EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Sweetveld Thorn Scrub of the Limpopo

Thorn Scrub Woodland along the Limpopo River
Zimbabwe, Africa

Explanation:  Welcome to the arid "thorn scrub" woodland of southern Africa.   This week we are looking south across the famed Limpopo River into South Africa on the far shore, but we are standing in Zimbabwe.  

Thorn scrub woodland here is comprised of a rather surprising diversity of plants for so dry an environment.  The dominant tree here is mopane (Colophospermum mopane) that has leaves shaped rather like a butterfly.  Scattered about also are lala palms (Hyphaene coriacea), rock plant (Adenia spinosa), and stink shepherd's tree (don't ask me, I don't name them; Boscia foetida ssp. rehmanniana).  

On local hikes, we also encounter the tree called marula (Sclerocarya birrea ssp. caffra) with its bark scarred and stripped by foraging elephants; red bushwillow (Combretum apiculatum ssp. apiculatum) which is distributed commonly in southern Africa; large leaved rock fig (Ficus abutifolia, = F. soldanella); zebra-bark corkwood (Commiphora merkeri); and the thorned namesake of this woodland, umbrella thorn (Acacia tortilis).  

By hike's end, I've cataloged a good two dozen species of shrubs and trees, as well as several dozen bird species and encounters with water monitor lizards, Chacma baboons, kudu antelopes, impala, brown rock hyraxes, and other mammals of the region.  

So ... what is "sweetveld?" 

Sweetveld is a term referring either to grass and herbs favored by ungulates ... or to areas of southern Africa with good pasture and livestock fodder.  Within  the thorn scrub woodland along this part of the Limpopo River, there exist openings of sweetveld grasslands ... thus, this area being referred to as sweetveld thorn scrub of the Limpopo.