The Eastern Highlands, also known as the Manica Highlands, is a mountain range on the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The Eastern Highlands extend north and south for about 300 kilometres (190 mi) through Zimbabwe's Manicaland Province and Mozambique's Manica Province.
Brachystegia spiciformisBenth., commonly known as zebrawood, or Msasa, is a medium-sized African tree having compound leaves and racemes of small fragrant green flowers. The tree is broad and has a distinctive amber and wine red colour when the young leaves sprout during spring (August–September). It grows in savanna, both open woodland and closed woodland of Southern and Eastern Africa, mostly Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique. The word Msasa is commonly used as a proper name in African place names. The word also means 'rough plant' in Swahili. Other common names: Mundu, Myombo, Mtondo (Tanzania), Muputu (Zambia). The plant is known in the Venda language as mutsiwa, which means 'the one that is left behind'. An outlying population of Brachystegia has recently been discovered in the Soutpansberg mountains of northern South Africa. This tree is a protected species in South Africa.
Brachystegia tamarindoides Benth., known as mu'unze and also as the mountain acacia is a medium-sized tree with smooth grey bark, bluish-green leaves and small creamy-white flowers that produce copious amounts of pollen and nectar. It is almost always very close to upturned umbrella shaped with a partially developed flat top, making it easy to recognise in mixed woodland. In this it differs from most of the other Brachystegia species that have variable shapes. The leaves are feathery in appearance, with around 10-12 leaflets arrayed along each leaf stalk.
Brachystegia boehmii, named after the 19th-century German naturalist and collector Richard Böhm, is a flat-topped tree with spreading crown, native to eastern and southern Africa. It forms an important component of miombo woodland, and occurs in Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. Common names are Machabel (Mashonaland), Mufuti (Zimbabwe) and Prince of Wales feathers.
The Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome. It includes four woodland savanna ecoregions characterized by the dominant presence of Brachystegia and Julbernardia species of trees, and has a range of climates ranging from humid to semi-arid, and tropical to subtropical or even temperate. The trees characteristically shed their leaves for a short period in the dry season to reduce water loss, and produce a flush of new leaves just before the onset of the rainy season with rich gold and red colours masking the underlying chlorophyll, reminiscent of temperate autumn colours in the temperate zone.
Schotia brachypetala or weeping boer-bean is a leguminous flowering tree in the family Fabaceae and the subfamily Detarioideae. The woodland tree is native to Africa south of the Zambezi River, where it occurs at middle altitudes. It is well-suited as shade or ornamental tree in warmer regions, and is consequently widely cultivated in gardens and parks. It is named for the copious nectar that drips from its flowers, which attracts various species of birds and insects. It is known by various other names, including tree fuchsia, African greenheart and African walnut.
The white-bellied yellow bat or white-bellied house bat, is a species of vesper bat in the genus Scotophilus, the house bats. It can be found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. It is found in dry and moist savanna and open woodland. It is a common species with a very wide range, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern".
Parinari curatellifolia is an evergreen tropical tree of Africa, found in various kinds of deciduous woodland most frequently in poorly drained areas and inland at moderate altitudes. It is also known as mmupudu, mupundu or mobola plum after the fruit, which is considered tasty and causes the tree to be spared when woodland is cleared for cultivation.
The biomes and ecoregions in the ecology of Zambia are described, listed and mapped here, following the World Wildlife Fund's classification scheme for terrestrial ecoregions, and the WWF freshwater ecoregion classification for rivers, lakes and wetlands. Zambia is in the Zambezian region of the Afrotropical biogeographic realm. Three terrestrial biomes are well represented in the country . The distribution of the biomes and ecoregions is governed mainly by the physical environment, especially climate.
Julbernardia paniculata is a medium to large tropical tree, also known as muchesa. It is widespread over the warmer parts of south tropical Africa, preferring moderately high altitudes, typically 1,000 to 1,200 metres. It is very common over its range and is the dominant woodland tree in Miombo woodland over much of central Zambia and northern Malawi.
Angolan miombo woodlands cover most of central Angola and extend into the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are part of the larger miombo ecosystem that covers much of eastern and southern Africa.
The Zambezian and mopane woodlands is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion of southeastern Africa.
Ficus ingens, the red-leaved fig, is a fig species with an extensive range in the subtropical to dry tropical regions of Africa and southern Arabia. Despite its specific name, which means "huge", or "vast", it is usually a shrub or tree of modest proportions. It is a fig of variable habit depending on the local climate and substrate, typically a stunted subshrub on elevated rocky ridges, or potentially a large tree on warmer plains and lowlands. In 1829 the missionary Robert Moffat found a rare giant specimen, into which seventeen thatch huts of a native tribe were placed, so as to be out of reach of lions.
Euclea crispa, commonly known as the blue guarri, is an Afrotropical plant species of the family Ebenaceae. The hardy and evergreen plants may form a dense stand of shrubs, or grow to tree size. It is widespread and common in the interior regions of southern Africa, and occurs northward to the tropics. Though some are present near the South African south and east coasts, they generally occur at middle to high altitudes. It is readily recognizable from its much-branched structure and dull bluish foliage colour. Those bearing lanceolate leaves may however resemble the Wild olive, another common species of the interior plateaus.
The West Sudanian savanna is a tropical savanna ecoregion that extends across West Africa.
The Chimanimani Mountains are a mountain range on the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The mountains are in the southern portion of the Eastern Highlands, or Manica Highlands, a belt of highlands that extend north and south along the international border, between the Zambezi and Save rivers.
Mount Chiperone is a mountain in northern Mozambique.
The Cheringoma Plateau is a low plateau in Sofala Province of Mozambique. It lies mostly within Cheringoma, Muanza, and Marromeu districts.
The Southern miombo woodlands is a tropical grasslands and woodlands ecoregion extending across portions of Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The Zambezian region is a large biogeographical region in Africa. The Zambezian region includes woodlands, savannas, grasslands, and thickets, extending from east to west in a broad belt across the continent. The Zambezian region lies south of the rainforests of the Guineo-Congolian region. The Zambezian region is bounded by deserts and xeric shrublands on the southwest, the Highveld grasslands of South Africa to the south, and the subtropical Maputaland forests on the southeast.
