State or province

Rhode Island

Rhode Island, United States of America: one ecoregion. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Landscape and climate

One ecoregion covers Rhode Island: the Northeastern Coastal Forests. It is a temperate broadleaf and mixed forest system in the Nature Imperiled tier. A single-ecoregion state is unusual and it makes the planting question simpler than in most places, but the tier ranking is the part that carries weight. This is among the longest-settled ground in the country and very little of the original forest structure survives intact. What the ecoregion describes is oak and hickory woodland with a mixed understory, running to the shoreline where salt and sandy soil change what will hold. A garden here that keeps canopy, shrub and ground layers rather than lawn is restoring structure that is genuinely scarce nearby.

Native plants of Rhode Island

Species in the catalog recorded as native to Rhode Island, each with its climate-fit grade and planting guidance.

Adam's needle Allegheny blackberry American arborvitae American basswood American elderberry American hazelnut American holly American hophornbeam American plum American red raspberry American sycamore Arrowwood viburnum Balsam fir Beach plum Big bluestem Black cherry Black chokeberry Black oak Black walnut Black willow Black-eyed Susan Bloodroot Blue vervain Boneset Boxelder Butterfly weed Canada lily Canadian serviceberry Cardinal flower Chestnut oak Chokecherry Christmas fern Common blue violet Common hackberry Common hops Common juniper Common milkweed Common ninebark Common sunflower Common witch hazel Common yarrow Creeping juniper Cutleaf coneflower Eastern cottonwood Eastern prickly pear Eastern red cedar Eastern white pine Flowering dogwood Fox grape Foxglove beardtongue Golden alexanders Gray birch Gray dogwood Groundnut Highbush blueberry Honey locust Indian grass Inkberry Jack pine Lady fern Lanceleaf coreopsis Largeflower tickseed Little bluestem Mapleleaf viburnum Marginal wood fern Mayapple Mountain laurel Nannyberry New England aster Northern maidenhair fern Northern red oak Northern spicebush Ostrich fern Pagoda dogwood Paper birch Plains coreopsis Possumhaw viburnum Post oak Pussy willow Quaking aspen Ramps Red maple Red mulberry Red-osier dogwood Sassafras Shagbark hickory Short-toothed mountain mint Silky dogwood Silver maple Smooth blue aster Spotted Joe-Pye weed Stiff goldenrod Sugar maple Sunchoke Swamp milkweed Swamp white oak Sweet Joe-Pye weed Switchgrass Trumpet honeysuckle Tulip tree (yellow poplar)White oak White wood aster Whorled milkweed Wild bergamot Wild geranium Wild lupine Wild senna Wild strawberry Yellow birch

Country

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United States of America

Ecoregions here

Northeastern Coastal Forests