Referring to one of the native sub tribes of the “Hehe” people who once lived in the slopes of the mountains. The park is covered by a huge Tropical Rainforest comprising of about 2500 different species of plants thus forming a habitat for different living creatures. It is a continuation of the famous Eastern Arc Mountain chains with their origin in the southern part of Kenya (Taita hills) running through North and South Pare, East and West Usambara, Nguu, Nguru, Uluguru, Ukaguru, Rubeho, Malundwe, Mahenge, Udzungwa and ending in Makambako Forest. The park is unique by harboring some of the endemic flora and fauna which cannot be found anywhere on earth except Udzungwa hence referred to as the ”centre of endemism”.
Udzungwa is the largest and with most biodiversity and a chain of a dozen large forest-swathed mountains that rise majestically from the flat coastal scrub of eastern Tanzania. Known collectively as the Eastern Arc Mountains, this archipelago of isolated massifs has also been dubbed as the African Galapagos for its treasure-trove of endemic plants and animals, most familiarly being the delicate African violet.