Mount Kenya''s High Altitude Flora
The mountain's vegetation is zoned by altitude. Above about 2000m, shambas and coniferous plantations cease and the original, dense cloud forest takes over, with the best and broadest on the mountain's southern and eastern, rain-facing slopes. As you gain altitude (2400m), forest gives way to giant bamboo, with clumps up to 20m high. The bamboo, a member of the grass family, appears impenetrable, but dark-walled passages are kept open by elephants and buffalo. Again, the best bamboo areas are to the south, while on the dry, northern slopes, there's very little of it. Above the bamboo (2800m) you come into more open country of scattered, twisted Hagena and St John's Wort trees ( Hypericum ), and then the tree line (3000m) and the start of the peculiar, Afro-Alpine moorlands. Above about 3300m, you reach the land of the giants - giant heather, giant groundsel, giant lobelia. Identities are confusing: the cabbages on stumps and the larger candelabra-like "trees" are the same species - giant groundsel or tree senecio - an intermediate stage of which has a sheaf of yellow flowers. They are slow growers and, for such weedy-looking vegetables, they may be extraordinarily old - up to two  © 2003 by Rough Guides Ltd. as trustee for its Authors. Published by Rough Guides. All rights reserved. Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd. Buy the book here!
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hundred years. The tall, fluffy, less abundant plants are a species of giant lobelia discovered by the explorer Teleki and found only on Mount Kenya. The name plaque below one of these (there's a little nature trail along the ridge above the Naro Moru stream) calls it an "Ostrich plume plant" ( Lobelia telekii ), and it's the only plant that could fairly be described as cuddly. The furriness, which gives it such an animal quality, acts as insulation for the delicate flowers.
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