A form of woodland found in southern Africa in hot, semi-arid regions with a monomodal rainfall (for example, in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia). Rainfall is high ( 1000 mm) and soils are poor in nutrients and acid. The vegetation is dominated by slow-growing, mainly deciduous, caesalpiniaceous trees (for example, Brachystegia, Julbernardia).
An indigenous forest dominated by Brachystegia and Brachylaena species, found in Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, and other east and southern African countries.
deciduous tropical woodland and dry forest ecosystems dominated by trees in the genera Brachystegia, Julbernardia, and Isoberlinia of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Caesalpinioideae
Miombo is a vernacular word that has been adopted by ecologists to describe those woodland ecosystems dominated by trees in the genera Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Isoberlinia of the family Fabaceae. Such woodlands extend across about 2.8 million sq km (1.1 million sq mi) of the southern subhumid tropical zone from Tanzania and Zaire in the north, through Zambia, Malawi and eastern Angola, to Zimbabwe and Mozambique in the south. Their distribution largely coincides with the flat to gently undulating surfaces that form the Central African plateau. The soils are predominantly infertile. These woodlands constitute the largest more-or-less contiguous block of deciduous tropical woodlands and dry forests in the world. ( IGBP 1997)
Miombo is the Swahili word for Brachystegia, a genus of tree comprising a large number of species. Miombo woodland is characterized by the predominant presence of these species growing in semi-arid tropical savanna or rocky areas. Characteristically the trees shed their leaves for a short period such that normal N hemisphere autumnal rich gold and red colours, which mask the underlying chlorophyll, predominate when the rainy-season begins.
