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Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

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Northern Triangle subtropical forests

Biome

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Biogeographic realm

Indomalayan

Bamboo and broadleaf regrowth on hills under low cloud near Myitkyina, Myanmar.

Region photo - mohigan / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0; attribution required.

Northern Triangle subtropical forests

The Northern Triangle subtropical forests cover remote, mountainous terrain in the far north of Myanmar, occupying much of Kachin State where the land rises from valley floors to peaks approaching 3,900 meters as an offshoot of the eastern Himalayas. The forests are overwhelmingly closed and evergreen: subtropical broadleaf stands at lower and middle elevations are dominated by trees of the Magnoliaceae, Lauraceae, and Dipterocarpaceae families, giving way higher up to oak and Fagaceae forests and a pine-oak association of Pinus kesiya with Quercus incana, Quercus serrata, and Quercus griffithii. The climate is an oceanic, subtropical highland variety (Koppen Cwb) with cool summers and cool but not cold winters, and relatively even temperatures and precipitation through the year. Because it sits at the crossroads of the Assam-Indian, Eastern Himalayan, Indo-Malayan, and Chinese floristic zones, the ecoregion is exceptionally biodiverse, supporting over 140 species of mammals and 370 species of birds, with the Burmese snub-nosed monkey as its flagship and large unfragmented tracts sheltering tiger, red panda, and Asian elephant. For gardeners, its native flora includes the rare slipper orchid Paphiopedilum wardii.

RESOLVE 259

Indomalayan

20,797 sq mi

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Landscape type

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Plant region

Indomalayan

Region footprint

20,797 sq mi

Habitat pressure

Nature Could Reach Half Protected (Dinerstein NNH 2)

Source & care

Plants that can handle this region

A climate-fit shortlist from Plotwright's catalog. Start with the reliable fits, then use each plant page to check light, water, soil, mature size, and local availability.

Showing 447 of 447 climate-fit plants for this region.

Reliable climate fits

Good bets for now and later

447 plants

These plants fit the region today and stay within range under the mid-century projection. Start here when you want choices with the least climate regret.

Gladiolus dalenii

African gladiolus

A tall, summer-growing cormous perennial from across sub-Saharan Africa, grown for arching spikes of large, hooded, orange-to-red-and-yellow flowers in summer over fans of sword-shaped leaves. This is the widespread wild African gladiolus and a key ancestor of the big garden gladioli. Unlike the winter-growing Cape bulbs, it is a SUMMER-GROWING corm: plant in spring, grow and flower through summer, then it dies back to a dormant corm for winter. It wants full sun, well-drained soil, and summer moisture, and is one of the hardier species gladioli - surviving to about USDA zone 7 with a deep winter mulch or by lifting the corms in cold-winter areas. The corms are toxic and irritant if eaten and have been used in traditional medicine, never as food. In the wild the hooded flowers are pollinated by sunbirds and long-tongued insects.

A bold, clump-forming evergreen perennial from South Africa, grown for big rounded umbels of trumpet-shaped blue (or white) flowers held on tall bare stalks above arching, strap-shaped leaves in mid-to-late summer. It is widely sold as "lily of the Nile," but that is a misnomer - the plant is South African (the Cape provinces and KwaZulu-Natal), not from the Nile. Spectacular and easy in warm climates, this evergreen Agapanthus is frost-tender, so in cold-winter areas it is grown in a container and overwintered under cover. The RHS has given several Agapanthus praecox forms its Award of Garden Merit and rates this evergreen species half-hardy (H3 - needs winter protection).

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

A native eastern + central North American thicket-forming shrub producing arching thorny canes + clusters of large sweet black berries in mid-to-late summer. Among the most important wildlife fruit producers in eastern forests - birds, mammals, + insects all depend on the fruit. Like raspberry, biennial-caned (primocane year 1, fruits in year 2 as floricane, then dies back). Spreads via root suckers + tip-rooting cane tips; manage with annual pruning.

Pachysandra procumbens

Allegheny spurge

A native Southeastern North American semi-evergreen woodland groundcover (Pachysandra procumbens), prized for its blue-green to bronze mottled leaves and fragrant white-to-pinkish bottlebrush flower spikes that open at ground level in late winter to early spring. Unlike the widely planted invasive Asian Pachysandra terminalis, this native spreads slowly by rhizomes into well-behaved clumping colonies, making it a low, restrained groundcover for shaded native plantings.

