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Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

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Tonle Sap freshwater swamp forests

Biome

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Biogeographic realm

Indomalayan

Half-submerged flooded scrub along a silty channel under a storm sky, Tonle Sap, Cambodia.

Region photo - FAUSTMEPHISTOPHELES / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0; attribution required.

Tonle Sap freshwater swamp forests

The Tonle Sap freshwater swamp forests cloak the seasonally flooded floodplains of Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Cambodia, extending south along the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers into southern Vietnam. The vegetation is shaped almost entirely by inundation: a stunted swamp forest roughly 7 to 15 meters tall rings the lake, giving way to short, deciduous swamp shrubland dominated by members of the Euphorbiaceae, Fabaceae, and Combretaceae families, with Barringtonia acutangula (the "freshwater mangrove") and Diospyros cambodiana among the characteristic trees. The climate is a tropical savanna type (Koppen Aw) with a pronounced dry season, and during the wet season the backed-up Mekong submerges the floodplain under several meters of water for more than eight months. The wetlands are among the most important waterbird habitats in the region, supporting storks, pelicans, ibises, and cormorants along with seventeen globally threatened bird species, and the smooth-coated otter serves as the ecoregion's flagship; however, only about ten percent of its forests still remain, with surviving areas protected largely through the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve. For gardeners, Barringtonia and Diospyros are familiar ornamental and fruiting genera, here adapted to standing water and a strongly seasonal flood pulse.

RESOLVE 285

Indomalayan

10,049 sq mi

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Landscape type

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Plant region

Indomalayan

Region footprint

10,049 sq mi

Habitat pressure

Nature Imperiled (Dinerstein NNH 4)

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 14 of 14 climate-fit plants for this region.

Good now, not later

Good now, less certain later

14 plants

These plants fit the region as it is today. The projection moves them outside their listed range, so treat them as shorter-horizon or higher-care choices.

Persea americana

Avocado

A frost-tender broadleaf evergreen tree of the laurel family, native to Mexico and Central America and grown across the tropics and subtropics for its buttery, pear-shaped fruit. Glossy dark-green elliptic leaves 4 to 8 inches long clothe a tree that reaches 30 to 60 feet, hung with greenish-yellow flower panicles that give way to large single-seeded berries. Hardy only in USDA zones 10-12 - north of that it is an indoor curiosity easily sprouted from a pit, but one that rarely fruits.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

Swietenia macrophylla

Bigleaf mahogany

The premier true mahogany and one of the most commercially important tropical hardwoods on Earth: a very large neotropical timber tree that reaches roughly 100 to 150 feet with a broad, spreading, rounded crown, pinnately compound leaves, and reddish-brown heartwood prized for fine furniture and instruments. Honesty first: this is a knowledge and conservation entry, not a plant most people can or should grow. It is a frost-tender tropical giant hardy only in USDA zones 10b-12b, native to the neotropics from southern Mexico through Central America into Amazonian South America, with no role as a temperate-garden ornamental. More important than any landscape use is its conservation status - decades of overharvest for that famous mahogany timber have made it conservation-sensitive, and it is listed on CITES Appendix II, meaning international trade is regulated to keep harvest from driving the species toward extinction. Include it for its story and its scale, and source any wood or plant material only through legal, certified, sustainable channels.

Broadleaf plantain is the broad-leaved, ground-hugging weed of lawns, paths, driveways, and roadsides across North America - and, honestly, an introduced Eurasian species, not a native. It forms a flat basal rosette of broad, strongly ribbed oval leaves that presses tight to the ground, sending up slender, erect, rat-tail flower spikes through summer. Its tie to human disturbance runs so deep that some Indigenous peoples called it 'white man's footprint,' because it followed colonists wherever soil was trodden bare. Despite the weedy reputation it is genuinely undervalued for habitat: the wind-pollinated spikes are heavy pollen sources, the ripe seed feeds finches and other small birds, and it is a documented larval host for the common buckeye butterfly. The young leaves are edible cooked or in salad, with a long medicinal and poultice history.

