The Chirinda Forest Botanical Reserve is situated on the slopes of

Mount Selinda Mount Selinda, at an altitude of 1,100 metres, is a village and mission station in the province of Manicaland in the eastern mountains of Zimbabwe. Located close to the Mozambique border, it lies in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Mount Sel ...

, south of Chipinge, in the Chipinge Highlands of

Manicaland Manicaland is a Provinces of Zimbabwe, province in eastern Zimbabwe. After Harare Province, it is the country's second-most populous province, with a population of 2.037 million, as of the 2012 Zimbabwe census, 2022 census. After Harare and Bulawa ...

, Zimbabwe, and is administered by the Forestry Commission. The reserve is situated at between in altitude, and receives some to of annual rainfall. of its higher levels, above , is covered by moist evergreen forest, specifically Zanzibar-Inhambane transitional rain forest, of which it represents the southernmost occurrence. The headwaters of three streams, namely the Zona, Chinyika and Musangazi, drain the two broad highlands which it encloses. The boundaries of the reserve are not strictly enforced, so that cattle grazing and plant harvesting are ongoing. The reserve is surrounded by communal settlements, commercial timber plantations (

eucalypts Eucalypt is a descriptive name for woody plants with capsule fruiting bodies belonging to seven closely related genera (of the tribe Eucalypteae) found across Australasia: ''Eucalyptus'', ''Corymbia'', ''Angophora'', '' Stockwellia'', ''Allosyn ...

and

pines A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

) and small-scale commercial farming units. The naturalist

Charles Swynnerton __NOTOC__ Charles Francis Massy Swynnerton CMG (3 December 1877 – 8 June 1938) was an English naturalist noted for his contributions to tsetse fly research. Swynnerton was born in Folkestone, Kent on 3 December 1877. His father was a senior ...

was appointed manager of the nearby Gungunyana farm in 1900, and a number of plant, bird and insect names commemorate his collecting activities of the next two decades. Chirinda means "lookout" or "vantage point" in the chiNdau language, or perhaps "place of refuge".

Ecology

The medium altitude forest is likely the southernmost patch of subtropical rainforest in Africa.

Phytogeographically Phytogeography (from Greek language, Greek φυτόν, ''phytón'' = "plant" and γεωγραφία, ''geographía'' = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographi ...

it is classed as

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 ...

forest, but with lowland and Guineo-Congolian elements. It is situated on two hill tops on

dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grained ...

-derived soils, and Müller (1991) proposed that these soil types determine its extent. Goldsmith (1876) however suggested that it is only a relic of a once much larger forest which has been reduced by gradual climatic changes in a few hundred years. Year-round moisture, in the form of rain, mist or dew, provides for a substantial and intact moist leaf litter layer, on which its ecological processes depend. Decomposition is fungal, and not by termites or similar insects as would be the case in drier woodlands of the region. Several tree species bear fleshy fruit, resulting in a good representation of mammal and bird

frugivore A frugivore is an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits or succulent fruit-like produce of plants such as roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. Approximately 20% of mammalian herbivores eat fruit. Frugivores are highly dependent on the abundance an ...

s, which impact both negatively and positively on seed dispersal. Much of the fauna shows affinities to forests elsewhere, particularly those at lower altitudes along the East Africa coastal plains.

Protection

Protection from fires is expected to facilitate the regeneration and expansion of the forest. During his time of residence, Swynnerton noted that recurring fires had been gradually reducing outlying forest patches. Destruction of portions of the Chipete and Chipungambira satellite forest patches occurred during the 1860s. It may have been aided by elephants which opened up forest, but more likely resulted from indigenous people who regularly cleared land by fire in spring time. Fire-resistant mobola plum and mahobohobo trees are pioneer species in such areas. Maupare (1993) however noted that the forest boundary was stable and that former logging operations in the northern section had no lasting effect on the plant diversity. This extraction of red mahogany, peawood and

tannodia ''Tannodia'' is a plant genus of the family Euphorbiaceae first described as a genus in 1861. It is native to Africa, Madagascar, and Comoros. It is dioecious. ;Species # '' Tannodia congolensis'' - Zaïre # ''Tannodia cordifolia'' - Comoros, Ma ...

during the 1940s also had little effect on its extent.

