps') housed at the Botanical Research Unit, Stellenbosch.Cited collections made by other collectors are given in the format: (Van der Merwe, P. 25).Where no voucher specimens have been collected or elected from existing herbarium specimens, [S.R.] is used to denote 'site record'.If the source of information is a publication only, the author and publication date are quoted in square brackets e.g.[ Van der Merwe, P. 1966], Species marked with an asterisk (*) are those species included in the Braun-Blanquet tables presented by McDonald (1983).
The list has been updated as far as possible following Gibbs Russell etal. (1984Russell etal. ( . 1985Russell etal. ( , 1987)).In the few cases where discrepancies exist between the latter three publi cations and Bond & Goldblatt (1984), the names used by Bond & Goldblatt (1984) have been quoted (except for the Liliaceae) because this publication pertains to the Cape Flora in particular.Recent revisions such as that of the Restionaceae (Linder 1984(Linder . 1985) ) and the tribe Psoraleeae (Papilionoideae.Fabaceae) by Stirton (1986) have also been taken into account in the final preparation of the checklist.Bothalia 18,2 (1988)  A total of 651 vascular plant species have been record ed from Swartboschkloof.This total exceeds that record ed by Van der Merwe (1966) by 192 species.This increase may be attributed to factors such as the following: (i) the area currently included in Swartboschkloof is 3,73 km 2 compared with the 1,82 km 2 surveyed by Van der Merwe (1966); (ii) more general plant collecting has taken place since Van der Merwe's survey; (iii) plant collecting has taken place through the successional stages of the vegetation since the fire in 1958, leading to a "sample' well representative of Swartboschkloof over the past 28 years.
An analysis o f the flora of Swartboschkloof is given in Table 1; figures from Van der Merwe's (1966) survey are given in parentheses.A comparison o f the latter figures and those of the present record show that except for the gymnosperms there has been an increase in the number of families, genera and species recorded.Taylor (1985) comments on the higher ratio o f monocot to dicot species at Cape Point (1:1,65) compared with equivalent ratios for the Cape Peninsula (1:2,02) and at Cape Hangklip (1:2,0).The ratio o f m onocot to dicot species for Swartboschkloof (1:1,89) falls at the mean values for the ratios quoted above.
The species recorded from Swartboschkloof represent 48% o f the total number of species (1353) recorded for Jonkershoek State Forest as a whole (P. Brown pers.comm.), an area covering about 45 km 2 (Taylor 1979;Kruger & Taylor 1979).The flora of Swartboschkloof, which occupies about eight per cent of the total area of Jonkershoek, may therefore be considered to be fairly rich.However, most of the species found in Swartbosch kloof are also found in other parts of Jonkershoekonly one endemic species, Heliophila cuneata Marais, is known from Swartboschkloof.The beta diversity (between-habitat diversity) for Swartboschkloof is therefore considered to be low in relation to Jonkershoek as a whole.This suggests a relatively low number of habitats in Swartboschkloof as compared to Jonkershoek.
The species record for Swartboschkloof has been analysed following the appproach of Boucher (1977) and Taylor (1979Taylor ( , 1985) ) to enable comparisons to be made between the floras of Swartboschkloof, the Cape Hangklip area and Cape Point.The twelve plant families contributing one per cent or more to the total number of species at Swartboschkloof are arranged from best to least represented in Table 2.The family contributing the highest percentage (Asteraceae) is given the ranked value of one and the Apiaceae, with the lowest contribu tion, the ranked value of 12 in Table 3.
Comparison of the ranking of the families for Swart boschkloof, Cape Hangklip and Cape Point (Table 3) shows that the Asteraceae is best represented, a pheno menon documented by Taylor (1979).The Poaceae make a greater contribution at Swartboschkloof than in the other two areas.This may be significant but a reason for it is not ventured.The Restionaceae and Iridaceae are both moderately well represented at Swartbosch kloof and Cape Hangklip whereas at Cape Point the Iridaceae rank very highly and the Restionaceae are of lesser significance.Taylor (1985) demonstrates the better representation of the Iridaceae and Cyperaceae at Cape Point compared with Cape Hangklip, so it is not unexpected that this should also be the case when the ranking of these two families at Cape Point and Swart boschkloof is compared.At Cape Hangklip the Ericaceae is well represented (Boucher 1977) whereas it makes a smaller contribution at Cape Point and Swartboschkloof.The Liliaceae, Orchidaceae, Proteaceae, Scrophulariaceae and Apiaceae show no significant differences in pattern of occurrence between the three areas in question.
At Swartboschkloof only two genera have 15 species or more (Table 4) compared with nine at Cape Point and 14 at Cape Hangklip.At the generic level Erica makes the greatest contribution in all three areas.Further ranking of genera at Swartboschkloof shows little corre lation with species abundance in the listed genera for the other two areas.Ficinia and Tetraria have relatively low species occurrence at Swartboschkloof compared with their occurrence at Cape Hangklip and Cape Point which substantiates the above-mentioned statement by Taylor (1985) (Richardson & Brink 1985).A number of stands of Hakea sericea Schrad.have also been located as well as one individual of Acacia longifolia (Andr.)Willd.; both species are aggressive invaders.These exotic species have not been included in the checklist.

CONCLUSIONS
Even though analysis of species diversity is not an objective of this paper, the analysis of the Swartbosch kloof checklist presented here does add to the inventories of species upon which diversity studies such as that of Kruger & Taylor (1979) are based.Similarity coefficients between the floras of the three areas discussed, viz.Cape Hangklip, Cape Point and Swartboschkloof, have not been calculated.However, comparison of the respective floras with each other achieves the objective of placing the flora of Swartboschkloof into perspective in relation to the floras of other well studied areas of the Cape fynbos.a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t sThe help of the staff of the Government Herbarium, Stellenbosch (STE) and the Wicht Herbarium (JF),

TABLE 1 .
Analysis o f the indigenous vascular plant flora o f Sw artboschkloof.Values in parentheses are fromVan der Merwe (1966)

on the high ranking of Cyperaceae at Cape Point. Three introduced (alien) Pinus species have been re corded at Swartboschkloof namely, Pinus halepensis
Mill., P. pinaster Ait. and P. radiata D. Don, but all in T.ABLE 2. -Synopsis o f families whose species contribute 1% or m ore tow ards the total num ber o f species, together w ith the total num ber of genera in each family

TABLE 3
.-Ranking o f the plant families o f Sw artboschkloof (SBK) according to abundance o f species in each (1 = high est to 12 = lowest) com pared with similar ranking for the plant families o f Cape Point (CP) and Cape Hangklip (HKL) low numbers.Passiflora sp.(cf.quadrangularis L.) has been recorded in the forest, due probably to dispersal into the area by birds.Pittosporum undulatum Vent, has so far been recorded at only one site in Swartboschkloof (D.M. Richardson pers.comm.)despite its extensive spreading in the Jonkershoek Valley through bird dis tribution