Most gardeners will say “what is this flora, we’ve never heard of it?”  Flora of Tropical East Africa is a scientific work that is very important to us gardeners as it describes and names all the indigenous plants occurring naturally in East Africa and all gardens surely have some indigenous plants. Most gardeners will know the Cape Chestnut tree, the Gloriosa Lily, the creeper Black-eyed Susan, the many attractive aloes and many other plants that grow wild in this country and have them in their garden. When this work was started in 1952 it was thought it would be completed in 15 years, but after 15 years only 1,500 species had been described and the work was no where near complete as it was then thought there were 7,500 species. This guesstimate was extended to 10,000 in 1980 and now that the work is complete we know there are nearly 12,500 species. The Flora is the pride of the botanists who have worked in the field and in the national herbaria of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew and is contained in 247 volumes which describe 12,383 species from 240 families. In all over 1,500 new species have been found, described and named. And it has taken 62 years to complete involving 135 authors and 50 illustrators. This is an astonishing achievement and everyone who took part can be very proud of the part they played.

So how does this benefit us gardeners? Growing indigenous plants in our gardens is good for biodiversity as these are the plants that have evolved in this region and are best suited to the East African climates of their area. Naming of plants is very important for without a name how do we talk about a particular plant? Many plants in each family are illustrated in the Flora and give the areas where they occur and whether they are endangered in habitat, although this may not be important to the gardener it is vital when considering conservation measures in which the gardener could become involved.

When visiting the Plants Galore Garden centre please ask to see the indigenous plants that are for sale. 

Plants Galore Garden Centre
Directions: Use the Limuru Road from Muthaiga and continue past the Village Market and the turning into Runda.  200 m beyond the Runda turning take the murram track on the right hand side, where there is a Plants Galore sign board. After the bridge over the river fork right; the Centre is 100 m on the right. You can’t miss it!
Telephone: 020 2446103 or 0773 612589
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