The Drakensberg grasslands span the high country of southeastern South Africa, chiefly KwaZulu-Natal province, and neighboring Lesotho, climbing from foothills to roughly 3,482 metres at South Africa's highest point. The dominant cover is montane and treeless alpine grassland of tussock grasses, creeping mat-forming plants, and ericoid dwarf shrubs, threaded with sheltered valley forest patches where Podocarpus, Widdringtonia, and Maytenus grow. The climate is wet and cool, with rainfall rising from the southwest to the northeast and snowfall blanketing the high summits in winter. An estimated 30 percent of the region's plant species are endemic, and it serves as the last stronghold of the bearded vulture in southern Africa; much of the range lies within the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2000. Among its notable native plants is the spiral aloe (Aloe polyphylla), a striking endemic succulent found at high elevations in Lesotho.

At a glance

About the tropical & subtropical grasslands, savannas & shrublands biome

Warm grasslands and savannas where grasses dominate and trees are scattered, maintained by seasonal rainfall, grazing, and fire. They support large herbivore communities and respond sharply to wet–dry cycles.

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's CHELSA-derived current zone range, with the CHELSA mid-century warming delta applied for the projection. Plants whose stated range falls outside both the current and projected zone end up dropped; the rest land in one of the three buckets below.

Collections for this ecoregion

No curated collection's plants all fit this ecoregion's zone range. We surface a collection only when every member would grow here — partial fits get filtered out rather than mislead. As the catalog and the curated set both grow, this section will fill in.

Related ecoregions