|
Afromontane
The Afromontane regions are subregions of the Afrotropical realm, one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms, covering the plant and animal species found in the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The Afromontane regions of Africa are discontinuous, separated from each other by lower-lying areas, and are sometimes referred to as the Afromontane archipelago, as their distribution is analogous to a series of sky islands. Geography Afromontane communities occur above elevation near the equator, and as low as elevation in the Knysna-Amatole montane forests of South Africa. Afromontane forests are generally cooler and more humid than the surrounding lowlands. The Afromontane archipelago mostly follows the East African Rift from the Red Sea to Zimbabwe, with the largest areas in the Ethiopian Highlands, the Albertine Rift Mountains of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania, and the Eastern Arc highlands of Kenya and Tanzani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afromontane Zones (transparent)
The Afromontane regions are subregions of the Afrotropical realm, one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms, covering the plant and animal species found in the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The Afromontane regions of Africa are discontinuous, separated from each other by lower-lying areas, and are sometimes referred to as the Afromontane archipelago, as their distribution is analogous to a series of sky islands. Geography Afromontane communities occur above elevation near the equator, and as low as elevation in the Knysna-Amatole montane forests of South Africa. Afromontane forests are generally cooler and more humid than the surrounding lowlands. The Afromontane archipelago mostly follows the East African Rift from the Red Sea to Zimbabwe, with the largest areas in the Ethiopian Highlands, the Albertine Rift Mountains of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania, and the Eastern Arc highlands of Kenya and Tanzania. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethiopian Highlands
The Ethiopian Highlands (also called the Abyssinian Highlands) is a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia in Northeast Africa. It forms the largest continuous area of its elevation in the continent, with little of its surface falling below , while the summits reach heights of up to . It is sometimes called the "Roof of Africa" due to its height and large area. It is the only country in the region with such a high elevated surface. This elevated surface is bisected diagonally by the Great East African Rift System which extends from Syria to Mozambique across the East African Lakes. Most of the Ethiopian Highlands are part of central and northern Ethiopia, and its northernmost portion reaches into Eritrean Highlands, Eritrea. History In the southern parts of the Ethiopian Highlands once was located the Kingdom of Kaffa, a medieval and Early modern period, early modern state, whence the coffee plant was exported to the Arabian Peninsula. The land of the former kingdom is mountainou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hagenia Abyssinica
''Hagenia'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plant with the sole species ''Hagenia abyssinica'', native to the high-elevation Afromontane regions of central and eastern Africa. It also has a disjunct distribution in the high mountains of East Africa from Sudan and Ethiopia in the north, through Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Tanzania, to Malawi and Zambia in the south. A member of the rose family, its closest relative is the Afromontane genus '' Leucosidea''. Description It is a tree up to 20 m in height, with a short trunk, thick branches, and thick, peeling bark. The leaves are up to 40 cm long, compound with 7-13 leaflets, each leaflet about 10 cm long with a finely serrated margin, green above, silvery-haired below. The flowers are white to orange-buff or pinkish-red, produced in panicles 30–60 cm long. Nomenclature It is known in English as African redwood, East African rosewood, brayera, cusso, hagenia, or kousso, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Cameroon
Mount Cameroon is an active volcano in the Southwest Region of Cameroon next to the city of Buea near the Gulf of Guinea. Mount Cameroon is also known as Cameroon Mountain or Fako (the name of the higher of its two peaks) or by its indigenous name ''Mongo ma Ndemi'' ("Mountain of Greatness"). Mount Cameroon is ranked 22nd by topographic isolation. It is the highest point in sub-Saharan western and central Africa, the fourth-most prominent peak in Africa, and 31st-most prominent in the world. The mountain is part of the area of volcanic activity known as the Cameroon Volcanic Line, which also includes Lake Nyos, the site of a disaster in 1986. The most recent eruption occurred on February 3, 2012. Description Mount Cameroon is one of Africa's largest volcanoes, rising to above the coast of west Cameroon. Flora The mountain's natural vegetation varies with elevation. The main plant communities on the mountain include:''The Management Plan of the Mount Cameroon National ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afrotropical Realm
The Afrotropical realm is one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Sub-Saharan Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopian Zone or Ethiopian Region. Major ecological regions Most of the Afrotropical realm, except for Africa's southern tip, has a tropics, tropical climate. A broad belt of deserts, including the Atlantic coastal desert, Atlantic and Sahara deserts of northern Africa and the Arabian Desert of the Arabian Peninsula, separates the Afrotropic from the Palearctic realm, which includes northern Africa and temperate Eurasia. Sahel and Sudan South of the Sahara, two belts of tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands, tropical grassland and savanna run east and west across the continent, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ethiopian Highlands. Immediately south of the Sahara lies the Sahel belt, a transitional zone of semi-arid sho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juniperus Procera
''Juniperus procera'' (known by the common English names African juniper, African pencil-cedar, East African juniper, East African-cedar, and Kenya-cedar) is a coniferous tree native to mountainous areas in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It is a characteristic tree of the Afromontane flora. Description ''Juniperus procera'' is a medium-sized tree reaching (rarely ) tall, with a trunk up to diameter and a broadly conical to rounded or irregular crown. The leaves are of two forms, juvenile needle-like leaves long on seedlings, and adult scale-leaves 0.5–3 mm long on older plants, arranged in decussate pairs or whorls of three. It is largely dioecious with separate male and female plants, but some individual plants produce both sexes. The cones are berry-like, 4–8 mm in diameter, blue-black with a whitish waxy bloom, and contain 2–5 seeds; they mature in 12–18 months. The male cones are 3–5 mm long, and shed their pollen in early spring.(Page archive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drakensberg
