Malviflora of Southern Africa

Malvaceae Info
Biogeography of Malvaceae

Sources

Southern Africa here includes South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland (southern Africa), and Angola (excluding Cabinda), Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique (southern tropical Africa). Cabinda is excluded as it has a Congolian (tropical forest) flora similar to that of Gabon and the Congos, rather than the Zambezian (savanna) flora typical of most of the rest of Angola, with several genera present in Cabinda absent from the remainder of Southern Africa, making it more convenient to treat Cabinda with Central and East Africa, rather than Southern Africa.

There are three major online sources on the flora of this region. Flora Zambesiaca [1, 2, 3, 4] provides information on the floras of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique and of the Caprivi Strip of Namibia. The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) has a Plants of Southern Africa (POSA) checklist [5] covering South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, and a Flora of Angola Online covering Angola [6]. The South African Botanical Diversity Network (SABONET) has checklists for Mozambique [7], Zimbabwe [8], Zambia [9], Swaziland [10, 11], Lesotho [12] and Botswana [13] and a sylva of Swaziland [14]. There is another checklist for Zimbabwe [15]. The most complete source available for Angola is Hiern's Catalog of Welwitsch's African Plants [16]. This has been supplemented by mentions of Angola in descriptions of extralimital distributions from the preceeding sources, and with information from Aluka [17] and GRIN [18].

The list for the Mozambiquean province of Niassa is supplemented from a report on a collection of plants from that province [19].

Most of the above sources follow Flora Zambesiaca in respect of the recognition of genera. This site follows the treatment given in Kubitzki and Bayer [20], wth modifications. The differences are

There is some disagreement about species names and boundaries among the various sources.

The following references to plants being found within the region, in addition to those given by the main references, are noted. (Some may represent synonyms.)

Composition of Flora

The majority of the area has desert vegetation in the west (the Namib and Kalahari deserts) and grassland in the east. There are regions of Mediterranean scrub on the southern coast, of sub-tropical forest on the south-eastern coast, and of tropical rain (and gallery) forest along the eastern coast and the valley of the Zambezi river. Areas of savanna occur in southern and northern Mozambique, and there is a broad band of tropical dry forest covering Zambia, northern Zimbabwe and Botswana, the Caprivi Strip of Namibia and much of Angola.

The region contains over 500 species belonging to 51 genera of the family Malvaceae, 8 (Anoda, Ceiba, Lavatera, Malva, Malvastrum, Modiola, Sidastrum and Sphaeralcea) of which are introduced. All of the subfamilies, except Tilioideae, are represented, but the representatives of Brownlowioideae and Helicteroideae, and to a lesser extent Sterculioideae, are plants of wet tropical forests found on the margins of the region.

Over half of the species belong to the three largest genera Hermannia (150 species), Hibiscus (97 species, of which 2 are introduced) and Grewia (55 species). Other significant genera are Abutilon (22 species, of which 1 is introduced), Anisodontea (19 species), Corchorus (20 species, of which 3 are introduced, Dombeya (23 species), and Triumfetta (37 species).

Hermannia (Byttneriioideae: Hermannieae) is a genus concentrated in this region with its greatest diversity in Western Cape (20 species in the Cape Peninsula alone) and Northern Cape. There are 4 species recorded from Mexico and adjacent parts of the United States, 1 from Australia, a number from Madagascar, a few species in East Africa and the Horn of Africa. Hermannia modesta extends from Cape Province though East Africa to the Horn of Africa, the Sudan, Egypt and Arabia. Hermannia tigrensis ranges from Angola and Zimbabwe to Ethiopia and West Africa. Of the other genera of Hermannieae two species of Melochia, and a single species of Waltheria also occurs.

Hibiscus (Malvoideae: Hibisceae) is a pan-tropical genus. Several of the species found in southern Africa are widely distributed within the Palaeotropics. Within southern Africa the genus Hibiscus is more diverse towards the north of the region. Most of the major clades within Hibiscus occur in the region. Oher genera of Hibisceae which occur within the region are Abelmoschus (3 species, 2 of which are introduced), Fioria (1 species), Kosteletzkya (4 species), Pavonia (15 species), Talipariti (1 species) and Urena (1 species).

Grewia (Grewioideae) is a Palaeotropical genus, of semi-arid forests and woodlands, found from southern Africa and Madagascar through southern Asia to Queensland and the western Pacific. Within the region the genus is most diverse towards the east.

Abutilon (Malvoideae: Abutilinae) is a pantropical genus.

Anisodontea (Malvoideae: Malvinae) is nearly endemic to Cape Province, where all 19 species may be found, Anisodontea julii also extending to the Free State, Lesotho and KwaZulu Natal. 17 of the 19 species can be found in Western Cape, compared to 7 in Northern Cape and 6 in Eastern Cape.

