Lion's Head, Cape Town

Lion's Head is a mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, standing between Table Mountain and Signal Hill within Table Mountain National Park, reaching 669 meters above sea level. Its upper slopes consist of flat lying Table Mountain sandstone of Ordovician to Silurian age, while its lower slopes are formed from the older Precambrian Cape Granite and the Malmesbury Group. Dutch settlers in the seventeenth century named the peak Leeuwen Kop, or Lion's Head, for its resemblance to a crouching lion, while calling neighboring Signal Hill Leeuwen Staart, or Lion's Tail; English settlers of the same era instead called it Sugar Loaf. The mountain supports three vegetation types found nowhere else on Earth, including the endangered Granite Fynbos that covers most of its slopes.