Robertson Karoo low hills and flats covered in small succulent vegetation, usually growing on rocky shale-based soils. The climate is semi-arid due to the region lying in the rainshadow of the large mountain ranges to the south-west, but the rainfall does tend to occur mainly in winter. This vegetation type has a large number of endemic species and several endemic genera. Robertson Karoo Robertson Karoo is a semi-arid vegetation type, restricted to sections of the Breede River Valley, Western Cape Province, South Africa. It is a subtype of Succulent Karoo (geographically an extension of the "Little Karoo") and is characterised by the
Karoo the winter. Grasses are uncommon, making most of the biome unsuitable for grazing. The low rainfall, in fact, discourages most forms of agriculture. An exception is the thriving ostrich-farming industry in the Little Karoo, which is heavily dependent on supplementary feeding with lucerne. The difference between the Succulent Karoo biome and the Nama Karoo biome is that the former receives the little rain that falls as cyclonic rainfall in winter, which has less erosive power than the infrequent but violent summer thunderstorms of the Nama Karoo. Frost is also less common in the Succulent Karoo biome than in the Nama