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 which is Afrikaans for Little Karoo. The Great Karoo straddles the 30° S parallel on the west of the continent, in a similar position to other semidesert areas on earth, north and south of the equator. It is furthermore in the rainfall shadow of the Cape Fold Mountains along the western coastline. The western "Lower Karoo" (the Tankwa Karoo and Moordenaarskaroo) contain remnants of the Cape Fold Mountains (e.g. the Witteberg and Anysberg Mountains) which give it a moderate hilly appearance, but further east, the Lower Karoo becomes a monotonously flat plain. The "Upper Karoo" has been intruded by dolerite