Carolinea 76

W irth et al .: Biota in a Renosterveld vegetation habitat 37 managed by the Overberg Renosterveld Conser- vation Trust. Haarwegskloof (elevation up to 250 m asl.) is located between the towns of Swellendam and Bredasdorp, north of the well-known De Hoop Nature Reserve, east of Cape Agulhas. Haarwegskloof comprises of Eastern Rûens Sha- le Renosterveld vegetation and its slopes are do- minated by a combination of woody asteraceous shrubs (mostly Elytropappus rhinocerotis, Oe­ dera squarrosa, O. uniflora and Pteronia incana ) and bunch C 3 grasses ( Pentameris eriostoma ). The valleys form thickets of large, woody shrubs and small trees (up to 2-3 m in height) such as Chrysanthamoides monilifera , Diospyros spp., Olea capensis and Buddleja saligna . Hilltops are often dominated by ‘quartz patches’, comprising a layer of quartz pebbles on shale-derived soils, giving rise to a suite of endemic plants ( C urtis et al. 2013). Scattered on the reserve are low outcrops and piles of quartz and shale rocks that were dumped on the natural portions of the farm when the production lands were developed (Fig. 1, Fig. 2). The shale rocks are fine-grained sedimentary rocks consisting of a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other mine- rals, and are thus more base rich and less acidic on its weathered surface than the quartz rocks. 3 Methods In order to collect a representative sample of the lichen biodiversity of the area, we collected specimens over three short visits to the reserve (October 2015, August and October 2017) from soil, rock and vegetation. The samples were in- vestigated by thin layer chromatography (H. S ip - man , M. H eklau ) following O range et al. (2001), except those which were confidentially determi- nable in the field such as Teloschistes species, Ramalina celastri, Physcia adscendens, Ph. ja­ ckii and Ph. erumpens . For determination of the species of Xanthoparmelia s.l., by far the most important genus in open biota of the Cape regi- on, H ale (1987, 1989, 1990), E lix (1994, 1997, 1999, 2002), and E sslinger (1977, 1986, 2000) were used, for other genera mainly S winscow & K rog (1988), for Physciaceae M oberg (2004), for Buellia s.l. M arbach (2000), for Diploschistes Figure 1. Renosterveld vegetation near Haarwegskloof Research Center northeast of Bredasdorp (Western Cape) with quartz boulders and Aloe arborescens . – all photos: V. W irth .