The Lesser Sundas deciduous forests stretch across the Indonesian islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo, Flores, and Alor, in the eastern Lesser Sunda chain. These islands sit within Wallacea, the transitional zone straddling the Wallace Line, where Asian and Australian plants and animals mingle. Monsoon forests and savannas dominate, ranging from moist and dry deciduous woodland to dry thorn and dry evergreen forest, with characteristic trees such as tamarind (Tamarindus indica) and Schleichera oleosa, while open savanna woodlands carry lontar palm (Borassus flabellifer) and Indian jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana). This is the driest yet most strongly seasonal part of Indonesia, with annual rainfall of roughly 800 to 1,350 mm falling mainly in a December-to-March wet season. The region is famous as the home of the endemic Komodo dragon and a wealth of endemic birds, and Komodo National Park is protected as a World Heritage Site.

The New Caledonia dry forests cover the western side of Grand Terre, the main island of New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific Ocean. They grow in the rain shadow of the island's central mountain range, where the drier climate favors dense, vine-laced sclerophyll (dry) forest with trees generally 5 to 15 meters tall and characteristic genera such as Acacia, Gardenia, Pittosporum, Dodonaea, and Premna. The flora is highly endemic, including the flagship tree Ixora margaretae, a small species festooned with large fuchsia blossoms along its trunk. The ecoregion is considered critically endangered: fire, clearing for agriculture and cattle, and invasive species have reduced the original forest to scattered patches covering only a small fraction of the land area, though a substantial share now lies within protected areas. For gardeners, this is a source region for ornamental tropical genera like Ixora, Gardenia, and Pittosporum that are widely grown elsewhere.

The Timor and Wetar deciduous forests cover the islands of Timor and Wetar, along with Rote, Savu, and adjacent smaller islands in the Lesser Sunda chain, spanning Indonesia and East Timor. The islands sit within Wallacea, never connected to either the Asian or Australian mainland, so they hold a distinctive blend of species from both realms. The lower country supports dry deciduous, dry evergreen, and thorn forests, with lowland monsoon forest featuring Pterocarpus indicus and open savannas of Eucalyptus alba and the palm Borassus flabellifer; natural stands of Eucalyptus urophylla and sandalwood (Santalum album) also occur. The climate is a tropical monsoon one that lies in Australia's rain shadow, making this among the driest parts of Indonesia with a long, pronounced dry season. The ecoregion has the greatest number of bird species (229) of any tropical dry forest ecoregion in the Indo-Pacific, with many endemics, though its prized sandalwood has been left scarce by generations of overharvesting. Gardeners may recognize several native genera grown ornamentally elsewhere, including eucalypts and fragrant sandalwood.

The Apure-Villavicencio dry forests stretch along the eastern foot of the Andes' eastern cordillera, spanning the Venezuelan states of Portuguesa, Barinas and Apure and the Colombian departments of Arauca, Casanare and Meta. This is a transitional ecoregion, a patchwork of premontane, gallery and deciduous dry forest grading into savanna where the Andean montane forests give way to the lowland Llanos grasslands. Characteristic woody plants include mesquite (Prosopis juliflora), palo verde (Cercidium praecox), kapok (Ceiba pentandra), yellow mombin (Spondias mombin), and palms such as the moriche (Mauritia flexuosa) and macaúba (Acrocomia aculeata). Its climate is equatorial with a pronounced dry winter (Köppen Aw), with temperatures ranging from about 19 to 33 degrees Celsius. The forests have been severely degraded by deforestation, farming and ranching, leaving poorly protected remnants that the World Wildlife Fund rates as Vulnerable, yet they still shelter the giant anteater, Geoffroy's spider monkey, and the flagship Colombian four-eyed frog. Gardeners may recognize several natives here as ornamentals, including the stately kapok tree and the moriche and macaúba palms.

The Bajío dry forests cover the southwestern Mexican Plateau in west-central Mexico, spanning the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, and Michoacán across the Lerma River basin and the lake country around Chapala, Cuitzeo, and Pátzcuaro. Set in valleys between roughly 1,000 and 2,000 meters on shallow, rocky, well-drained volcanic and limestone soils, the region was historically dry deciduous forest whose characteristic trees included copal, pochote, palo amarillo, and mauto, with thorn-scrub communities of mesquite and huamúchil. The climate is tropical subhumid, with annual rainfall around 500 to 930 millimeters and a pronounced dry season that can last up to eight months. This is one of Mexico's most developed and densely populated landscapes, and centuries of agriculture and grazing have reduced the forest to small pockets now dominated by thorn scrub and subtropical matorral, leaving the ecoregion classed as critical or endangered with only about 7.5 percent in protected areas. Gardeners working in comparably dry, seasonal climates may recognize natives of this region in drought-adapted, deciduous trees such as mesquite and copal.

The Balsas dry forests occupy the basin of the Balsas River in western and central Mexico, spreading across the states of Michoacan, Guerrero, Morelos, Mexico, Puebla, and Oaxaca. This tropical dry broadleaf ecoregion is a deciduous and thorn forest dominated by Bursera trees, alongside the legume Haematoxylum brasiletto and abundant columnar cacti such as Pachycereus and Cephalocereus. The climate is tropical and subhumid, with seasonal rainfall and a severe dry season that can last up to eight months. The forests are a renowned center of plant endemism and speciation, especially for Bursera, with roughly half of the region's Bursera species found nowhere else, and they shelter the near-endemic Balsas screech-owl, though only about a tenth of the ecoregion lies within protected areas. For drought-tolerant or xeric plantings, the native Bursera (the source of copal incense) and the dyewood Haematoxylum brasiletto are ornamental genera that evolved here.