Vegetation & Landscape of Chobe

At first glance the Chobe National Park appears flat and covered in monotonous scrub. A closer inspection reveals a wide variety of vegetation types and subtle changes in gradient.

Landscape

While the Chobe River cuts its way through the Kalahari, its southern bank rises from the floodplains to form a flat sweep of open grasslands and woodland. Most of Chobe's soils are either sand or clay, characterised by a myriad of pans and waterholes.

It is in the heart of Chobe, at Savuti, that one of Chobe's best-kept secrets is exposed: the landscape offers clues to the ancient superlake that once covered northern Botswana hundreds of thousands of years ago.Gently curving ridges, the deep Mubabe Depression, storm-scarred rocky outcrops littered with smooth wave-worn pebbles are all testimony to the existence of this enormous inland sea.

Vegetation

Influenced by the availability of water and soil type, many vegetation zones are represented in Chobe.

The Linyanti Swamp is dominated by huge riparian forest trees (mostly jackalberry and sausage tree), fan palms and papyrus, giving the area an almost tropical feel. Meanwhile, the Chobe River area is even richer, with dense riverine woodland, teak and mopane forest, floodplain grasses, papyrus and reedbeds.

Savuti supports mostly acacia sandveld, mopane and terminalia woodland or scrub as well as the grasses of the marsh. The eastern region of the park, dominated by clay soils, consists mainly of mopane woodland or scrub.

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