Herb

Full sun / Part shade

Cacao is the chocolate tree - a small evergreen understory tree of the lowland tropical rainforest, famous for being cauliflorous: its tiny pink-and-white flowers, and then the large ridged football-shaped pods, are borne directly on the trunk and oldest branches rather than out among the leaves. Reaching roughly 15 to 25 feet, it carries glossy oblong leaves that flush bronze when young. Each pod holds 30-40 seeds embedded in sweet white pulp; those seeds become chocolate only after fermenting, drying, and roasting (the cacau of Brazil). It is genuinely demanding - a true tropical, needing deep humid warmth and overhead shade and failing below about 50°F - so outside the wet tropics it is a greenhouse or conservatory plant only. Its flowers are pollinated not by bees but by tiny midges.

Schlumbergera x buckleyi

Christmas cactus

The true Christmas cactus - the hybrid Schlumbergera x buckleyi - a long-lived epiphytic holiday cactus grown indoors almost everywhere for its arching, segmented stems and its rose-to-magenta flowers that open in mid-winter, around Christmas. It is worth getting the identity right, because most plants sold and labeled as 'Christmas cactus' are actually the Thanksgiving cactus, Schlumbergera truncata. You can tell the two apart by the edges of the flat stem segments and by when they bloom: the true Christmas cactus has rounded, scalloped segment margins and flowers a few weeks later, in mid-winter, while the Thanksgiving cactus has sharp, claw-like teeth and blooms from late fall into early winter. Unlike a desert cactus, this is a forest epiphyte that grows on tree branches in the Atlantic coastal forest of southeastern Brazil, so it wants bright indirect light, a free-draining mix, sparing water, and - to set its buds - cool nights and short days. A reassuring point that sets it apart from many houseplants: it is non-toxic to cats and dogs. One more field mark clinches it: the true Christmas cactus has rose-pink pollen and flowers that hang almost regularly (radially), where the Thanksgiving cactus has yellow pollen and asymmetric blooms held out nearly horizontally.

A warm-season member of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) - a relative of tomato, potato, and pepper - grown for its showy, glossy edible berries that range from white and green through deep purple to nearly black depending on cultivar. The plant is technically a tender herbaceous perennial but is grown as an annual vegetable across most of North America, where it demands a long, hot, frost-free season to fruit well. Drooping violet star-shaped flowers give way to the familiar pendant fruit; the leaves, flowers, stems, and roots are toxic and only the fruit is eaten.

A tropical evergreen tree from the lowland rainforests of western and central Africa, grown almost everywhere else as a dramatic indoor specimen for its huge, glossy, fiddle- (or violin-) shaped leaves with bold sunken veins. In its native habitat it becomes a 40-foot tree, but as a houseplant or patio container plant it is typically kept to a single upright 6-15 foot trunk topped with a sculptural rosette of leaves. Winter-hardy only in the frost-free subtropics (USDA zones 10-12); everywhere colder it is a houseplant. It is famously fussy: it wants bright, steady light, even moisture, warmth, and - above all - to be left in one spot, dropping leaves in protest at cold drafts, moves, or erratic watering.

The true culinary ginger - a tropical-Asian herbaceous perennial grown for its aromatic, pungent, branched rhizome rather than its rarely-seen bloom. Reed-like pseudostems carry two-ranked lanceolate leaves to 2 to 4 feet, rising from a fleshy underground rhizome that is the kitchen and apothecary spice. Hardy outdoors only in USDA zones 9-12; in cooler regions it is grown as a warm-season annual or container plant and started from a fresh grocery-store rhizome each spring.

A fast, twining annual vine from tropical America grown for the azure-blue trumpets that open at dawn and fade by afternoon, each marked with a white-to-golden-yellow star throat. Heart-shaped leaves clothe stems that climb 8 to 10 feet in a single season on any support. Showy and easy from seed, but every part - especially the seed - is poisonous if eaten, so site it away from where pets and children graze.

A tender perennial from New Guinea grown almost everywhere in North America as a warm-season annual, prized for non-stop bright bloom in part shade - and, unlike common impatiens, in considerably more sun. It mounds 6 to 24 inches tall and 1.5 to 3 feet wide, carrying large, flat, five-petaled flowers in coral, salmon, pink, red, orange, lavender, and white above bold, often bronze-tinted dark foliage. Its real selling point is honest and practical: Impatiens hawkeri is resistant to impatiens downy mildew (Plasmopara obducens), the disease that collapsed plantings of Impatiens walleriana, making it the dependable shade-to-part-sun bedding plant where the common species can no longer be trusted.

