Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden The Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden is a botanical garden focused on succulents and other plants of arid regions, that lies at the foot of the Hex River Mountains range, in the town of Worcester, South Africa. It was originally set up in 1921 near Matjiesfontein further inland. However, in 1945 it was moved to Worcester. It is today one of nine National Botanical Gardens that are run by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). The Garden spans an area of with only being cultivated. The remainder preserves the natural vegetation of the area,
Karoo in the east, where the Langeberg range (arbitrarily) starts to be called the Outeniqua Mountains. The Little Karoo can only be accessed by road through the narrow defiles cut through the surrounding Cape Fold Mountains by ancient, but still flowing, rivers. A few roads traverse the mountains over passes, the most famous and impressive of which is the Swartberg Pass between Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo and Prince Albert on the other side of the Swartberg mountains in the Great Karoo. Also, the main road between Oudtshoorn and George, on the coastal plain, crosses the mountains to the south via