• Isoetes capensis is an ancient plant similar to a fern.
• Plants like these lived more than 200 million years ago during the Carboniferous Era. This plant is a tiny “living fossil” that has survived unchanged for millions of years.
• This very small water plant looks like a clump of tiny spring onions: the base of the plant is white and the leaves are light green.

• Until recently, people thought that Isoetes capensis was found only at Edith Stephens Wetland Park on the Cape Flats. These plants have been found in a few more seasonal wetlands, but they are still extremely rare.
• Isoetes capensis is Critically Endangered because it lives in seasonal wetlands which are critically endangered habitats.
• Edith Stephens Wetland Park is one of the only places in the City where a seasonal wetland is conserved, so this is one of the only places in the City where you will find Isoetes capensis.

• In 1955 a retired botanist named Edith Stephens raised funds to buy a small 3.7 hectare property on the Cape Flats where there was a seasonal wetland called Isoetes Vlei.
• Even that long ago, Miss Stephens realized that development was threatening the seasonal wetlands on the Cape Flats, as well as the plants and animals that depended on them.
• She donated the property to Kirstenbosch, which looked after the wetland until 2003 when the Edith Stephens Wetland Park was formed.
• Alien plants have been removed and Isoetes Vlei is now part of an important conservation area that serves nearby communities like Manenberg and Guguletu.

Another Critically Endangered plant that grows at the Edith Stephens Wetlands Park is the Cape Flats Viooltjie (Lachenalia arbuthnotiae).

Find this plant on the poster in module 1