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Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

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Southeast Indochina dry evergreen forests

Biome

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

Biogeographic realm

Indomalayan

Limestone outcrops in the dry Veal Thom grassland below forested ridges, Virachey National Park, Cambodia.

Region photo - Mangoholic2 / Wikimedia Commons - Public domain.

Southeast Indochina dry evergreen forests

The Southeast Indochina dry evergreen forests stretch across the lower Mekong Basin, sprawling over Cambodia and southern Vietnam with parts reaching into Thailand and Laos, where they intertwine with the surrounding dry deciduous forests. Their tall, multi-layered canopy rises 30 to 40 meters and is dominated by dipterocarp trees such as Dipterocarpus alatus, Hopea odorata, Shorea, and Anisoptera costata, with emergent figs (Ficus), Tetrameles nudiflora, and Heritiera javanica, lianas draping the crowns, common bamboos colonizing gaps, and palms following the watercourses. The climate is humid to subhumid, with average annual rainfall of roughly 1,200 to 2,000 millimeters and a pronounced dry season of three to six months, during which a significant share of the canopy sheds its leaves despite the forest's evergreen character. The ecoregion harbors over 160 mammal species, with the red-shanked douc langur as a flagship, plus more than 455 birds including the endangered giant ibis; although over 20 percent lies within protected areas, effective on-the-ground management remains limited. For gardeners in comparable tropical climates, its native palette of dipterocarp shade trees, streamside palms, and clumping bamboos reflects the genera suited to a strongly seasonal wet-and-dry tropical setting.

RESOLVE 299

Indomalayan

47,976 sq mi

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

Landscape type

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

Plant region

Indomalayan

Region footprint

47,976 sq mi

Habitat pressure

Nature Could Recover (Dinerstein NNH 3)

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 21 of 21 climate-fit plants for this region.

Reliable climate fits

Good bets for now and later

21 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.

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.

A clumping, multi-stemmed evergreen perennial from South Africa, grown for its unmistakable crane-head flowers - a horizontal green-and-pink spathe from which bright orange sepals and vivid blue petals emerge like the crest of an exotic bird. Bold, paddle-shaped blue-green leaves on long stalks form a 3-4 foot fountain of foliage. Winter hardy only in USDA zones 10-12 (frost-free subtropics); everywhere colder it is grown as a houseplant or summered-out container plant. It blooms reliably only from a well-established, somewhat crowded clump, so patience is the key to flowers.

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

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.

The classic florists' gloxinia, a tuberous tropical perennial of the Gesneriaceae native to the Atlantic Forest of south-eastern Brazil (POWO, Kew; recorded as Brazilian-native in Flora e Funga do Brasil). It forms a low, neat rosette of soft, velvety leaves above which sit large, showy, bell-shaped flowers in rich violet, red, pink or white, often finished with a contrasting picotee edge. POWO and Flora e Funga do Brasil record Sinningia speciosa as the wild parent of the cultivated florist gloxinia, and that ornamental heritage is exactly how it is grown almost everywhere - as a tender pot or houseplant prized for its plush leaves and velvety trumpet-and-bell flowers. HONESTY: it is very frost-tender, hardy in the ground only in roughly USDA zone 11 and above, and it has a real dormant season - after flowering it dies back to a resting tuber before regrowing, so it is not an evergreen plant but a cyclical one. It is grown purely as an ornamental: no part is eaten. The flowers are insect-pollinated and, in the plant's native Brazilian range, also visited by hummingbirds.

A vigorous tropical climbing and trailing vine grown almost everywhere as an easy-care houseplant, prized for glossy, heart-shaped leaves marbled and streaked with golden-yellow variegation. In the tropics it scrambles up tree trunks by aerial roots and can climb 13 to 40 feet, with juvenile leaves enlarging dramatically as it ascends; indoors, kept in a pot or trailing from a shelf, it stays only inches tall and a few feet long. It tolerates low light and infrequent watering better than almost any other foliage plant, which is why it is a beginner favorite. Native to the Society Islands of French Polynesia and now naturalized across the tropics, it is hardy outdoors only in frost-free climates (roughly USDA 10b-12b) and is an aggressive invasive weed where it escapes. All parts are toxic if chewed or eaten.

