Kalahari xeric savanna
RESOLVE 97
The Kalahari xeric savanna spans the sandy plains of the Kalahari Basin across northwestern South Africa, southern Botswana, and central-southeastern Namibia. Despite its name, it is an open, dry savanna where bunchgrasses such as Schmidtia, Stipagrostis, Aristida, and Eragrostis grow among scattered trees, most characteristically the camelthorn (Vachellia erioloba) and grey camelthorn (Vachellia haematoxylon), alongside shepherd's tree (Boscia albitrunca), blackthorn (Senegalia mellifera), and silver cluster-leaf (Terminalia sericea). The climate is harsh and continental, with patchy rainfall that rises from the dry southwest to the northeast and temperatures that can swing dramatically between cold nights and daytime highs above 40 degrees Celsius. Although plant endemism is low, the ecoregion supports a striking diversity of large mammals for such an arid system, including its flagship gemsbok along with lion, cheetah, leopard, and brown hyena. For gardeners in hot, dry climates, several of its hardy native woody plants, such as the camelthorn acacias and the shrub Grewia flava, are drought-adapted and grown ornamentally.
About the deserts & xeric shrublands biome
Arid and semi-arid lands where low, erratic rainfall and high evaporation limit vegetation to drought-adapted shrubs, succulents, and sparse grasses. Day-to-night temperature swings are large, and life is finely tuned to water scarcity.
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.