On valley slopes and some low ridge-crests the evergreen forest gives way to a zone of semi-deciduous or "dry" forest. Here, trees are shorter and the ground-cover is a mixture of shrubs and thorny vines. The difference is most apparent in the dry season, because these trees mostly lose their leaves.
Here these species are common:
1. Parinari curatellifolia grows mostly on ridge-tops and bears a delicious fruit, like a brown plum with a sweet pulpy flesh, enjoyed by people as well as by chimps.
2. Pterocarpus angolensis yields a fine hardwood (mninga) for making furniture. It is an attractive tree at any time of year, with slender pinnate leaves and drooping spikes of yellow pea-like flowers, and thick bark with oblong scales. In the dry season, the wind bears away its strange winged fruit, a crinkly 10-cm disc with a spiny ball in its middle.
3. Anisophyllea boehmii produces a small red cherry-like fruit that is sweet and tasty, but unfortunately has a very brief fruiting season, during the dry season.
4. Commiphora madagascariensis is a spiny small-leafed tree common near the forest edge. Its cut branches readily take root, and are used to make "instant fences."
5. Antidesma venosum, also common here, is a small shrub or tree bearing "lambs' tails" of clustered green or dark red berries, much liked by primates.
Always willing to slash your bare legs are the thorny vines such as Smilax. Another species, Dioscorea odoratissima, is known as the wild potato, because of the great tubers buried at the base of its thorny stems. At the start of the rains, look for the big red powderpuff flowers of the fireball lily, Scadoxus multifloris, which grows in shady places close to the ground.
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