EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Explanation:  This week we are further exploring the isolated highland national park of Nyika Plateau in remote northern Malawi, Africa.  The native grasslands here extend to the horizon in all directions ... dotted by various patches of miombo woodland.

These are interesting forest patches.  They are natural islands of native shrub and tree species.  It was the only place in the entire plateau where I saw a rather out-of-range Ground Hornbill and a number of other forest birds.  

I classified five kinds of forest islands on Nyika Plateau:

1. Single trees & small groups of a few trees with Brachystegia sp. and waterberry (Syzygium cordatum).

2. Miombo patches of trees and shrubs on rock outcrops, with carrot tree (Steganotaenia araliacea) and other mostly deciduous tree and shrub species (see below).

3. Dambo, or peaty wet areas, with several ferns including bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), Blechnum tabulare, and Osmunda regalis; the heaths Blaeria patula and B. kiwuensis; Lobelia mildbraedii; and the orchids Eulophia, Habenaria, Satyrium, Disa.

4. Small ponds and dammed lakes, with various riparian vegetation.

5. Tropical wet evergreen forest patches along the margins of the plateau at mid elevations.

Let's explore this rock outcrop forest patch (type 2 forest island above) in more detail.  What grows here?  Click on the following image to explore the plant life in this tiny but diverse "forest island:"

Click to explore the plant species.

Acknowledgments:  
     Special thanks to the renowned Malawi botanist Hassam Patel of the Mzuzu Herbarium Branch, Mzuzu, Malawi, for helping to identify the plant species I collected.  I quite fortuitously ran into Patel in the montane evergreen forest patches in Nyika Plateau during May 2002 as we were both studying the forest islands in the park.  
     My thanks also to my Land and Lakes Safari hired guide and driver, Godfrey Shawa, for getting me safely to Nyika Plateau and its hidden forest patches.