Angola: Iona NP – Wildflowers of Namib Desert

The climate in Iona National Park is heavily influenced by the cold Benguela current from the Atlantic Ocean. This current brings cold, nutrient-rich waters that, when meeting the warm desert air, produce dense fogs known locally as cassimbo. These fogs are a crucial moisture source for the desert’s flora in an other super dry environment – less then 100ml of tin per year! Unlike deserts with more or less reliable spring blooms (e.g., Death Valley), Iona’s wildflowers are opportunistic, appearing only after significant rain – and long story short – we got super lucky – as the desert just exploded with short-lived blooming annuals. Angola’s flora is very sparsely documented, not to mention the rarely blooming ephemeral wildflowers. So it was like a botanist’s dream to roam around this absolutely amazing display of color against the desert sand.