Guinean montane forests

The ecoregion occupies the portions of the Guinea Highlands lying above 600 meters elevation, extending across portions of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d'Ivoire. It includes the Fouta Djallon plateau and the massifs of Ziama, Simandou, Tétini, Béro, Kourandou in Guinea, the Loma Mountains and Tingi Hills in Sierra Leone, the Nimba Range in Guinea, Liberia, and Côte d'Ivoire, and the Monts du Toura in Côte d'Ivoire. Mount Bintumani in the Loma Mountains is the highest peak in West Africa west of Mount Cameroon. The next highest peaks in the region are in the Sankan Biriwa massif (1850 meters) in the Tingi Hills.

Average rainfall is between 1,600-2400 mm per year and many important rivers have their sources in these mountains.

These mountains have a distinct plant cover in various phases according to elevation, with up to 35 endemic species including a Rhipidoglossum orchid found only on Mount Nimba. Common plant types in the humid mountain valleys include Uapaca togoensis, Cola lateritia maclaudii, Parinari excelsa, Piptadeniastrum africanum and Canarium schweinfurthii. Higher altitudes of the Loma and the Tingi are covered with a savanna of Syzygium, Kotschya ochreata, Monechma depauperatum, and the tree ferns, Cyathea subg. Cyathea manniana and Cyathea dregei. Other areas of high prairie are known for Gladiolus, Solenostemon monostachyus latericola, Cyanotis longiflora, and Thesium tenuissimum. Finally the high gallery forest is dominated by Parinari excelsa with the tree fern, Cyathea camerooniana, and the bamboo, Oxytenanthera abyssinica.