The Drakensberg (Zulu language, Zulu: uKhahlamba, Sotho language, Sotho: Maloti, Afrikaans: Drakensberge) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, Southern Africa, Great Escarpment, which encloses the central South Africa#Geography, Southern African plateau. The Great Escarpment reaches its greatest elevation – within the border region of South Africa and Lesotho. The Drakensberg escarpment stretches for more than from the Eastern Cape, Eastern Cape Province in the South, then successively forms, in order from south to north, the border between Lesotho and the Eastern Cape and the border between Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal, KwaZulu-Natal Province. Thereafter it forms the border between KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State (South African province), Free State, and next as the border between KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, Mpumalanga Province. The escarpment winds north from there, through Mpumalanga, where it includes features such as the Blyde River Canyon, Three Rondavels, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prunus Africana
''Prunus africana'', the African cherry, has a wide distribution in Africa, occurring in montane regions of central and southern Africa and on the islands of Bioko, São-Tomé, Grande Comore, and Madagascar. It can be found at above sea level. It is a canopy tree 30–40 m in height, and is the tallest member of ''Prunus''. Large-diameter trees have impressive, spreading crowns. It requires a moist climate, annual rainfall, and is moderately frost-tolerant. Previewable Google Books. ''P. africana'' appears to be a light-demanding, secondary-forest species. The bark is black to brown, corrugated or fissured, and scaly, fissuring in a characteristic rectangular pattern. The leaf, leaves are alternate, simple, long, elliptical, bluntly or acutely pointed, glabrousness (botany), glabrous, and dark green above, pale green below, with mildly serrated margins. A central vein is depressed on top, prominent on the bottom. The Petiole (botany), petiole is pink or red. The flowers are an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afrocarpus
''Afrocarpus'' is a genus of conifer of the family Podocarpaceae. Five species are recognized. They are evergreen trees native to Africa. ''Afrocarpus'' was designated a genus in 1989, when several species formerly classified in ''Podocarpus'' and ''Nageia'' were reclassified.Christopher N. Page. 1989. "New and maintained genera in the conifer families Podocarpaceae and Pinaceae". ''Notes of the Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh'' 45(2): 377-395. Taxonomy ''Afrocarpus'' was originally erected in 1948 as a section of the genus ''Podocarpus'', following a review of the latter by botanists John Theodore Buchholz and Netta Elizabeth Gray. It was raised to genus status by Christopher Nigel Page in 1989, a move well supported by more recent studies. In a 2009 treatment of the genus, only two species were recognized; ''A. dawei'', ''A. gracilior'', and ''A. usambarensis'' were sunk into ''A. falcatus''. The reason for this merger was that "variation across the group appears to be essentia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sky Island
Sky islands are isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau and has extended to similarly isolated high-elevation forests. The isolation has significant implications for these natural habitats. Endemism, altitudinal migration, and relict populations are some of the natural phenomena to be found on sky islands. The complex dynamics of species richness on sky islands draws attention from the discipline of biogeography, and likewise the biodiversity is of concern to conservation biology. One of the key elements of a sky island is separation by physical distance from the other mountain ranges, resulting in a habitat island, such as a forest surrounded by desert. Some sky islands serve as refugia for boreal species stranded by warming climates since the last glacial period. In other cases, localized populations of plants and animals tend towards speciation, similar to oceanic isl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albertine Rift Mountains
The Albertine Rift is the western branch of the East African Rift, covering parts of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. It extends from the northern end of Lake Albert to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika. The geographical term includes the valley and the surrounding mountains. Geology The Albertine Rift and the mountains are the result of tectonic movements that are gradually splitting the Somali Plate away from the rest of the African continent. The mountains surrounding the rift are composed of uplifted Pre-Cambrian basement rocks, overlaid in parts by recent volcanic rocks. Lakes and rivers The northern part of the rift is crossed by two large mountain ranges, the Rwenzori Mountains between Lake Albert and Lake Rutanzige (formerly Lake Edward) and the Virunga Mountains between Lake Rutanzige and Lake Kivu. The Virungas form a barrier between the Nile Basin to the north and east and the Congo Basin to the west and south. Lak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cameroon Line
The Cameroon line (, , ) is a long chain of volcanoes that includes islands in the Gulf of Guinea and mountains on the African mainland, from Mount Cameroon on the coast towards Lake Chad on the northeast. They form a natural border between eastern Nigeria and the West Region of Cameroon. The islands, which span the equator, have tropical climates and are home to many unique plant and bird species. The mainland mountain regions are much cooler than the surrounding lowlands, and also contain unique and ecologically important environments. The Cameroon volcanic line is geologically unusual in extending through both the ocean and the continental crust. Various hypotheses have been advanced by different geologists to explain the line. Geography In the Gulf of Guinea, the Cameroon line consists of six offshore volcanic swells that have formed islands or seamounts. From the southwest to the northeast the island groups are Annobón (or Pagalu), São Tomé, Príncipe and Bioko. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
