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Quarter degree square: 1134A1 Country: Malawi Habitat: Evergreen forest, rocky outcrops and fire induced montane grassland. Altitude range: 1750 - 2000 m Annual rainfall: Location (short): Isolated peak with forested slopes near the point where Rumphi, Nkhata Bay and Mzimba districts meet. Location (detailed): |
IMPORTANT NOTE: Not to be confused with the Chimaliro Forest Reserve, a designated area of miombo woodland much further South on the boundary between Kasungu and Mzimba Districts, close to the border with Zambia.
Copied from Dowsett-Lemaire in Bull. Jard. Bot. Nat. Belg. 59(1/2): 37-38 (1989):
The forest on either side of the Chimaliro rocky peak consists of two main patches (106 and 44 ha) and several smaller ones. The high hills 3-4 km to the northeast have small forest remnants (e.g. Mtunje, 13 ha), but most of the ground above 1750 m is covered with montane grassland, much of it fire-induced, with vast areas of gregarious shrubs such as Kotschya recurvifolia and clumps burnt trees in stream depressions. Only the main forest near the peak is partly protected with fire-breaks.
At slightly higher altitude (1850-2000 m) than Uzumara, the forest here appears less luxuriant. Ficalhoa is rare and Ocotea usambarensis rather local, whereas Pouteria, Cryptocarya and em>Entandrophragma commonly emerge above the 30 m tall canopy. Neoboutonia macrocalyx is plentiful in stream gullies; Ficus thonningii is the most frequent of the three strangling fig trees. Epiphytic orchids are nowhere numerous, though the small Angraecum stolzii is widespread from the lower storeys to the canopy. The largest forest patch faces northeast and thickets of Anisotes nyassae are locally extensive, though not as dense as in Uzumara.
The streams of the other main patch flow to the south; the
undergrowth is more open. Lasiodiscus usambarensis (a species apparently confined in Malawi to the North Viphya), 4-8 m tall, is not uncommon here at 1850-1900 m. J.D. Chapman collected a sterile Arundinaria bamboo (presumably alpina) near in 1965, but it could not be relocated and may have died since. There are no other records in northern Malawi.
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