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.

Sansevieria trifasciata

Snake plant

A near-indestructible architectural houseplant grown for stiff, upright, sword-shaped, succulent leaves banded in grey-green - yellow-margined in the popular "Laurentii" - and long known as the snake plant or "mother-in-law's tongue". POWO records it as native to tropical West Africa, and its currently accepted botanical name is Dracaena trifasciata (it was reclassified out of Sansevieria), though the nursery trade and most gardeners still know it as Sansevieria. It is famously tough: it tolerates low light, deep shade to bright indirect light, neglect, and irregular watering, which makes it one of the most forgiving plants you can grow indoors. HONESTY: the commonest way to kill it is OVERwatering - soggy soil rots the rhizome - so the real skill is letting the mix dry out between waterings, not watering more. It is toxic to cats and dogs (saponins cause vomiting and diarrhoea if eaten), and the popular "releases oxygen at night and purifies the air" reputation is overstated at realistic room densities. RHS treats it as a tender houseplant (H1B), frost-tender and grown under glass or indoors except in frost-free climates.

Perennial

Part shade / Full sun

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.

Schlumbergera truncata

Thanksgiving cactus

A long-lived epiphytic cactus from the Atlantic coastal forest of southeastern Brazil, grown indoors almost everywhere for its arching, segmented stems and its showy late-fall and winter flowers in hot pink, magenta, red, orange, salmon, or white. It is the plant most often sold and labeled as a 'Christmas cactus,' but the confusion is near-universal and worth getting right: this is the Thanksgiving, crab, or claw cactus, with sharp, claw-like teeth on the edges of its flat stem segments and a bloom season that runs from late fall into winter. The true Christmas cactus is a different plant, the hybrid Schlumbergera x buckleyi, which has smooth, rounded segment margins and blooms a few weeks later. Unlike a true desert cactus, it is a forest epiphyte that grows on tree branches in dappled light, 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. The surest field mark is the pollen: Schlumbergera truncata has yellow pollen and asymmetric flowers held out nearly horizontally, where the true Christmas cactus (S. x buckleyi) has rose-pink pollen and more regular, pendent blooms.

A large tropical evergreen tree from Asia and northern Australia, where it can reach 30 feet or more with a broad, rounded crown of arching, weeping branches clothed in glossy, pointed, 2-4 inch leaves. Across most of the world, though, it is grown as one of the most popular indoor trees, kept to 5 to 10 feet in a pot and valued for its graceful weeping form and dense, shiny foliage. It is hardy outdoors only in frost-free climates (USDA 10a-12b); everywhere colder it is a houseplant. Its single most famous trait is dropping its leaves dramatically whenever it is moved, drafted, over- or under-watered, or otherwise stressed - a habit new owners often mistake for death. The milky white latex in its stems and leaves is mildly toxic if eaten and is a well-known skin and airborne allergen.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

Zamioculcas zamiifolia

ZZ plant

The ZZ plant (Zamioculcas zamiifolia) is a glossy, architectural houseplant grown almost everywhere indoors: upright stems carry ranks of dark-green, waxy, pinnate leaflets rising from a thick, water-storing rhizome, and it is among the toughest, most drought-tolerant houseplants there is. POWO (Kew) gives its native range as eastern Africa, from Kenya south to South Africa, where it is the only species in its genus; worldwide it is prized as a near-indestructible foliage plant that thrives on neglect and low light. RHS gives it the Award of Garden Merit as an easy, drought-tolerant tender houseplant and rates it frost-tender (H1B, under glass / indoors), so outside USDA zones 10a-12 it is a year-round indoor plant. Because it stores water in its rhizome, the main way to kill it is OVERwatering, which rots the rhizome; it is slow-growing and rarely needs repotting. Be clear-eyed about the cautions: it is toxic to cats, dogs, and people if chewed (insoluble calcium-oxalate crystals), the sap can irritate skin, so wear gloves when handling or dividing it and keep it away from pets, and its much-repeated air-purifying reputation, which traces to a 1989 NASA sealed-chamber study, is overstated and negligible at realistic room densities.

