The Makgadikgadi Halophytics ecoregion occupies the vast Makgadikgadi Pan complex of northeastern Botswana, a salt-encrusted basin southeast of the Okavango Delta and ringed by the Kalahari that holds two major pans, Ntwetwe and Sua, along with many smaller ones. It is the remnant of an enormous ancient lake that dried up tens of thousands of years ago, leaving a flat expanse of soda-saturated clay fed seasonally by the Boteti and Nata rivers. The pan floors are almost devoid of higher plants apart from a thin film of blue-green algae, while their wetter fringes grade into salt marshes and grasslands where salt-tolerant grasses take hold, and the surrounding savanna carries scattered baobabs. The climate is semi-arid, with rain falling mainly as summer thunderstorms and droughts recurring in roughly seven-year cycles. Sua Pan is the most important breeding site in Africa for the greater flamingo, the ecoregion's flagship species, and supports southern Africa's largest breeding population of lesser flamingo, with much of the region protected within Makgadikgadi and Nxai Pan National Park.

At a glance

About the flooded grasslands & savannas biome

Grasslands and savannas subject to seasonal or year-round flooding, including large wetland complexes. Exceptionally productive, they concentrate waterbirds and aquatic life.

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