Expedition no. 1: Visit to Dulverton Drive, Harare: 24 Mar 2007

18 members of the Tree Society assembled in a grassy field at number 7, Dulverton Drive on 24 March 2007.

After inspecting a lone specimen of Acacia nilotica we walked down towards the Umwindsi River with its border of riverine vegetation. The strip of evergreen vegetation contained some quite large trees; these mainly consisted of Combretum erythrophyllum, Morella serrata and Celtis africana.

As is often the case around Harare, the vegetation strip had been heavily invaded by exotic species and we did not neglect these. In many ways the vegetation is rather similar to the forest area below the dam wall at Greystone Park NR.

Specifically, there was a lot of the tall prickly Acanthus we have seen at Greystone Park, again looking well naturalised. Ligustrum lucidum was there; this is another species seen at Greystone Park.

The Umwindsi river itself was flowing strongly and we crossed the river on some rather muddy stepping stones [image 1]

On the other side we entered a flat grassy area, possibly a floodplain, and we walked through this following the edge of the riverine vegetation. Although this had been an extremely interesting area in October when we had visited it with its extraordinary profusion of spring pyrophytes, it was altogether more dull at this time of the year and consisted of mainly grassland (in particular the rather coarse species, Sporobolus pyramidalis) and Vernonia glabra.

We walked back along the lower slopes of the nearby hill and crossed the stream again at the same point.

Our thanks go to Bernard Beekes for arranging the visit and to Sylvia for allowing entry though her property.

Mark Hyde