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: 10

Host/specialist links: 1

Forage/pollination links: 10

Shelter links: 0

Avocado - Climate-resilient Bird of paradise - Climate-resilient Broadleaf plantain - Climate-resilient Eggplant - Climate-resilient Morning glory - Climate-resilient New Guinea impatiens - 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: 8

Host/specialist links: 1

Forage/pollination links: 7

Shelter links: 0

Avocado - Climate-resilient Bird of paradise - Climate-resilient Broadleaf plantain - Climate-resilient Cacao - Climate-resilient Christmas cactus - Climate-resilient Fiddle-leaf fig - 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: 1

Host/specialist links: 0

Forage/pollination links: 1

Shelter links: 0

Avocado - Climate-resilient Bigleaf mahogany - Climate-resilient Cacao - Climate-resilient Fiddle-leaf fig - Climate-resilient Rubber plant - Climate-resilient Sausage tree - Climate-resilient

Similar planting regions

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

Dry deciduous forest in the Nallamala Hills of the Central Deccan Plateau.

RESOLVE 290 - Indomalayan

Central Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests

The Central Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests stretch across the central and southern Deccan Plateau of peninsular India, lying mostly within Maharashtra and Telangana and reaching into Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh. Unlike the teak and sal forests elsewhere on the plateau, these woodlands are characteristically dominated by Hardwickia binata and Albizia amara, with companion trees such as Boswellia serrata, Anogeissus latifolia, and Acacia catechu beneath a canopy of roughly fifteen to twenty-five meters. The climate is strongly seasonal: the Hardwickia trees drop their leaves through the winter dry season and flush again in April, and the western reaches sit in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats. The forests still shelter Bengal tigers, dholes, sloth bears, gaur, and blackbuck, along with around 300 recorded bird species, among them the globally threatened Jerdon's courser, an India-endemic nightbird rediscovered in 1986 after being feared extinct. Much of the ecoregion has been cleared, however, and it is classed as critical or endangered, so gardeners drawing on its hardy natives, including the frankincense tree Boswellia and drought-tolerant Albizia, are working with plants adapted to a long, pronounced dry season.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 291 - Indomalayan

Central Indochina dry forests

The Central Indochina dry forests form a large tropical dry-forest ecoregion sprawling across the plateaus and low river basins of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, taking in the Khorat Plateau, the uplands around the Chao Phraya basin, and the foothills of the Tenasserim Range. Its signature habitat is open deciduous dipterocarp woodland, dominated by Dipterocarpus trees that drop their leaves through the dry season above a sparse, grassy understory. The climate is strongly monsoonal, with roughly 1,000 to 1,500 mm of rainfall concentrated in the wet months followed by a long dry season of five to seven months, during which frequent ground fires sweep the undergrowth and help shape the forest. Until the mid-20th century these savanna-like woodlands rivaled East African plains for their herds of large mammals, including Asian elephants, banteng, gaur, and the sambar deer that serves as the ecoregion's flagship species. Conservation pressure is severe: much original forest has been cleared, only a small fraction is protected, and the endemic wild cattle known as the kouprey is now believed to be globally extinct.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 292 - Indomalayan

Chhota-Nagpur dry deciduous forests

The Chhota-Nagpur dry deciduous forests blanket the Chhota-Nagpur Plateau of eastern India, covering most of Jharkhand and reaching into Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh. Because the plateau catches less rain than surrounding lowlands, its dry deciduous woodland is dominated by sal (Shorea robusta) alongside Anogeissus, Terminalia, Lagerstroemia, mahua (Madhuca longifolia), teak (Tectona grandis), and flame of the forest (Butea monosperma), over an understory of shrubs and grasses. The climate is strongly monsoonal, with most of the roughly 1,400 mm of annual rainfall falling between June and September; winters are cool with the occasional sub-freezing night, while summer days turn warm to hot. The region remains an important refuge for tiger and Asian elephant and harbors the sloth bear as a flagship species, with protected blocks such as the Palamau Tiger Reserve.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 293 - Indomalayan