Annual

Full sun / Part shade

Spathiphyllum wallisii

Peace lily

One of the most popular and forgiving foliage houseplants - an evergreen tropical perennial grown indoors for its glossy, dark-green, lance-shaped leaves and elegant white "flowers." Those flowers are not true showy blooms but a white leafy hood, the spathe, wrapped around a creamy spadix. POWO (Kew) places Spathiphyllum wallisii native to the tropical rainforests of Colombia and Venezuela; it is now grown worldwide as an indoor foliage plant. Honesty matters here. It is famously easy: it tolerates LOW light and conveniently droops when thirsty, then recovers after a watering. But every part contains insoluble calcium-oxalate crystals and is TOXIC to cats, dogs, and people if chewed, so keep it away from pets and small children. And its celebrated "air-purifying" reputation, from a 1989 NASA chamber study, is OVERSTATED - at realistic room densities the effect on indoor air quality is negligible. Grow it for its looks and easy care, not as an air purifier. RHS rates it frost-tender, H1B, a tender evergreen for shade and indoor culture under glass.

A bold tropical fig from South and Southeast Asia grown almost everywhere as a houseplant for its large, glossy, leathery, deep-green (or cream- and burgundy-variegated) paddle leaves. Honesty first: in its frost-free native habitat and outdoors in USDA zones 9-12 this is a massive strangler-type fig that can reach 50 to 100 feet with a spreading, aerial-rooting crown - but in the homes, offices, and patio containers where almost everyone grows it, it is kept a fraction of that size by pot confinement and pruning. It is easygoing in bright indirect light and forgiving of average indoor conditions; the one real catch is its milky latex sap, a mild skin, eye, and digestive irritant that also bothers latex-sensitive people. The same latex was historically tapped to make natural rubber, which is where the name comes from.

A large, spreading tropical tree from sub-Saharan Africa, famous for the enormous grey, sausage-shaped fruits that dangle on long cord-like stalks beneath its rounded crown. Honesty first: where it is hardy (USDA zones 10a-12b) it grows into a 30-60 foot evergreen-to-semi-deciduous shade tree, and at night it opens large, maroon, foul-smelling, cup-shaped flowers that are pollinated by bats. The fruits are the headline and the hazard - they can reach about 24 inches long and weigh several pounds, and a falling fruit can genuinely injure a person or dent a car, so it must never be sited over patios, walks, or parking. The raw fruit is toxic and purgative to humans; it is used only after careful processing in traditional medicine and skincare, never eaten raw. It is frost-tender and strictly a warm-climate specimen tree, not a temperate-garden plant.

A bold tropical aroid from the rainforests of southern Mexico through Panama, grown almost everywhere outside the frost-free tropics as a foliage houseplant. It is a climbing epiphyte: it sends adventitious aerial roots to scramble up tree trunks, and its huge glossy heart-shaped leaves develop the deep cuts and oval holes (fenestrations) that give it both common names. Mature plants in the tropics flower with a creamy aroid spathe and produce a cone-like fruit that is edible only when fully ripe. Indoors it rarely flowers and is prized purely for its dramatic, architectural foliage.

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: 0/5

Climate resilient: 0/5

Wildlife links: 6

Host/specialist links: 1

Forage/pollination links: 6

Shelter links: 0

Avocado - Currently suited Broadleaf plantain - Currently suited Eggplant - Currently suited Morning glory - Currently suited New Guinea impatiens - Currently suited

Shade-edge planting

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

Native fit: 0/6

Climate resilient: 0/6

Wildlife links: 4

Host/specialist links: 1

Forage/pollination links: 3

Shelter links: 0

Avocado - Currently suited Broadleaf plantain - Currently suited Cacao - Currently suited Christmas cactus - Currently suited Fiddle-leaf fig - Currently suited Ginger - Currently suited

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

Cambodia Vietnam

Educator packet

Region packet

Tonle Sap freshwater swamp forests educator packet

Realm

Indomalayan

Dominant biome

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Approximate area

10,049 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.). Tonle Sap freshwater swamp forests (Tonle Sap freshwater swamp forests). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/regions/resolve-285

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