The highest grade of Pan-African metamorphism in the coastal part of the central Damara Orogen culminated under lower granulite facies conditions.Thermobaro-metric constraints on the PT evolution of this area in migmatitic Grt-Crd-Sil-Spl-Kfs-Qtz-bearing metapelites yield an average temperature of 725°C ± 16 (locally up to 760°C) at pressures of about 5-6 kbar. Microfabric features indicate three different generations of garnets in the metapelites. Oriented inclusion trails in garnet group I show that these garnets belong to an early syntectonic stage in the metamorphic history. Most of the garnets in the metapelites, however, occur in more or less coarse-grained leucocratic segregations. Such garnets are often anhedral and have a poikiloblastic core and an inclusion-free rim. Similar microfabric features in the leucocratic zones and their metapelitic host rocks suggest that the overwhelming part of the leucocratic segregations are products of deformation, metamorphic segregation and differentiation that outlasted annealing during regional metamorphism. It can be concluded that the garnets in these leucocratic segregations have been formed by subsolidus segregation processes prior to the peak of metamorphism. The third group of garnet is found mainly in medium-grained, migmatitic metapelites showing nebulitic structures. In such migmatites, anhedral and inclusion-bearing and euhedral inclusion-free garnets occur side by side. In contrast to garnet groups I and II, these garnets are of magmatic origin and are considered to be the products of dehydration melting of biotite at or close to peak metamorphic conditions. This high-grade metamorphic event yielded only limited amounts of in situ melt.