Although the environmental correlates of plant species richness have long received
attention, research into the genesis of this diversity is in its infancy. The recent development
of molecular dating methods and the inference of robust phylogenetic hypotheses have
made it possible to investigate this problem. I use the Cape flora as a model to show that
much modern diversity could be the result of recruiting diverse lineages over the entire
Cenozoic into this flora, followed by in situ diversification (thus increasing species richness) …