Pico de Príncipe is a mountain on the island of Príncipe

Príncipe

Príncipe is the northern and smaller of the two major islands of the country of São Tomé and Príncipe lying off the west coast of Africa. It has an area of 136 km² and a population of approximately 5,000. The island is a heavily eroded volcano over three million years old, surrounded by other...

, the smaller of the two inhabited islands of São Tomé and Príncipe

São Tomé and Príncipe

São Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two islands: São Tomé and Príncipe, located about apart and about , respectively, off...

. The elevation of the mountain is generally given as 948 metres (3,110.2 ft), making it the highest peak on the island, but a trip to the peak in 1999 found that it may be lower than that, making the nearby Pico Mencorne the highest point.
The island is one of the volcanic swells that make up the Cameroon line

Cameroon line

The Cameroon line is a chain of volcanoes.It includes islands in the Gulf of Guinea and mountains that extend along the border region of eastern Nigeria and western Cameroon, from Mount Cameroon on the Gulf of Guinea north and east towards Lake Chad....

 of extinct and active volcanoes.

Topology

The mountain is the remains of a volcano that has been inactive for 15.7 million years. The volcanoes on this island were at first primarily basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

, but later phonolite

Phonolite

Phonolite is a rare igneous, volcanic rock of intermediate composition, with aphanitic to porphyritic texture....

 intruded in their cores. The basalt has been deeply eroded, leaving spectacular towers of the harder phonolite rising almost vertically from the rainforest.

The peak has only occasionally been explored, with the first expedition in 1929 having established a base on the top. A second trip was made in 1956, but could not make a serious botanical inventory due to poor weather.
The 1999 trip found that the mountain rises from a heavily-forested plateau with elevation 600 to 700 m (1,968.5 to 2,296.6 ft).
From there, a series of ridges lead to the summit.
At higher elevations the trees are more open and there are more epiphytes - plants that grow on the trees.
The summit is a small mound surrounded on three sides by precipices.

Ecology

The 1999 expedition was by members of Ecofac, a Non-Government Organization that plans to assist in conservation through helping to develop ecotourism on the island.
The ecology of the forests on and around the mountain has not been well-researched, but some endemic species of birds and orchids have been found, and it seem clear that there are many endemic plants and insects.
A proposed conservation zone covering one third of Principe would include this mountain and three others higher than 500m: Mesa (537m), Pico Papagaio (680m) and Pico Mencorne (921m).
28 species of birds have been recorded in the area, of which seven are endemic to Principe and four are of global conservation concern.
Other endemic species are the skink Feylinia polylepis, the burrrowing snake Typhlops elegans

Typhlops elegans

Typhlops elegans is a species of snake in the Typhlopidae family....

and the frog Leptoptelis palmatus.
An endemic sub-species of the shrew Crocidura poensis is also present.