The Relationship Between Soils and Vegetation, Beggar’s Bush Forest Reserve, Grahamstown

Abstract

This paper illustrates the relationship between soils and vegetation in an area with a distinctive vegetation pattern near Grahamstown, Eastern Cape. Witteberg quartzite ridges in the region are clothed in a mosaic of grass-heath vegetation with patches of montane forest in the valley heads. The distinctiveness of the pattern has led a number of authors to suggest that the grass-heath is derived from the forest and that montane forest patches are relict features, the assumption being that the derivation took place in the recent past as a result of agricultural extension and intensification. An analysis of soil and vegetation relationships is undertaken from one of the larger montane forest patches, Beggar’s Bush Forest Reserve, the results indicating that soil and vegetation characteristics are intimately related in the present day and that this may entail relative stability of the vegetation boundaries over a lengthy period. The ‘Rabbit’, as it is known, may well have possessed its remarkable shape at least since European man settled the area.