Early Botanical Exploration in the Kaokoveld (Northwestern Namibia) 1957

About this book

This book gives an account of the first impressions and collections of two adventurous South African botanists who travelled to the remote northwesternmost corner of Namibia (then South West Africa) in 1957. Otto Leistner and Bernard de Winter (1924–2017) set off on a journey of three months from Pretoria to the Kaokoveld, returning with 845 collected specimens (of which 32 turned out to be new to science) and a lifetime’s worth of memories.

They had no detailed maps of the region, there were no standardised place names. They measured their distances in miles and their precious fuel reserves in gallons. They had no radio at their disposal. They wrote their letters on paper and, where possible, asked someone to take them to a post office 400 km away. They put films in their cameras and sent them away to be developed. Computers were as big as a house, and GPS was a twinkle in the eyes of science fiction writers.

The story takes the armchair botanist on an enterprising journey to a historically underexplored region and provides a snapshot in time of the beautiful region. In diary format, the reader is presented with tales of high adventure, encounters with lions and elephants, mechanical mishaps in the wilderness, and descriptions of this exquisite landscape and its associated vegetation and botanical treasures. From Ohopoho (now Opuwo), the explorers undertake five journeys in different directions to gain a better understanding of the region’s natural history. Herero plant names are documented, and detailed botanical notes with local uses of plants and species lists are also included.

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