Hippeastrum x hybridum

Amaryllis

Hippeastrum x hybridum is a complex garden hybrid derived from six or more wild Hippeastrum species native to tropical and subtropical South America, developed through intensive breeding since the late 18th century and now the dominant "amaryllis" sold worldwide as a holiday bulb. It produces spectacular trumpet-shaped flowers - 5 to 8 inches across - on stout leafless scapes in red, pink, white, orange, salmon, or bicolour, making it one of the most dramatic winter-flowering houseplants available. The honest catch is toxicity: the entire plant, especially the bulb, contains lycorine and related alkaloids at concentrations that cause vomiting, salivation, tremors, and hypotension in pets and children, so it must be placed out of reach and handled with care.

Perennial

Part sun / Part shade

A medium-to-large native shade tree of central and eastern North America, reaching 50 to 80 feet with an ovate-rounded crown and large, asymmetric heart-shaped leaves. In June it carries pale-yellow, intensely fragrant flowers on pendulous cymes - each cluster hung from a distinctive strap-like leafy bract - that ripen into pea-sized nutlets. The fragrant June bloom is a premier nectar source: Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as having special value to both native and honey bees.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is a loose, open, arching deciduous shrub of the southeastern and south-central United States, grown almost entirely for one spectacular autumn trick. Through summer it is a quiet green background plant, carrying small clusters of pink-to-lilac flowers tucked into the leaf axils. Then, from late summer into fall, those clusters ripen into tight whorls of vivid magenta-purple berries that wrap right around the stems at every leaf joint, so the arching branches look strung with beads. Songbirds strip them through fall and early winter. It is an easy, fast-growing, forgiving native that asks for little: full sun to part shade, ordinary well-drained soil, and room to arch. Site it where the fall berry show can be seen, because in leaf and flower it is plain, and in fruit it is one of the most distinctive shrubs you can grow.

Shrub

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Once the dominant canopy hardwood of the eastern United States forest - an estimated four billion trees, prized for fast growth, rot-resistant timber, and an enormous annual crop of sweet edible nuts that fed people, livestock, and wildlife alike. In the early 1900s an introduced Asian fungus, chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica), swept through and functionally destroyed it: by the 1950s the species was effectively extinct as a mature forest tree. Surviving root systems still send up sprouts from old stumps, but the blight almost always girdles and kills them before they can grow large enough to flower and reproduce. The honest reality for a gardener is that you cannot reliably grow a mature wild-type American chestnut today. The realistic paths are blight-resistant backcross hybrids from The American Chestnut Foundation or transgenic blight-tolerant lines still being deployed - not a pure wild seedling, which the blight will almost certainly kill.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

A fast, suckering native shrub of streambanks and moist thickets across eastern North America, grown for huge flat-topped cymes of tiny lemon-scented white flowers in early summer and the clusters of dark elderberry drupes that follow. Spreads by root suckers into naturalized colonies 5 to 12 feet tall and wide; the flowers feed butterflies and the showy fruit feeds birds. The raw berries are not eaten fresh - they are cooked into jelly, pie, and wine.

Shrub

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

The American elm is the great vase-shaped shade tree that once arched over Main Streets and town commons across eastern North America - a fast, extremely cold-hardy deciduous tree of 60 to 80 feet whose upright trunk divides into a fountain of high, spreading limbs that meet overhead to form a living cathedral ceiling. That iconic form, and the species' tolerance of wet soil and tough urban conditions, made it the default American street tree for a century. Then Dutch elm disease (DED) - an introduced fungal disease carried by elm bark beetles - swept through in the 20th century and killed the vast majority of mature street and shade elms across the continent. The honest reality for a gardener today is blunt: do not plant the unselected wild species expecting it to survive. If you want the American-elm form, plant a DED-tolerant cultivar bred and selected for resistance - 'Princeton', 'Valley Forge', 'New Harmony', or 'Jefferson' - and say so plainly. Where it does grow, it is fast, hardy to USDA zone 3, and remarkably forgiving of wet ground and city stress.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

American germander, also called wood sage, is a widespread North American native perennial in the mint family that runs steadily underground on creeping rhizomes. From early to midsummer it sends up erect, softly hairy stems topped with one-sided spikes of pale pink-to-lavender flowers, each with the distinctive deeply lobed lower lip that gives the germanders their look and makes a generous landing platform for bees. It is a plant of moist open ground - wet meadows, streambanks, ditches, and the edges of thickets - across most of the contiguous United States into southern Canada, which tells you exactly what it wants: sun and a soil that does not dry out. The honest caveat is its vigor: those same rhizomes that fill a bank or a rain garden so readily will also colonize a tidy perennial border and crowd politer neighbors. Site it where it can run, or give it a root barrier, and it rewards you with a long, dependable bee-friendly bloom rather than a maintenance fight.

