Since Okapi national park is located in the Ituri forest, its vegetation is majorly growing vegetation gigantic hardwoods to small saplings that are only a few inches. Because of the large number of trees growing throughout the forest, the forest floor is a vast network of entangled roots which in some cases makes it impossible to pass through sections of the forest on foot. In many areas, the high canopy is so dense that only small amounts of sunlight peek through the trees and reach the forest floor.
Due to the lack of light, the lower levels of the forest have very little vegetation growing, if any at all. Where gaps in the canopy are large enough to allow sunlight to penetrate, large herbaceous plants with long leaves grow in dense groupings. The forest attracts many types of wildlife which feed off the large amounts of fruits and nuts that have fallen to the ground.
The Ituri Forest has many streams and rivers that flow from east to west through the forest. The majority of the rivers are not navigable for more than several miles at a time because of the varying density of vegetation. This national park receives a good amount of rainfall majorly convectional rainfall due to the presence of this forest.
Most of the vegetation still consists of enormous trees which have been growing for hundreds of years in the Ituri Forest. The hardwood legume is the most dominant species still to be found in the forest and reaches at least 150 feet above the forest floor. The tallest species of trees found in the Ituri are the Albizia,Celtis, and Ficus. However, the majority of these trees do not help any of the wildlife in the region since most of the trees are at least 100ft tall.
The Ituri Forest is bordered by the forest-savanna which means that various species of wildlife wander into the forest to feed on the vegetation. One can frequently find numerous species of forest antelope such as the duiker and the pygmy antelope along with leopards, genets,mongooses, elephant, buffalo, and bongo. There are many different types of monkeys in the forest, including the terrestrial anubis baboon,