The mediterranean-type region of South Africa supports natural vegetation which, like that in Western Australia, is an important resource for the international decorative wildflower industry. In the Cape, South Africa, it is the floristically diverse vegetation of the Fynbos Biome that is the sources of material for that trade. This paper explores that industry by means of a computer model used as a vehicle for analysing the convergence of biological, ecological and economic factors, and attempts to predict how these factors might affect the sustainability of natural populations of harvested plant species.