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

A rounded, multi-stemmed deciduous shrub native across eastern and central North America, grown for its edible nuts and its season-opening catkins. Showy 2-3 inch yellowish-brown male catkins dangle from bare branches in early spring before the ovate, double-toothed leaves emerge; small egg-shaped edible nuts ripen inside leafy husks by mid- to late summer. Easygoing in average soil and tolerant of clay and black walnut, it suckers into thickets that screen and shelter wildlife.

Shrub

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

The only native U.S. holly with both spiny green leaves and bright red berries - an upright, pyramidal, broadleaf evergreen tree that slowly matures to 15 to 30 feet in cultivation (to 50 feet in the wild). Thick, leathery, deep green leaves bear spiny marginal teeth, and pollinated female trees carry showy red-to-orange drupes that ripen in fall and persist through winter as bird food. This is the classic "Christmas holly" of wreaths and decorations.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

A small-to-medium understory tree of dry, rocky eastern-North-American woods, named for its drooping clusters of papery, sac-like seed pods that resemble the fruit of hops. The birch-like, sharply-serrated leaves turn an undistinguished yellow in fall, and reddish-brown male catkins persist on the bare branches through winter. Also called ironwood for its extremely hard, dense wood; tough, low-maintenance, and drought-tolerant once established.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

A tough, medium-sized native tree of the eastern and midwestern United States, grown as much for its showy edible orange fruit as for its distinctive thick, dark gray bark broken into rectangular blocks. Small urn-shaped white-to-greenish-yellow flowers open in May and June, and the sweet fruit ripens after frost. Largely dioecious - a female tree needs a male pollinizer nearby to set fruit - and notably drought- and walnut-tolerant once established.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

American red raspberry

A native bramble (cane) producing red aromatic edible fruit in summer or fall (depending on summer-bearing vs everbearing cultivar). Self-pollinating; spreads vigorously by root suckers + tip-rooting canes. NC State documents extensive Lepidoptera + small mammal + bird wildlife value alongside the edible fruit role. Site where the spreading habit is welcome - naturalized colonies form in sun-exposed open ground.

Liquidambar styraciflua

American sweetgum

A native canopy tree of eastern North American forests with iconic star-shaped 5-lobed leaves displaying outstanding red-purple-orange fall color, distinctive corky wing-bark on twigs, and spiky round seed pods that famously litter lawns ("gumballs"). The seed pods are the design-defining drawback - Liquidambar is rarely planted in formal landscapes for this reason. Choose seedless cultivars ('Rotundiloba', 'Slender Silhouette') for residential planting.

Platanus occidentalis

American sycamore

A massive native deciduous canopy tree of eastern North American floodplain forests producing distinctive mottled white-tan-gray exfoliating bark (the design-defining trait - sycamore bark looks like military camouflage), large palmate maple-like leaves, and persistent spherical seed balls. Among the largest deciduous trees in eastern North America - old-growth specimens exceed 150 feet tall + 10 feet trunk diameter. Site only where massive scale is acceptable.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

Amur maple (Acer ginnala, accepted by Kew's Plants of the World Online as Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala) is a small, fast-growing deciduous tree or large multi-stemmed shrub from northeastern Asia - the Russian Far East, northeastern China, and Korea. At 15 to 20 feet it fits where a full-size maple cannot, and it earns that place with three seasons of interest: fragrant greenish-yellow flowers in spring, which is an unusual scent for a maple and an early nectar source for bees; small glossy three-lobed leaves through summer; and reliable, often brilliant red-to-orange fall color that arrives early. It is also one of the hardiest maples, tolerant of cold, wind, dry soil, and a wide range of pH. The honest catch, and it is a serious one for North American gardeners, is that it self-sows prolifically and has escaped cultivation to become invasive across parts of the US Midwest and Northeast, where its shade-tolerant seedlings crowd native shrubs and understory trees in open woods, savannas, and prairies. Several states list it as invasive or a noxious weed. Check your local invasive-species list before planting, and be prepared to remove seedlings if you do.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Dierama pulcherrimum, angel's fishing rod, is an arching, more-or-less evergreen cormous perennial in the iris family (Iridaceae), endemic to the open summer-rainfall grasslands of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It forms grassy tufts of long, narrow leaves from which tall, wiry, arching flower stems rise to about 4.9 feet (occasionally to 5.9 feet), each hung with pendulous, bell-shaped rosy-pink to purple flowers in summer - the namesake "fishing rod" silhouette over a pond or in a gravel garden. It is the load-bearing caution to note that this is only a borderline-hardy plant: RHS rates it H4 (hardy to roughly 14 to 23°F / USDA ~8b-9), so in colder zones it needs a sheltered, sunny, sharply drained spot, a winter mulch, or container/glasshouse protection, and it resents disturbance once established. It is not recorded as toxic - though it is grown purely as an ornamental and is not a food plant, so treat it as inedible. It is well-behaved (Least Concern in the wild, no recorded weediness) and suits borders, pond margins, and containers in mild-temperate gardens.

