Namaqualand is justifiably famous for the floral wonderland it becomes in spring, when seas of bright flowers carpet the land. Astonishingly, the carpet comprises some 3,800 species, of which 28% are endemic. This book introduces nearly 600 species, highlighting those most commonly found, most conspicuous, spectacular or interesting, as well as endemics. An introduction touches on the species selection for the book, the climatic and topographical subregions within Namaqualand, plant names and uses, and conservation issues. The concise species descriptions also give seed and fruit details, uses, local growing conditions and flowering times, along with beautiful full-colour photographs. This is a must-have guide for visitors to Namaqualand, or for anyone interested in the wild flowers of southern Africa.

The Rough Guide to South Africa is the most comprehensive and informative guide available to this spectacular country. You'll find detailed information on everything from hiking in the mysterious Drakensberg to sampling wine in the many Western Cape's estates. Updated specifically for travellers visiting South Africa for the football World Cup in 2010, Lesotho and Swaziland have been excluded from the book allowing for more in-depth information on how to tackle the World Cup in this edition. Whether you want to wander the pastel-coloured streets of the Bo-Kaap, explore the Garden Route's dramatic Storms River Mouth, or get spine-tinglingly close to lions and other big game in Kruger National Park, this guide will lead you to the best attractions in South Africa. The Rough Guide to South Africa features up-to-date reviews of all the hottest new places to stay from hotels in South Africa to community minded accommodations and tour companies. Find the best restaurants, shops, bars and clubs in South Africa across every price range giving you balanced reviews and honest, first-hand opinions. Explore all corners of South Africa with authoritative background on everything from local cuisine to desert wildlife, relying on practical language tips.

Be it the vitality of African popular culture, the vitality of religious ideas or the vitality of artistic forms of expressions - invoking the notion of vitality has become a common practice in Africanist discourses. Most often, the purpose of invoking this notion is to emphasize the unexpected and astonishing power and strength of certain cultural fields in Africa. But what is really meant with the notion of local vitality beyond its metaphorical usage, beyond the underrated and unforeseen? The present volume brings together a number of essays exploring the answers to these questions from different perspectives and disciplines. Based upon an international conference on Local Vitality and the Globalization of the Local organized by the Humanities Collaborative Research Centre at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, the contributions discuss the various dimensions of vitality in the context of debates about identity and self-assertion, locality and appropriation, and rivalry and resista

Namaqualand – a desert of succulents. From dwarf species barely a few millimetres tall to trees several metres high, the range of succulent plants in this seemingly desolate region is unrivalled in both its extent and its variety of forms. Tiny plants that resemble flowering stones dot a plain of quartz; a minute 'garden' fills a rock crevice; an exuberant burst of vygies colours a patch of veld. About a third of the 3000 or so plant species in Namaqualand are succulents, and they include the largest concentration of miniature succulent species in the world. But there is much more. Namaqualand's bulb flora is the richest of any arid region on earth: amaryllids, irids, lilies and many more, all presenting an astonishing diversity of colour and form. Add to these the spectacular vistas of spring-flowering annuals for which Namaqualand is most famous, and the result is a truly remarkable flora, unrivalled elsewhere on earth. Yet for many years it has been overshadowed by the Cape Floral Kingdom to the south. In this exploration of a harsh wonderland, Richard Cowling and Shirley Pierce embark on redressing the balance, and in doing so discover climatic and other factors that have contributed to Namaqualand's rich flora. They reveal intriguing details of how plants survive a range of adverse conditions and, following the cycle of seasons, they highlight extraordinary facets of the plants' reproduction, including intricate relationships with insect pollinators. Complementing the text, Colin Paterson-Jones's magnificent photographs capture the vibrant colours of Namaqualand's flora, in both panorama and detail conveying the essence of this awe-inspiring land.

As part of a global effort to identify those areas where conservation measures are needed most urgently, World Wildlife Fund has assembled teams of scientists to conduct ecological assessments of all five continents. Terrestrial Ecoregions of Africa and Madagascar is the latest contribution, presenting in a single volume the first comprehensive assessment of biodiversity patterns, threats to biodiversity, and resulting conservation priorities across the African continent and its islands. Looking at biodiversity and threats in terms of biological units rather than political units, the book offers a comprehensive examination of African biodiversity across all biomes and multiple taxonomic groups. In addition to the seven main chapters, the book includes twenty essays by regional experts that provide more depth on key issues, as well as nine detailed appendixes that present summary data used in the analyses, specific analytical methodologies, and a thorough text description for each of Africa's 119 terrestrial ecoregions. Terrestrial Ecoregions of Africa and Madagascar provides a blueprint for conservation action and represents an unparalleled guide for investments and activities of conservation agencies and donor organizations.