The Endemic....

In my random wikiings last night, I came across Fynbos, a natural shrubland vegetation that grows in South Africa. Fynbos grows in one place in the world, a 100-200km belt in SA. There are apparently six floral kingdoms, an area of similar vegetation, in the world. Most of these kingdoms are broken down into quite a few subsections. For example, the Holarctic kingdom has 9 regions, some of which are the eastern asiatic region, the saharo-arabian region, and the irano-turanian region. Anyway... The South African region is the smallest in the world, with the cape region being its biggest sub region.

So, to the title of the post. The SA region is the smallest kingdom, but one of the richest. There are 8000 native plants in this area, 5000 of which are endemic, or grow no where else in the world. Endemic is different from indigenous in that indigenous plants may grow in other areas as well. There is greater biodiversity in the South African shrublands than in the rainforests....
weird, right?