Kahuzi-Biega National Park Congo is ecologically blessed with not only the rare Eastern Lowland gorillas but also the diversity of floral species. This 6000sq.kms expansive rain-forest park in Congo shelters over 1178 plant species in its mountainous region. These offer refuge to Kahuzi-Biega National Park’s 136 mammal species and about 350 bird species.
The flora of Kahuzi-Biega National Park Congo mainly consists of bogs, marshland, swamp and riparian forests. These range from different elevations and each sector of the park has its own unique vegetation/flora. The Western region of Kahuzi-Biega National Park is occupied by the dense Guineo-Congolian wet equatorial rainforest while the Eastern region also popular as mountainous sector features varying forest vegetation as per the altitudinal range of the area from 6000 to 2600m. This is where you also come across the 6 unique primary vegetation zones ranging from swamp, peat bog, swamp forest, bamboo forest, high altitude rainforest, montane forest and subalpine heather.
The park is split into two parts that are linked by a thin corridor.one is the mountainous rainforest and the lowland rain forest. The park is one of the scarcest areas that can be found in Africa, where you can find the transition between these two types of rain forest stayed largely unbroken.
The western lowland of the national park is dominated by the thick equatorial rain forest covering an area between 1200 meters (3900) to 1500 meters (4900).
The mountainous part of the park is covered mostly with forest vegetation such as swamps forest that breeds over, floods, marshes, bamboo forest, turf bog, riparian rainforest and it is one of erratic areas in the sub-Saharan Africa that reveals that reveals all the stages of lowland and highland evolution. The western lowland area of the park hence making six unique key vegetation categories which include the summit of mount Kahuzi and Beiga that covers over 2600 meters (8500 feet), bamboo forest that covers an area between 2350 meters (7710 feet) to 2600 meters (8500 feet), swamp forest that strains 2000 meters (6600ft) to 2400 meters (7900 feet) with rampant of more than 1178 species of plants, dry savannah and grassland.
The montane and swamp forests can easily be spotted around elevation range of 2000m to 2400m. The bamboo forest is found from 2350m to 2600m and as you get at the summit of the 2 dormant volcanoes; Kahuzi and Biega; you will come across the subalpine heather, grassland, dry savannas and the Senecio Kahuzicus, the endangered plant species.