An upright, clump-forming perennial of the mint family native to the upper Midwest, Great Plains, and into central Canada, named for its anise-scented foliage. From June through September it carries dense terminal spikes of lavender-to-purple two-lipped flowers above square stems and opposite, toothed leaves. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as a nectar source with special value to native bees, bumble bees, and honey bees, and it also draws butterflies and hummingbirds.

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

Hydrangea arborescens

Annabelle hydrangea

A native eastern-US deciduous shrub - 'Annabelle' is a sterile-flowered cultivar of smooth hydrangea - with very large white snowball blooms in summer. Blooms on new wood so spring frost cannot destroy the flower display, and serves as the larval host for the hydrangea sphinx moth.

Shrub

Part sun / Part shade

The domesticated orchard apple - a deciduous Rosaceae tree grown for its showy, edible fruit and fragrant April blossom of five white-to-pink petals around a ring of yellow stamens. Not native to North America (the genus Malus spans Europe, Asia, and North America, but the cultivated apple is an Old World hybrid lineage). Almost all varieties are self-incompatible: a second, different apple cultivar blooming at the same time must be nearby for fruit to set, and trees are grown on dwarf, semi-dwarf, or standard rootstocks that decide final size.

A small deciduous Rosaceae fruit tree grown for its golden-orange, red-blushed drupes - fragrant, showy, edible, and ripening in summer. Fragrant white flowers (pink in bud) open in early spring before the foliage, two weeks ahead of peaches. That early bloom is also its weakness: the flowers are extremely susceptible to frost injury, so apricots are notoriously hard to crop reliably outside sheltered sites.

Planting collections

Finished planting recipes where every member can handle this region's climate range. The fit badge uses the collection's most sensitive plant, so a resilient collection is a safer starting point than any single standout.

Coral bells (Heuchera 'Marmalade') showing a low mound of ruffled coppery-orange foliage characteristic of the Heuchera villosa-derived hybrids.

Climate-resilient · 2 plants

Bright shade foundation

A part-shade planting with shrub structure and low foliage contrast.

Annabelle hydrangea

Coral bells

A mature oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) in flower - a broad, mounded multi-stemmed shrub studded with upright white panicles above coarse, deeply lobed oak-shaped leaves.

Woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata) showing five-petaled pale lavender-blue flowers on slender erect stems above a low spreading mat of foliage.

Wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) whole plant in rocky-ledge habitat, the airy blue-green compound foliage hung with nodding red-and-yellow spurred flowers.

Foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) showing characteristic frothy white spring flower spikes above heart-shaped foliage.

Climate-resilient · 6 plants

Part-shade woodland edge

A part-shade / bright-shade planting for morning sun or dappled light - eastern North American woodland-edge natives with spring bloom, season-long foliage, and a fern + shrub structure.

Starter kits for this region

Generated from catalog plants that already pass this region's climate fit gate, with native matches sorted first when the catalog has enough coverage.

Sunny pollinator border

A sunny, wildlife-forward planting assembled from plants that pass this region fit gate.

Native fit: 0/6

Climate resilient: 6/6

Wildlife links: 16

Host/specialist links: 3

Forage/pollination links: 22

Shelter links: 0

African gladiolus - Climate-resilient African lily - Climate-resilient Allegheny blackberry - Climate-resilient American basswood - Climate-resilient American beautyberry - Climate-resilient American chestnut - Climate-resilient

Shade-edge planting

A softer edge kit for woodland margins, porches, and mixed-light garden edges.

