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 Supergroup of basaltic lava over the Clarens desert, covering nearly the whole of Southern Africa and other portions of Gondwana.The pile of lava that accumulated over the course of several eruptions was more than 1600 m thick, especially in the east (in present-day Lesotho). This massive lava outpouring brought the Karoo sedimention to an abrupt end. The name Drakensberg group is derived from the fact that this layer forms the uppermost 1400 m of the Great Escarpment on the international border between Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal, often referred to as "the" Drakensberg (although technically the "Drakensberg" refers to the entire 1000 km