I just visited a friend who grew up in Muisenberg (spelling?; = “Mouse mountain”) in Cape Town in the 1940s. She showed me pictures of the area in several books and talked about some of the changes she had seen. She knew an invasive tree species (Banksia i think) was removed at some time and resulted in a wetland :) and she told me fynbos is a flora unique in the world.
Kind of like the dry kauri ridge plant community I am working with, i suppose. Though this has trees - big ones.