Country

Saint Pierre and Miquelon: one ecoregion. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Saint Pierre and Miquelon, though a few miles off Newfoundland, belong botanically to the Eastern Canadian forests, a boreal forest and taiga ecoregion of the Nearctic realm. The islands share that region's character: a cold, foggy, strongly maritime climate, a short cool growing season, and a natural cover of boreal conifers - spruce and fir country - with peatland and heath where wind and salt keep trees low. For gardeners this is boreal-coastal growing at its most compressed: hardy conifers, ericaceous shrubs, and cool-season vegetables do well, while anything needing summer heat does not. The ecoregion rates Nature Could Reach Half Protected, and the islands' stunted coastal forest is a faithful miniature of the vast mainland system they belong to.