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National Botanical Garden (Botswana)
The National Botanical Garden is a park located along the Notwane River south-east of the city center of Gaborone. The National Botanical Garden first opened on 2 November 2007 with the purpose of protecting Botswana's heritage. The park is managed under the Natural History Division of the Botswana National Museum. It is the first botanical garden in Botswana, housing indigenous plants from around Botswana. Layout The garden is composed of six sections corresponding to six different ecological regions in Botswana. The six regions and common plants found in that region are *Chobe – Moporota (Sausage Tree) and Mukusi (Pod Mahogany) *Okavango And Salt Pans – Tsaro (Wild Date Palm) and Mokolwane (Ilala Palm) *Mophane Woodland – Mophane and Monepenepe (Long-tail Cassia) *North-Eastern Kalahari – Mokgwapha (Mountain Aloe) and Mosunyana (Umbrella Thorn) *Mashatu – Motha (Nyala Tree) and More-o-mosetlha (Fever Tree) *South Western Kalahari – ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaborone
Gaborone ( , , ) is the capital and largest city of Botswana with a population of 246,325 based on the 2022 census, about 10% of the total population of Botswana. Its agglomeration is home to 421,907 inhabitants at the 2011 census. Gaborone is situated between Kgale Hill and Oodi Hill, near the confluence of the Notwane River and Segoditshane River in the south-eastern corner of Botswana, from the South African border. The city is served by the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport. It is an administrative district in its own right, but is the capital of the surrounding South-East District. Locals often refer to the city as ''GC or Motse-Mshate''. The city of Gaborone is named after Chief Gaborone of the Tlokwa tribe, who once controlled land nearby. Because it had no tribal affiliation and was close to fresh water, the city was planned to be the capital in the mid-1960s when the Bechuanaland Protectorate became an independent nation. The centre of the city is a lon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cassia Abbreviata
''Cassia abbreviata'', commonly known as the sjambok pod or long-tail cassia, is a mostly tropical tree species in the genus '' Cassia'', which is native to Africa. Native distribution ''Cassia abbreviata'' is native to east, northeast, south, and west-central Africa; found in Botswana, the DRC, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Somalia, South Africa (in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga), Eswatini, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Uses Proguibourtinidins, a type of condensed tannins, can be found in ''C. abbreviata'' and guibourtinidol, a flavan-3ol, can be found in its heartwood. Subspecies Three subspecies are distinguished on the basis of petal size, pubescence and geographical distribution: * ''Cassia abbreviata'' subsp. ''abbreviata'' * ''Cassia abbreviata'' subsp. ''beareana'' (Holmes) Brenan * ''Cassia abbreviata'' subsp. ''kassneri'' (Baker f.) Brenan File:Cassia abbreviata - pods (length ~0,70m).jpg, File:Cassia abbreviata, loof, Manie van der Schijff BT, a.jpg, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botswana Democratic Party
The Botswana Democratic Party ( abbr. BDP) is the governing party in Botswana. Its chairman is the Vice-President of Botswana, Slumber Tsogwane, and its symbol is a lift jack. The party has ruled Botswana continuously since gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1966. The BDP is sometimes classified as a paternalistic conservative party and is also a consultative member of the Socialist International since 2014, which is a group including many worldwide social-democratic parties. The BDP was primarily shaped by two of its founders, Sir Seretse Khama and Quett Ketumile Masire. Traditional Setswana communities make up the party's base, which has led the BDP to remain a conservative movement. In the 2019 Parliamentary elections, the BDP took 38 seats, giving it continued control of the chamber. History In November 1961, Seretse Khama and other delegates to the African Advisory Council founded the party in Lobatse. Within the next few months Masire and Khama drafted a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hoodia
''Hoodia'' (; known locally as "ghaap" or "bobbejaanghaap") is a genus of flowering plants in the family Apocynaceae, under the subfamily Asclepiadoideae, native to Southern Africa. One species of ''Hoodia'' in particular, ''Hoodia gordonii'', has achieved a degree of fame and controversy, after being investigated for use as a possible appetite suppressant. Description The group was first described as a genus in 1844. Hoodia are stem succulents, described as "cactiform" because of their remarkable similarity to the unrelated cactus family. They have a branching, shrub-like form, and the largest species (''Hoodia parviflora'') can grow to the size of a tree — over in height. The flowers are extremely variable in size — from less than 1 cm, to almost 20 cm in diameter, depending on the species. Flowers appear in large numbers, always near the tops of the stems. Those of larger-flowered species (such as ''Hoodia gordonii'') are often a papery pink-tan colour, pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acacia Xanthophloea
''Vachellia xanthophloea'' is a tree in the family Fabaceae, commonly known in English as the fever tree. This species of ''Vachellia'' is native to eastern and southern Africa (Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe). It has also become a landscape tree in other warm climates, outside of its natural range. Description The trees grow to a height of . The characteristic bark is smooth, powdery and greenish yellow, although new twigs are purple, flaking later to reveal the characteristic yellow. It is one of the few trees where photosynthesis takes place in the bark. Straight, white spines grow from the branch nodes in pairs. The leaves are twice compound, with small leaflets (). The flowers are produced in scented pale cream spherical inflorescences, clustered at the nodes and towards the ends of the branches. The pale brown pods contain 5–10 elliptical, flattened green seeds and are long, straight, flat and rather pap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xanthocercis Zambesiaca