Corchorus and Triumfetta (Grewioideae) are pantropical genera. Dombeya (Dombeyoideae) is centred on Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands, and is also found throughout Subsaharan Africa, where it is most diverse in the east.

All these genera are genera of temperate or dry tropical regions. A number of genera of tropical forests extend into the north of the region including sterculioids (Cola, Heritiera, Hildegardia, Pterygota, Sterculia), helicteroids (Triplochiton), brownlowioids (Carpodiptera, Christiana) and grewioids (Clappertonia)

Tables

Counts of genera by nation and region

Species counts for genera (numbers in brackets represent naturalised and casual species)

national counts for southern Africa
provincial counts for South Africa
provincial counts for Mozambique
provincial counts for Zambia
regional counts for Zimbabwe
provincial counts for Angola

Species distributions (N represents naturalised species, C casual species)

in southern Africa: Hermannieae, Grewia and Microcos, other Grewioideae, Brownlowioideae and Helicteroideae, Sterculioideae, Dombeyoideae, Bombacoideae and basal Malvoideae, Hibisceae, Gossypieae, Abutilinae and Malvinae.
in South Africa: Hermannieae, Grewia and Microcos, other Grewioideae, Brownlowioideae and Helicteroideae, Sterculioideae, Dombeyoideae, Bombacoideae and basal Malvoideae, Hibisceae, Gossypieae, Abutilinae and Malvinae.
in Mozambique: Hermannieae, Grewia and Microcos, other Grewioideae, Brownlowioideae and Helicteroideae, Sterculioideae, Dombeyoideae, Bombacoideae and basal Malvoideae, Hibisceae, Gossypieae, Abutilinae and Malvinae.
in Zambia: Hermannieae, Grewia and Microcos, other Grewioideae, Brownlowioideae and Helicteroideae, Sterculioideae, Dombeyoideae, Bombacoideae and basal Malvoideae, Hibisceae, Gossypieae, Abutilinae and Malvinae.
in Zimbabwe: Hermannieae, Grewia and Microcos, other Grewioideae, Brownlowioideae and Helicteroideae, Sterculioideae, Dombeyoideae, Bombacoideae and basal Malvoideae, Hibisceae, Gossypieae, Abutilinae and Malvinae.
in Angola: Hermannieae, Grewia and Microcos, other Grewioideae, Brownlowioideae and Helicteroideae, Sterculioideae, Dombeyoideae, Bombacoideae and basal Malvoideae, Hibisceae, Gossypieae, Abutilinae and Malvinae.

Species lists

Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, Northwest, Western Cape,
Cabo Delgado, Gaza, Inhambane, Manica, Maputo, Nampula, Niassa, Sofala, Tete, Zambezia
Central, Copperbelt, Eastern, Luapula, Lusaka, Northern, Northwestern, Southern, Western
central Zimbabwe, east Zimbabwe, north Zimbabwe, south Zimbabwe, west Zimbabwe,
Bengo, Benguela, Bie, Cuando Cubango, Cuanza Norte, Cuanza Sul, Cunene, Huambo, Huila, Luanda, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Malanje, Moxico, Namibe, Uige, Zaire

References

  1. Wild, Bombacaceae, in Exell & Meeuse, Fl. Zambes. 1: 511-517 (1961)
  2. Exell, Malvaceae, in Exell & Meeuse, Fl. Zambes. 1: 420-511 (1961)
  3. Wild, H., Sterculiaceae, in Exell & Meeuse, Fl. Zambes. 1: 517-584 (1961)
  4. Wild, Tiliaceae, in Exell & Meeuse, Fl. Zambes. 2: 33-91 (1961)
  5. Plants of southern Africa: an online checklist
  6. Flora of Angola Online
  7. A preliminary checklist of the vascular plants of Mozambique (2004)
  8. A checklist of Zimbabwean vascular plants (2004)
  9. A checklist of Zambian vascular plants (2005)
  10. Swaziland Flora Checklist
  11. Swaziland Flora
  12. Kobisi, Preliminary checklist of the plants in Lesotho (2005)
  13. Setshogo, A preliminary checklist of the plants of Botswana
  14. Loffler & Loffler, Swaziland Tree Atlas (2005)
  15. Flora of Zimbabwe
  16. Hiern, W.P., Catalog of Welwitsch's African Plants 1(1): 62-102 (1896)
  17. African Plants at Aluka
  18. Germplasm Resouces Information Network
  19. Timberlake et al, Niassa Botanical Expedition June 2003
  20. Kubitzki & Bayer, Malvaceae, in Kubitzki & Bayer, Fam. Gen. Vasc. Plants V: (2003)
  21. Czarnecka et al, Phytogeography of the genus Microcos L. (Malvaceae, Grewioideae) in Africa, Biodiv. Res. Conserv. 3-4: 269-271 (2006)
  22. Reference Martineau not found

Malvaceae Info
Biogeography of Malvaceae

© 2007, 2008, 2009 Stewart R. Hinsley