East Deccan dry-evergreen forests

The East Deccan dry-evergreen forests stretch along southeastern India's Coromandel Coast, between the Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal, covering eastern Tamil Nadu, the union territory of Puducherry, and southeastern Andhra Pradesh from Ramanathapuram District up to Nellore District. Their defining trait sets them apart from other Deccan dry forests: the trees keep their leaves through the long dry season, drawing on water-storing roots and stems and shedding little moisture thanks to thick, waxy leaves, beneath a low closed canopy that rarely tops 10 meters. Characteristic evergreen trees include Manilkara hexandra, Mimusops elengi, Ceylon ebony (Diospyros ebenum), the strychnine tree (Strychnos nux-vomica), Drypetes sepiaria, and Flacourtia indica. The climate is hot and seasonally dry, with most rain arriving during the brief northeast monsoon from October to December and an extended, very warm dry season. This is one of the most depleted ecoregions in the region, as roughly 95 percent of the original forest has been cleared and the best surviving stands persist mainly in sacred groves protected by local religious tradition, where the Indian gazelle (chinkara) is a flagship species.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 294 - Indomalayan

Irrawaddy dry forests

The Irrawaddy dry forests occupy the arid heart of central Myanmar, spanning portions of the Irrawaddy, Sittaung, and Salween river basins across several administrative divisions. This is a patchwork of dipterocarp woodland and thorny scrub, characterized by drought-tolerant trees such as Dipterocarpus tuberculatus, Shorea, the native teak Tectona hamiltoniana, Terminalia oliveri, and Senegalia (Acacia) catechu, with tall bamboos like Dendrocalamus strictus widespread. The climate is harsh and dry, receiving well under 800 mm of annual rainfall that arrives sporadically and torrentially from mid-July through October, with rarely more than about fifteen rain-days a year. Despite this severity the region harbors notable endemics, including the critically endangered Popa langur and near-endemic birds such as the white-throated babbler and hooded racket-tailed treepie, while serving as a key refuge for the rare Burmese starred tortoise; less than one percent of the ecoregion lies within protected areas, making it one of the more imperiled dry forests of the realm. Gardeners in hot, low-rainfall climates may recognize several genera native here, including teak (Tectona) and Bauhinia, valued ornamentally elsewhere.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 295 - Indomalayan

Khathiar-Gir dry deciduous forests

The Khathiar-Gir dry deciduous forests cover a broad, mostly arid swath of northwestern India, stretching across the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh and taking in the Aravalli Range (crowned by Mount Abu), the Kathiawar Peninsula, and the Gir Hills. The vegetation is dry deciduous woodland: teak (Tectona grandis) along with bael (Aegle marmelos), silk-cotton, Boswellia, and Diospyros in the less arid zones, giving way to hardy Anogeissus pendula and khair (Acacia catechu) on drier, rocky ground. The climate is hot and arid, with most of the 550 to 700 mm of annual rain falling during the June-to-September southwest monsoon, summer temperatures soaring above 45 degrees Celsius and winter nights dropping near freezing. This is the only ecoregion in Asia that still shelters wild lions, the endangered Asiatic lion of Gir, and it also supports around 80 mammal species and over 300 birds. Much of the original forest has been fragmented, and the WWF classifies the ecoregion as critical or endangered with only a small fraction protected. For gardeners in similarly hot, seasonally dry climates, native trees such as bael (Aegle marmelos) point toward drought-tolerant, monsoon-adapted plantings.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry 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 Laos Thailand Vietnam

Educator packet

Region packet

Southeast Indochina dry evergreen forests educator packet

Realm

Indomalayan

Dominant biome

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

Approximate area

47,976 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.). Southeast Indochina dry evergreen forests (Southeast Indochina dry evergreen forests). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/regions/resolve-299

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