PRELIMINARY CHECKLIST OF THE PLANTS OF BOTSWANA PRELIMINARY CHECKLIST OF THE PLANTS OF BOTSWANA by Moff at P. Setshogo Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. 37 n 2005 Recommended citation format SETSHOGO, M.P. 2005. Preliminary checklist of the plants of Botswana. Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. 37. SABONET, Pretoria and Gaborone. Produced by University of Botswana Herbarium Private Bag UB00704 Gaborone Botswana Tel. (267) 355 2602 Fax: (267) 318 5097 Published by Southern African Botanical Diversity Network (SABONET) c/o South African National Biodiversity Institute, Private Bag X101, 0001, Pretoria, South Africa and University of Botswana Herbarium, Private Bag UB00704, Gaborone. Printed in 2005 in the Republic of South Africa by Capture Press, Pretoria, (27) 12 349-1802. ISBN 1-919976-18-3 © 2005 SABONET. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the copyright holder. Editor-in-chief: Marthina Mössmer Subeditors: Lidia Gibson, Hanlie van Heerden & Cecilia de Vos Belgraver Text design and layout: Nicola Ellis (27) 82 878 9589 Cover design: Antoinette Burkhardt, Pretoria, South Africa (27) 82 909 0109 Photographs: M.P. Setshogo SABONET website: www.sabonet.org This report is a joint product of the University of Botswana Herbarium and the Southern African Botanical Diversity Network (SABONET) and was made possible through support provided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF)/ United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/World Conservation Union-Regional Office for southern Africa (IUCN ROSA) (Plot no. 14818 Lebatlane Road, Gaborone West, Extension 6 Gaborone, Botswana), under the terms of Grant No. 690-0283-A-00-5950. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the SABONET Steering Committee or SABONET National Working Groups. Dedicated to the memory of my late father, Tonkana; late siblings Kgotla, Samuel, Molemisi, Tshegofatso; late niece, Malebogo; and my mother, Kerileng, for being so strong in adversity. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................................................................1 USING THE CHECKLIST .....................................................................................................................................................................................2 HERBARIUM ACRONYMS ................................................................................................................................................................................3 PLANT COLLECTING IN BOTSWANA ...........................................................................................................................................................4 SPECIES WITH TYPE SPECIMENS FROM BOTSWANA .............................................................................................................................5 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................................................................................9 ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS ................................................................................................................................................................11 BRYOPHYTES ....................................................................................................................................................................................................12 HEPATOPHYTES ...............................................................................................................................................................................................14 PTERIDOPHYTES .............................................................................................................................................................................................15 DICOTYLEDONS ..............................................................................................................................................................................................17 MONOCOTYLEDONS ...................................................................................................................................................................................112 APPENDIX: SPECIES POSSIBLY OCCURRING IN BOTSWANA ..........................................................................................................150 INDEX ................................................................................................................................................................................................................152 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The "Preliminary checklist of the plants of Botswana" was compiled over several years. I received a lot of assistance, both technical and general, from a number of people. Mr Trevor Arnold provided the blueprint of Botswana species in PRECIS and it was on this blueprint that the checklist is based. I am very thankful for this assistance. I also want to extend my sincere gratitude to the curators of the herbaria GAB, PRE, PSUB, SRGH and UCBG for giving me permission to work with their specimens. I want to particularly single out the following individuals who commented and made corrections on the drafts: Ms Monicah Kabelo, Ms Ludo Matenge-Mogehgeh, Mr Mbaki Muzila, Mr Bongani Sethebe and Dr Bruce Hargreaves. Lastly, I wish to thank SABONET for making this publication possible by funding. viii INTRODUCTION The fl ora of Botswana is probably one of the lesser- coverage was national, resulting in a true checklist of the known fl oras in southern Africa. Even though plant genus in the country. collections from this country span well over a century, no extensive and comprehensive accounts of its fl ora exist. Various checklists and books have been published on The “Check-Lists of the Trees and Shrubs of the British the Okavango Delta since the late 1980s. Those of note Empire, No. 6, Bechuanaland Protectorate”, published in include SMEC (1989), Ellery & Ellery (1997), and Roodt 1948 under the auspices of the Imperial Forestry Institute (1993,1998). in Oxford, probably represents the fi rst attempt at a national checklist of Botswana. Miller (1952) improved This work represents the fi rst comprehensive checklist of and enlarged on this checklist with his “Woody Plants of Botswana plants. While it lists lower plants of the groups the Bechuanaland Protectorate”. Bryophytes and Pteridophytes, it does not include any gymnosperms, exotic plants used for landscaping In 1962, de Beer compiled the fi rst provisional purposes, and those grown in home gardens. It does, vegetation map of Botswana in which he listed twenty- however, include garden escapees and those species six vegetation types. Although he provided detailed that have naturalised in the wild. It elaborates on the descriptions of vegetation types in his work, these improved list provided by PRECIS (Pretoria Computerised focused mainly on dominant species and, as such, Information System) of Botswana entries in Arnold & could not be said to represent a checklist. Further De Wet (1993). Unfortunately, the PRECIS list contains developments of the vegetation map for the country only the species in the National Herbarium in Pretoria were provided by Wild & Fernandes (1967), Weare & (PRE). An attempt at a national checklist for Botswana Yalala (1971), and Bekker & De Wit (1991). was made by Barnes & Turton (1986, revised 1994), but again only species of fl owering plants that occurred in In 1976, Field published his list of Botswana’s common Botswana herbaria were listed, implying that herbaria grasses. The major shortcoming of the list was that it were not international in representation. included only those species which were commonly grazed by livestock. The present list covers all known taxa of land plants recorded for Botswana. Main herbaria containing Timberlake (1980) published the fi rst comprehensive and Botswana species (in addition to those within the detailed account of the genus Acacia in Botswana. The country) are K, PRE and SRGH. Table 1. A summary of the number of families, genera, and species and infraspecifi c taxa represented in the checklist. Families Genera Species* Bryophytes 13 21 45 Pteridophytes 12 18 47 Dicotyledons 123 671 2,145 Monocotyledons 34 201 849 Total 182 911 3,086 * includes infraspecifi c taxa SABONET Report No. 37 1 USING THE CHECKLIST • The list is arranged alphabetically by family, and then by genera and species. It is divided into four main groups: including bryophytes, pteridophytes, dicotyledons, and monocotyledons. • Classifi cation of angiosperm families follows that by Leistner (2000); pteridophyte classifi cation follows that by Roux (2001); liverwort classifi cation follows that by Wigginton (2002), and moss classifi cation follows that by O’Shea (1999). • Synonyms for genera and species are italicized. Correct or currently accepted names are all in bold. • Not all synonyms are indicated, but an attempt has been made to list basionyms for most species. • Herbaria housing specimens of any particular species are indicated after the species name. Species sourced from literature are listed in the Appendix. These are treated as possibly occurring