Flora and fauna

The area is home to a high diversity of plants, fungi, birds, butterflies, insects and reptiles.

Flora

Rare tree species which seldom occur elsewhere in Zimbabwe include the fluted milkwood (dominant canopy species), Chirinda fig, undershrub big-leaf, Chirinda stinkwood, yellow bitterberry and forest strychnos. The type of the latter species was obtained in the forest by Swynnerton. The dominant canopy species, besides fluted milkwood, are forest mahogany and peawood. The sub-canopy is occupied by

, forest strychnos and forest ironplum. The Big Tree grows in the southern part of the reserve in the "Valley of the Giants". It is the largest red mahogany tree in southern Africa and the tallest native tree in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

. The 600- to 1,000-year-old (some estimate 2,000-year-old) leviathan has a trunk diameter of about 6 metres. Other forest tree species include colossal specimens of strangling figs, brown mahogany, white stinkwood, forest climbing acacia,

ironwood Ironwood is a common name for many woods or plants that have a reputation for hardness, or specifically a wood density that is heavier than water (approximately 1000 kg/m3, or 62 pounds per cubic foot), although usage of the name ironwood in E ...

, giant diospyros, apricot vine, forest peach, forest rothmannia, strombosia and forest toad-tree. The forest edge is characterized by smooth-barked flat-crown, forest num-num, forest sword-leaf, horsewood, forest croton, climbing turkey-berry, Manica bride's bush, green flower tree, small-fruited teclea, elbow-leaf, mitzeerie, eastern blue-bush, magic guarri, orange-milk tree, lavender tree, mobola plum, wild currant and climbing orange are common species of the surrounding savannah. Thousands of specimens of the yucca-like ''

Dracaena fragrans ''Dracaena fragrans'' (cornstalk dracaena), is a flowering plant species that is native throughout tropical Africa, from Sudan south to Mozambique, west to Côte d'Ivoire and southwest to Angola, growing in upland regions at altitude.JSTOR Plant ...

'' populate the forest floor, and numerous ferns, creepers, vines, epiphytes and orchids (including '' Calanthe sylvatica'') are to be found. Montbretia and flame lilies are also present, while

guava Guava () is a common tropical fruit cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions. The common guava ''Psidium guajava'' (lemon guava, apple guava) is a small tree in the myrtle family ( Myrtaceae), native to Mexico, Central America, the ...

lantana ''Lantana'' () is a genus of about 150 species of perennial flowering plants in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. They are native to tropical regions of the Americas and Africa but exist as an introduced species in numerous areas, especially in ...

and

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...

are exotic

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

Fauna

Mammals

Samango monkeys are regularly seen, and

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

on the odd occasion. The local races of the

mutable sun squirrel The mutable sun squirrel (''Heliosciurus mutabilis'') is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. It is found in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, subtr ...

(''H. m. chirindensis'') and red-bellied coast squirrel (i.e. Selinda mountain squirrel, ''P. p. swynnertoni'') are mountain isolates. The Selinda veld rat occurs in tangled vegetation on rocky areas, and is only known from two other sites in Zimbabwe.

Birds

A few highland bird species reach their southernmost occurrence here, namely the

Chirinda apalis The Chirinda apalis (''Apalis chirindensis'') is a species of bird in the family Cisticolidae. It is found in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest Tropical an ...

(type locality),

Swynnerton's robin Swynnerton's robin (''Swynnertonia swynnertoni'') is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae. It is monotypic within the genus ''Swynnertonia''. The common and Latin names commemorate the entomologist Charles Swynnerton. Range and habitat ...

, a globally threatened monotypic genus, stripe-cheeked greenbul (''A. m. disjunctus''),

moustached warbler The moustached warbler (''Acrocephalus melanopogon'') is an Old World warbler Old World warblers are a large group of birds formerly grouped together in the bird family Sylviidae. The family held over 400 species in over 70 genera, and were the ...

