Appendix A

Common Natural Vegetation Types in Namibia

Plant / Description / Growth Requirements
Grasses
Digitariaeriantha
(Common finger grass, Smuts finger grass, digit grass) / More or less robust perennial, growing either as a dense tussock, with or without extended stolons or as a continuous stoloniferous sward. Stolon internodes with orwithout hairs.
Used for grazing, hay or silage. Suitable for cut-and-carry. excellent species for beef and milk production / Can grow on a wide range of soil types from sands to heavy clays. seed-producing lines are better adapted to sandy loam soils, they also grow vigorously on clays once established.
Anthephora pubescens
(Bottle brush grass,Wool grass) / a leafy, palatable, perennial tussock grass. warm season grazing, also providing useful stand over feedinto the cool season / Occurs in the 250-650 mm rainfall areas, most common in the 350 mm area.
Suited to the lateritic red earth soils and sandy soils with a pH range of 6-7. It will not grow on heavy soils.
Brachiaria nigropedata
(Spotted brachiaria) / Densely tufted perennial, 25-100 cm high with the base bulbous and with silky tomentose sheaths. Leaf-blades flat, pubescent to villous, 6-30 cm long and 2-8 mm wide. / Open or bushed grassland, often on sandy soil and rocky ground
Stipagrostis
(desert grass) / Grows in dense tufts with many erect culms encased in woolly sheaths. Up to 40 cm. Appears in the desert after rainfall and regularly in the savannah region. Mainly supports sheep and goat farming. / Can grow in <50 mm rainfall area, but only after rains
Shrubs
Acacia Senegalia mellifera
(Blackthorn) / Deciduous shrub, 5 – 6 m tall. Pairs of thorns are small, black, sharp and hooked. a multipurpose tree. The leaves, pods and young shoots are nutritious and make fodder for livestock and wild animals. Browsed by camels, goats and wild animals such as black rhinos, kudus, elands and giraffes. Flowers are attractive to bees, which produce a high quality honey, hence the namemellifera
Commonly occurring shrub on rangelands throughout the savannah in western, eastern and southern Africa, terrain preference is rocky hillsides with rainfall along seasonal watercourses, mixed with other trees. mellifera is a gregarious species. It often constitutes almost pure, dense, impenetrable, even-aged thickets. / It occurs in the rainfall belts between 400 and 800 mm MAR, but down to the 100 mm isohyet in the Rep. of Sudan along the drainage networks (e.g. Wadi al Milk, in Kordofan).
Usually found on clay soils, but can grow on most soils
Acacia reficiens
(Red-bark acacia,red thorn, false umbrella tree) / 1-3 m high, but frequently 3-8 m in height. Its bark is reddish-brown or greyish-black, and is quite rough and fissured. Has both, long, straight thorns and shorter curved/hook-like thorns, but generally not both in one pair. Considered aninvasive species, especially in disturbed soil.
Around oshanas, pans, dry river beds, hills / grows on gravel and rocky/stony substrates, seldom on sandy soil

Sources:

Feedipedia http://www.feedipedia.org/

Jim Sweet and Antje Burke (2000; 2006).Country pasture/forage profiles: Namibia. Retrieved fromhttp://www.fao.org/ag/agp/AGPC/doc/Counprof/Namibia/namibia.htm

Tree Atlas of Namibia http://treeatlas.biodiversity.org.na/index.php