Description

This guide is the culmination of an in-depth study of the vegetation of Moyenne Casamance, which covers roughly the administrative territory of Kolda in Senegal. The guide is based on botanical knowledge acquired on-site over two years: almost all ligneous species encountered (156) are described. This does not restrict the guide's utility to Moyenne Casamance, whose flora is quite similar to that of the entire region and subject to the same Sudano-Guinean climate.

Fieldwork drew largely on an identification key of major African tree species in Casamance, created by J. De Wolf and other collaborators of Professor P. Van Damme of the University of Ghent, and improved during field expeditions in Senegal and Mali by the Royal Museum for Central Africa.
The authors aimed to create a practical field guide with an identification key based on plant vegetation characteristics. Moreover, species descriptions include information on flowers and fruits, species budding and ecology, and even uses. A partial key based essentially on floral characteristics proved a necessary addition for identifying flowering species stripped of their leaves.