Tonle Sap-Mekong peat swamp forests

The Tonle Sap-Mekong peat swamp forests form a patchwork of permanently inundated freshwater forest across Cambodia and Vietnam, ringing Tonle Sap Lake and River in central Cambodia and reaching into the Haut Chhlong and Blao regions and the southern Mekong Delta. The most widespread formation is dominated by the palm Livistona cochinchinensis, which grows to over 30 meters, alongside canopy trees such as Eugenia, Elaeocarpus, and Calophyllum, with reedy wetlands of Phragmites karka and Coix gigantea and paperbark swamps of Melaleuca leucadendron. The climate is a tropical savanna type with dry winters, and poor drainage leaves the shallow standing water stagnant and anoxic, retarding decomposition so that peat accumulates and trees develop stilt roots and pneumatophores. Conservation here is dire: less than 10 percent of the ecoregion remains in its original state and less than 1 percent is protected, with many large mammals such as wild water buffalo and Eld's deer already extirpated and the white-shouldered ibis serving as its flagship species. For gardeners, the native paperbark Melaleuca leucadendron is a familiar ornamental and shade tree well suited to wet, poorly drained ground.

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