When I first considered returning to the Western Cape of South Africa, I was worried that having been there before I would be disappointed to be seeing pretty much the same things I had already seen. This was especially true since the itinerary for this trip was to be very similar. We would be staying in a number of the same places and visiting a number of the same wildflower locations as was the case two years ago. The one thing that would be different was the possibility that there would have been better rainfall this year. Anyone who has been to Anza Borrego or Joshua Tree or the East Mojave knows that the wildflower experience in a wet year is vastly different than that in a dry year, and whereas the majority of years in our area are dry ones, the majority of years in the Western Cape are wet ones, at least they traditionally have been. In 2010 it was the luck of the draw that we found ourselves in a fairly dry year. Trips that have to be planned almost a year in advance cannot promise what the conditions will be upon arrival. So going back again seemed to hold out the possibility of seeing this area the way it is often displayed in tourist brochures, and in 2012 this proved to be the case. Although many of the species we saw this time were by now familiar to us, what we had missed out on in 2010 was the fantastic array of flowers that in many places covered the landscape in a beautiful palette of colors. Once again our leader was Cameron McMaster, and it was wonderful to be with him on another adventure. This time our group consisted of five wildflower enthusiasts from the United Kingdom, a highly botanically knowledgeable couple from the Netherlands, a succulent specialist from Israel, and myself, once again the only Yank. One more thing that made this trip at least in part different for me is that we would be spending the first three days in the very eastern part of the Western Cape and staying at the small town of Napier, which is Cameron's home town. Napier is located in a region known as the Overberg, between Caledon and Bredasdorp, east of Cape Town and the Hottentots-Holland Mountains and almost directly north of Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of the African continent. This was an area that would be completely new to us, and it was lovely to visit with Cameron and his wife Rhoda at their home. In order not to make an already fairly long trip even longer, I had prevailed upon my good friends Hugh Clarke and his wife Fenja to drive up from Cape Town and meet us where we would be a couple of days before the end of the trip. They agreed to spend a day botanizing with us and then drive me back to Cape Town. Hugh and I are currently working on a book of etymological derivations of all the generic names of South African plants, and it has been a joy to work with him and share my interest in plant names with him. My fourth trip to South Africa turned out to be a wonderful experience, my companions knowledgeable, interesting and congenial, the weather mostly cooperative, and the wild flowers present in overwhelming abundance. A plant list for this photo gallery is here.