''Xanthocercis zambesiaca'', the nyala tree or mshatu, is a species of legume in the family Fabaceae which is native to the southern subtropics of Africa. It occurs in seasonally hot, low-lying river valleys of Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Nyala trees grow on alluvium or termite mounds where they have access to plentiful moisture and deep, fertile soil. They occur sparsely in the eastern lowveld of Southern Africa, but are more prolific in the Limpopo valley and along the Tuli Block's Shashe River, where they are known as ''mshatu'' trees. The foliage and fruit, which ripen in autumn and winter, provide food for various vertebrates. The Nyala tree is a phreatophyte A phreatophyte is a deep-rooted plant that obtains a significant portion of the water that it needs from the phreatic zone (zone of saturation) or the capillary fringe above the phreatic zone. Phreatophytes are plants that are supplied with surf ... – it indicates the pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acacia Tortilis
''Vachellia tortilis'', widely known as ''Acacia tortilis'' but now attributed to the genus ''Vachellia'', is the umbrella thorn acacia, also known as ''umbrella thorn'' and Israeli babool, a medium to large canopied tree native to most of Africa, primarily to the savanna and Sahel of Africa (especially the Somali peninsula and Sudan), but also occurring in the Middle East. Distribution and growing conditions ''Vachellia tortilis'' is widespread in Africa, being found in countries like Tunisa, Morocco, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Djibouti, and Botswana. It tends to grow in areas where temperatures vary from and rainfall is anywhere from about per year. Characteristics In extremely arid conditions, it may occur as a small, wiry bush. It grows up to in height. The tree carries leaves that grow to approx. in length with between 4 and 10 pair of pinnae each with up to 15 pairs of leaflets. Flowers are small and white, highly aromatic, and occur in tight clusters. Seed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aloe Marlothii
''Aloe marlothii'' (also known as the mountain aloe or the flat-flowered aloe) is a large, single-stemmed Southern African aloe of rocky places and open flat country, occasionally growing up to 6 m tall. Description Named after Rudolf Marloth, a German-born South African botanist, this species of aloe has an especially large robust head of stiff, grey-green leaves. These leaves can be up to 1.5 m in length and usually densely covered in short spines on the convex lower surfaces and less so on the concave upper surfaces. Like many other arborescent aloe species, this aloe is more spiny when it is small and as it becomes taller and less vulnerable to grazing, it loses many of the spines from its leaf surfaces. It normally has a trunk densely covered by the withered old leaves. The inflorescence is a much-branched panicle with up to 30 or exceptionally 50 racemes. Flower colour varies a great deal, and ranges from yellow through orange (most common) to bright red. Flowering takes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mopane
''Colophospermum mopane'', commonly called mopane, mopani, balsam tree, butterfly tree, or turpentine tree, is a tree in the legume family (Fabaceae), that grows in hot, dry, low-lying areas, in elevation, in the far northern parts of southern Africa. The tree only occurs in Africa and is the only species in genus ''Colophospermum''. Its distinctive butterfly-shaped (bifoliate) leaf and thin seed pod make it easy to identify. In terms of human use it is, together with camel thorn and leadwood, one of the three regionally important firewood trees. Range and habit It is native to Southern Africa, including Southern Angola, Zambia, Southern Malawi, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and northern South Africa. It grows in alkaline (high lime content) soils which are shallow and not well drained. It also grows in alluvial soils (soil deposited by rivers). Where it occurs, it is often the dominant tree species, frequently forming homogeneous stands. In Northern South Africa and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. It is connected to Zambia across the short Zambezi River border by the Kazungula Bridge. A country of slightly over 2.3 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. About 11.6 percent of the population lives in the capital and largest city, Gaborone. Formerly one of the world's poorest countries—with a GDP per capita of about US$70 per year in the late 1960s—it has since transformed itself into an upper-middle-income country, with one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Modern-day humans first inhabited the country over 200,000 years ago. The Tswana ethnic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyphaene Petersiana
''Hyphaene petersiana'', the real fan palm or makalani palm, is a palm tree native to the subtropical, low-lying regions of south central Africa. Range and habitat It is found in Burundi, Rwanda, the DRC, Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and the northern and north-eastern Limpopo. Its habitat is open woodland, flood plains, banks of rivers and the fringes of pans and swamps. Reproduction As with other ''Hyphaene'' species, ''H. petersiana'' is dioicous and the female plants produce copious fruit of some 60 mm diameter. Up to 2,000 fruit may be found on a tree, the combined yield of about four seasons. The seeds germinate with difficulty but find saline conditions beneficial. They develop massive tap-roots which draw saline water deep underground. Though slow-growing, they may attain a maximum height of 18 metres. Typical adult plants however stand some 5 to 7 metres tall. Uses and associations The plants are utilised by humans and an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix Reclinata
''Phoenix reclinata'' (''reclinata'' - Latin, reclining), the wild date palm, Arabian date palm or Senegal date palm, is a species of flowering plant in the palm family native to tropical Africa, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. It is also reportedly naturalized in Florida, Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Albania, Greece, Turkey, and the Leeward Islands. The plants are found from sea level to 3000 m, in rain forest clearings, monsoonal forests and rocky mountainsides. Description ''Phoenix reclinata'' is a dioecious clumping palm, producing multiple stems from 7.5 to 15 m in height and 30 cm in width. Foliage is pinnate and recurved, growing 2.5 to 4.5 m in length and 0.75 m in width. Leaf color is bright to deep green on 30 cm petioles with long, sharp spines at the base, with 20 to 40 leaves per crown. The plants are unisexual and florets appear at the top o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
