The Lowveld National Botanical Garden, one of the nine National Botanical Gardens of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

is located just outside

Mbombela Mbombela, formerly Nelspruit, is a city in northeastern South Africa. It is the capital of the Mpumalanga province. Located on the Crocodile River (Mpumalanga), Crocodile River, the city lies about by road west of the Mozambique border, east o ...

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares bor ...

at the confluence of the Crocodile River and Nels River, which are separated by an extensive promontory. A lookout point at the far end of the garden, reached through a rainforest trail (surrounded by

clivia ''Clivia'' is a genus of monocot flowering plants native to southern Africa. They are from the family Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. Common names are Natal lily or bush lily. They are herbaceous or evergreen perennial plants, with ...

fig The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Moraceae, native to the Mediterranean region, together with western and southern Asia. It has been cultivated since ancient times and i ...

trees, and

baobab ''Adansonia'' is a genus of medium-to-large deciduous trees known as baobabs ( or ). The eight species of ''Adansonia'' are native to Africa, Australia, and Madagascar but have also been introduced to other regions of the world, including Barb ...

) allows views of the river in the deep gorge. The N4 road runs through the northern portion of the park. This garden of 160 ha was opened in 1971. 600 native and 2,000 imported plant species grow there. Almost 650 native tree species are found there as well. The largest collection of

cycad Cycads are seed plants that typically have a stout and woody (ligneous) trunk (botany), trunk with a crown (botany), crown of large, hard, stiff, evergreen and (usually) pinnate leaves. The species are dioecious, that is, individual plants o ...

s in the country is found in

Lowveld Veld ( or , Afrikaans and Dutch: ''veld'', field), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide-open, rural landscape in Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, ...

, as well as a

gene bank A gene bank is a type of biorepository that is used across the world to store the genetic material of animals, plants, and other organisms. It preserves their genetic information in the form of reproductive material like seeds, sperm, eggs, emb ...

for such plants.

Gallery

File:Lowveld National Botanical Garden - panoramio.jpg, Water feature at the entrance File:Laeveld NBT, rivieroewer.jpg, Riparian vegetation flanking the Crocodile River. A pedestrian and road bridge links the two sections.

External links

South African National Biodiversity Institute

Lowveld National Botanical Garden Homepage

References

{{Reflist Botanical gardens in South Africa

Gallery

See also

External links

References