(''M. m. orientalis''),

white-tailed flycatcher The white-tailed flycatcher (''Leucoptilon concretum'') is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae. It is the only member of the monotypic genus ''Leucoptilon''. Prior to 2022, it was classified in the genus ''Cyornis'', but was reclassified ...

and yellow-bellied waxbill. Wide-ranging African species include

crowned eagle The crowned eagle, also known as the African crowned eagle or the crowned hawk-eagle (''Stephanoaetus coronatus''), is a large bird of prey found in sub-Saharan Africa; in Southern Africa it is restricted to eastern areas.Sinclair & Ryan (2003) ...

trumpeter The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B ...

and

silvery-cheeked hornbill The silvery-cheeked hornbill (''Bycanistes brevis'') is a large species of hornbill found in Africa. Silvery-cheeked hornbills are residents of the tall evergreen forests of East Africa from Ethiopia to South Africa. In Zimbabwe it is threatened ...

s, both breeders,

Livingstone's turaco Livingstone's turaco (''Tauraco livingstonii'') is a species of bird in the family Musophagidae, which was named for Charles Livingstone, the brother of David Livingstone. It is distributed through the subtropical lowlands of southeastern Afric ...

lemon dove The lemon dove or cinnamon dove (''Columba larvata'') is a species of bird in the pigeon family (biology), family Columbidae found in montane forests of sub-Saharan Africa. The São Tomé lemon dove is usually treated as a subspecies. The lemon d ...

green pigeon ''Treron'' is a genus of bird in the pigeon family Columbidae. Its members are commonly called green pigeons. The genus is distributed across Asia and Africa. This genus contains 30 species, remarkable for their green coloration, hence the common ...

, owls,

nightjars Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds in the family Caprimulgidae and order Caprimulgiformes, characterised by long wings, short legs, and very short bills. They are sometimes called goatsuckers, due to the ancient folk ta ...

bee-eater The bee-eaters are a group of non-passerine birds in the family Meropidae, containing three genera and thirty species. Most species are found in Africa and Asia, with a few in southern Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. They are characterised by ...

s, pygmy kingfisher, yellow-streaked (''P. f. dendrophilus'') and sombre greenbuls, yellow-throated (''S. r. alacris''), Barratt's (''B. b. priesti'') and broad-tailed warblers,

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...

and black-fronted bushshrikes,

Cape batis The Cape batis (''Batis capensis'') is a small, stout insect-eating passerine bird in the wattle-eye family. It is endemic to the Afromontane forests of southern Africa. Taxonomy In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a ...

sunbird Sunbirds and spiderhunters make up the family Nectariniidae of passerine birds. They are small, slender passerines from the Old World, usually with downward-curved bills. Many are brightly coloured, often with iridescent feathers, particularly i ...

s and

firefinch The firefinches form a genus, ''Lagonosticta'', of small seed-eating African birds in the family Estrildidae. The genus was introduced by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis in 1851. The type species was subsequently designated as the Africa ...

es. Various bird races were first described from this location: a strikingly coloured race of

red-necked spurfowl The red-necked spurfowl or red-necked francolin (''Pternistis afer''), is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae that is a resident species in southern Africa. Taxonomy The red-necked spurfowl was described in 1776 by the German zoologis ...

(''P. a. swynnertoni''),Sclater, W. L. (1921). ''Bull. Brit. Orn. Club'' 41 (134) a fulvous-coloured race of

wailing cisticola The wailing cisticola (''Cisticola lais'') is a species of bird in the family Cisticolidae. It is found in Angola, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropica ...

(''C. l. mashona''),Lynes (1930). ''Ibis''. Suppl: 229 a race of

bar-throated apalis The bar-throated apalis (''Apalis thoracica'') is a small African passerine bird belonging to the genus ''Apalis'' of the family Cisticolidae. It is native to the eastern and southern Afrotropics. Range and habitat It inhabits forest and scrub ...

(''A. t. arnoldi''), the smallish, dusky and streaky-throated Swynnerton's thrush (''T. o. swynnertoni'')Bannerman, 1913. ''Bull. Brit. Orn. Club'', 31:56 which is endemic to the

Eastern Highlands :''"Eastern Highlands" also refers to Eastern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea, and part of the Great Dividing Range, Australia.'' The Eastern Highlands, also known as the Manica Highlands, is a mountain range on the border of Zimbabwe ...

