Must-have new book!

Here’s a mistake you shouldn’t make: thinking that succulents (beautifully known in Afrikaans as ‘vetplante’ – fat plants) grow only in the dry desert areas of our diverse and bewildering sub-continent.

They grow every where. I see them when I’m walking along the Lagoon here in Knysna, when I’m driving in the Klein Karoo, in Durbs when I go to the Indaba, and… although I studied horticulture, I was still struggling to identify them easily – up until I found a new book by Gideon F. Smith and Neil R. Crouch.

But the “Guide to Succulents of Southern Africa” gave me something else, too: another reason to love living here. “An amazing 47% of the world’s known succulents” occur in this region.

If you’ve travelled a little, you’ll know at least some of them: the aloes, the nabooms (Euphorbias), and the ice plants (Delosperma, Aptenia, and Carpobrotus – the sour fig). But they’re just a few of the “240 of the region’s most interesting and commonly encountered succulents” described here.

Although the descriptions are a little technical (I’d say you’d need a bit of post-matric botany to understand them properly), the photos are particularly well made, and make for easy identification. And the fact that it’s a small (210 x 145 mm) soft cover book will make it easy to stash in your book bag next time you’re heading out on safari.

It’s published by Struik Nature, and it belongs in every collection of standard ID guides to the animals and plants of Southern Africa.

Buy it here.