Native fit: 0/6

Climate resilient: 6/6

Wildlife links: 14

Host/specialist links: 3

Forage/pollination links: 20

Shelter links: 0

African lily - Climate-resilient Allegheny blackberry - Climate-resilient Allegheny spurge - Climate-resilient Amaryllis - Climate-resilient American basswood - Climate-resilient American beautyberry - Climate-resilient

Resilient shrub layer

A woody structure layer led by plants that fit both current and projected regional conditions.

Native fit: 0/6

Climate resilient: 6/6

Wildlife links: 22

Host/specialist links: 6

Forage/pollination links: 27

Shelter links: 3

Allegheny blackberry - Climate-resilient American basswood - Climate-resilient American beautyberry - Climate-resilient American chestnut - Climate-resilient American elderberry - Climate-resilient American elm - Climate-resilient

Similar planting regions

Browse other regions in the same biome. Their plant lists can suggest species and combinations worth comparing.

Tropical coastal forest and palm canopy on Havelock Island in the Andaman Islands.

RESOLVE 218 - Indomalayan

Andaman Islands rain forests

The Andaman Islands rain forests cover the Andaman archipelago in the eastern Bay of Bengal, most of which forms part of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with the Coco Islands at the northern end belonging to Myanmar. The vegetation grades from coastal mangroves dominated by the family Rhizophoraceae into inland evergreen and deciduous forests dominated by tall trees of the family Dipterocarpaceae. The climate is tropical and monsoonal, with temperatures generally between 22 and 30 degrees Celsius and annual rainfall of roughly 3,000 to 3,800 millimetres falling mainly in the monsoon season, when cyclonic winds and thunderstorms are common. These islands are a notable storehouse of plant diversity: over 2,500 flowering plant species have been recorded, about 10 percent of them endemic, alongside endemic birds such as the flagship Andaman serpent-eagle, though forest clearing and over-exploitation remain pressing threats. For gardeners drawn to tropical genera, native trees here include Dipterocarpus and the prized Andaman padauk, Pterocarpus dalbergioides.

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 219 - Indomalayan

Borneo lowland rain forests

The Borneo lowland rain forests blanket most of Borneo below about 1,000 meters elevation, spanning Indonesian Kalimantan, the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, and Brunei. These are classic dipterocarp forests: towering members of the family Dipterocarpaceae form the emergent canopy, with characteristic genera including Shorea, Dipterocarpus, Dryobalanops, Hopea, and Vatica. The climate is stable, wet, and tropical, with rainfall spread through the year and high humidity, and little seasonal temperature variation. Biodiversity here ranks among the richest on Earth, with the island holding the world's greatest dipterocarp diversity (over 260 species, more than 150 of them endemic to Borneo) alongside hundreds of bird species and flagship mammals such as the Bornean orangutan and Sunda clouded leopard. For gardeners, the region is the native home of horticulturally familiar plants, including a wealth of orchids and the fruit-bearing genus Artocarpus (breadfruit and jackfruit).

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 220 - Indomalayan

Borneo montane rain forests

The Borneo montane rain forests cloak the central mountainous spine of Borneo above roughly 1,000 metres, spanning the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, the Indonesian region of Kalimantan, and Brunei. Rising above the lowland dipterocarp forests, the slopes shift into oak, beech, and chestnut forests of the Fagaceae and Lauraceae, with conifers growing more abundant at higher elevations and Ericaceae-dominated forest, including many Rhododendron species, near the peaks. This is a classic cloud forest: cooler and moister than the lowlands, it receives heavy rainfall and draws additional moisture directly from low clouds, grading from tropical conditions up to alpine zones on summits such as the 4,095-metre Mount Kinabalu. The ecoregion is a stronghold of endemic life, with the Bornean orangutan as its flagship species, twenty-three bird species found nowhere else, and a striking flora of carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher plants and orchids. Roughly three-quarters of its forest remains relatively intact, with about a quarter under formal protection. For gardeners, it is the wild home of montane Rhododendrons and tropical orchids long prized in cultivation.