, and a race of olive sunbird (''C. o. sclateri''). The forest is situated too low for orange thrush, Roberts's warbler,

malachite Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fractures ...

or bronze sunbirds, and too high for yellow-spotted nicator,

white-eared barbet The white-eared barbet (''Stactolaema leucotis'') is a species of bird in the family Lybiidae (African barbets). It is found in Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republ ...

grey waxbill The grey waxbill or black-tailed waxbill (''Glaucestrilda perreini'') is a common species of estrildid finch found in wetter land of Southern Africa. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of . There are two recognized subspecies: *''Gl ...

Crested guineafowl The crested guineafowl (''Guttera pucherani'') is a member of the Numididae, the guineafowl bird family. It is found in open forest, woodland and forest-savanna mosaics in sub-Saharan Africa. Description It has a total length around 50 cm (2 ...

however inhabits its lower elevations and

green malkoha The green malkoha or whistling yellowbill (''Ceuthmochares australis'') is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. This species and the blue malkoha were previously considered conspecific and together known as the yellowbill. It has a gree ...

recently populated the forest from lower altitudes. Blue-mantled flycatchers occupy the lower altitudes or fringing thickets, but remain segregated from white-tailed flycatchers which occupy the forest proper or higher canopy.

Reptiles

The reptile fauna includes pythons, cobras, vipers, mambas, adders, chameleons, geckos, skinks and lizards. Marshall's leaf chameleon, an endemic of the Eastern Highlands, is found within the forest and along its margins. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

''C. swynnertoni'' of the worm lizard genus ''

Chirindia ''Chirindia'' is a genus of amphisbaenians in the family Amphisbaenidae. Commonly known as pink round-headed worm lizards, species in the genus ''Chirindia'' are native to East Africa and southern Africa, from Tanzania to South Africa. They are ...

'' was described from this locality, while another worm lizard, '' Zygaspis ferox'', is endemic to the forest and its vicinity.

Amphibians

The

types Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Typ ...

of Broadley's forest treefrog, Hewitt's long-nosed frog and the Chirinda toad were obtained in the forest. The Chirinda toad is known from Chirinda and the forest north of

Dombé Dombé is a town on the north bank of the Buzi River in Sussundenga District of Manica Province in central Mozambique dombe. During the Frelimo-Renamo struggle of the 70s to early 90s it was a strategic town where the FPLM maintained a heavy mech ...

in adjacent Mozambique. It is a terrestrial species that lives on leaf-litter, and takes refuge under rotten logs.

Insects

The Mount Selinda acraea mimic butterfly (''Mimacraea neokoton'') is found nowhere else. The type of the ebony bush brown was obtained from Chirinda forest, and it is also known from the

Vumba The Bvumba Mountains or Vumba Mountains straddle the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border, and are situated some 10 km south east of Mutare. The Bvumba rise to Castle Beacon at 1,911 metres, and are, together with the Chimanimani Mountains to the sou ...

. It flies all year and has distinct seasonal forms.Pringle, et al., 1994 The Chirinda bush brown is named for the forest, but it is in fact a widespread species. Its type was obtained at an unknown location in the Eastern Highlands, and it is distinguished from the previous species by its lighter upperside ground colour, and the contrasting

hair-pencil Hair-pencils and coremata are pheromone signaling structures present in lepidopteran males. Males use hair-pencils in courtship behaviors with females. The pheromones they excrete serve as both aphrodisiacs and tranquilizers to females as well as ...

s of the male.

Facilities

The well-marked route to the campsite leaves the main road just east of the mission hospital in

. It is located 4 km into the forest, and also has chalets with clean facilities and

braai Barbecue varies by the type of meat, sauce, rub, or other flavorings used, the point in barbecuing at which they are added, the role smoke plays, the equipment and fuel used, cooking temperature, and cooking time. The meat may be whole, groun ...

stands.

Site locations

* Big Tree, Valley of the Giants * Chipete forest * Chirinda forest campsite * Gungunyana farm * Swynnerton memorial

References

External links

{{commonscategory-inline, Chirinda Forest Botanical Reserve

Iziko Museums Chipinge District Eastern Highlands Protected areas of Zimbabwe Southern Zanzibar–Inhambane coastal forest mosaic Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests