Guinean mangroves
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The Guinean mangroves form a band of coastal mangrove swamp along the rivers and estuaries of West Africa, spanning the shorelines of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia (with stands reaching into Côte d'Ivoire). The forest is built from salt-tolerant mangrove trees in the genera Rhizophora and Avicennia alongside Laguncularia racemosa and Conocarpus erectus, with the tallest trees reaching about 40 meters to form gallery forests along the creeks while inland fringes give way to grasses, ferns, and other salt-loving plants. The climate is strongly seasonal, alternating wet and dry periods, and rainfall varies enormously across the range, from very dry conditions in the Senegal River delta to some of the wettest coastline in Africa near Sierra Leone. Its flagship animal is the West African manatee, and Guinea-Bissau holds one of the largest populations of this elusive sirenian on the continent. The mangroves are a vital nursery for fish, shrimp, oysters, and waterbirds such as herons, flamingos, and the African spoonbill, but they are increasingly cleared for rice farming, firewood, and coastal development.
About the mangroves biome
Coastal tidal forests of salt-tolerant trees rooted in sheltered estuaries and shorelines of the tropics and subtropics. Mangroves buffer coasts from storms, store large amounts of carbon, and serve as nurseries for fish and shellfish.
Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion
No catalog plants intersect this ecoregion's zone range. As the catalog grows to cover this region's climate band, suggestions will surface here.
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.