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 221 - Indomalayan

Borneo peat swamp forests

The Borneo peat swamp forests stretch across the coastal lowlands of Borneo, spanning Indonesian Kalimantan, the Malaysian state of Sarawak, and the Belait District of Brunei, built up behind brackish mangroves and clustered around the inland lakes of the Mahakam and Kapuas rivers. These forests grow on waterlogged, acidic peat that can exceed twenty meters in depth, where anaerobic conditions slow decomposition; characteristic canopy trees include the valuable hardwood ramin (Gonystylus bancanus), Shorea albida, Dactylocladus stenostachys, and Dacrydium beccarii, alongside more than thirty palm species. The climate is tropical and monsoonal, with year-round waterlogging and seasonal flooding. The proboscis monkey is the ecoregion's flagship species, which also shelters the Bornean orangutan and the prized Asian arowana (Scleropages formosus), yet it is considered critical or endangered, with only about 14 percent protected and much of the peat drained, logged, or burned. For gardeners, the swamps' native understory includes ornamental screw pines of the genus Pandanus, grown elsewhere for their bold, strappy foliage.

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 222 - Indomalayan

Brahmaputra Valley semi-evergreen forests

The Brahmaputra Valley semi-evergreen forests blanket the alluvial floodplain of the upper Brahmaputra River, spanning northeastern India (chiefly Assam, with Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland), southern Bhutan, and adjacent Bangladesh. As the name implies, the natural cover is semi-evergreen forest, mixing an evergreen canopy of Syzygium and Cinnamomum with deciduous trees such as Terminalia, Bombax ceiba, and Tetrameles, an understory including Mesua ferrea, and stands of bamboo. The climate is monsoon-driven, with heavy southwest-monsoon rains from June to September that flood the plain and renew its fertile silt, giving way to a cooler, drier winter. Though much of the original forest has been cleared and only a small fraction is protected, the surviving reserves are globally important: Kaziranga National Park holds the world's largest population of greater one-horned rhinoceros, alongside one of India's largest Asian elephant populations, and the golden langur is among the ecoregion's flagship species. For gardeners, several signature trees here, including the red silk-cotton Bombax ceiba and the fragrant-flowered Mesua ferrea, are long-grown as tropical ornamentals.

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 223 - Indomalayan

Cardamom Mountains rain forests

The Cardamom Mountains rain forests cover the wet evergreen highlands of the Cardamom and Elephant mountains in southwestern Cambodia and southeastern Thailand, extending to Vietnam's Phu Quoc island along the Gulf of Thailand. Forests here grade from lowland and hill evergreen stands into montane forest, where the beech family (Fagaceae) genera Lithocarpus and Castanopsis dominate alongside Lauraceae trees such as Cinnamomum and Litsea, with myrtle-family Syzygium and abundant epiphytic orchids. Rising steeply to over 1,500 meters, the range intercepts moisture-laden monsoon winds and receives very high annual rainfall, exceeding 5,000 millimeters in some valleys. Part of the globally important Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, it is one of Southeast Asia's most species-rich and endemic-rich forests, sheltering Asian elephants, tigers, clouded leopards, endemic chestnut-headed and Siamese partridges, and the critically endangered Siamese crocodile, with much of the range now within Southern Cardamom National Park. For gardeners, native genera such as the aromatic Cinnamomum and the ornamental Syzygium illustrate the region's warm, perpetually humid, frost-free climate.

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Where this ecoregion reaches

The countries, US states, and Canadian provinces this ecoregion touches, from a spatial join of its RESOLVE polygon against Natural Earth boundaries.

Countries

Myanmar People's Republic of China

Educator packet

Region packet

Northern Triangle subtropical forests educator packet

Realm

Indomalayan

Dominant biome

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Approximate area

20,797 square miles

States / provinces

Not recorded

Climate descriptor

Not recorded

Classroom prompts

- Which climate and biome facts explain why this region supports its characteristic plants?

- How do native-plant and wildlife-support claims differ from a species-presence claim?

- Which source-backed facts would you cite before using this region in a classroom map activity?

Use the Sources & citations section below for page citation styles and region source links.

Sources & citations

Cite this page

For lesson plans, articles, or regional planting notes that use this Plotwright page. To cite the underlying ecoregion framework or a specific editorial profile, use the source cards below.

Plotwright. (n.d.). Northern Triangle subtropical forests (Northern Triangle subtropical forests). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/regions/resolve-259

Sources for this region

This page cites Plotwright first for the compiled view, then lists the upstream framework, climate, and editorial source pages so readers can cite the original material directly.

RESOLVE 2017 Terrestrial Ecoregions (Dinerstein et al.)

Primary ecoregion framework

One Earth

Wikipedia

Wikimedia Foundation

Open source

Source guide