Sumatran tropical pine forests

The Himalayan subtropical pine forests form a long, narrow band stretching for over 3,000 km along the lower elevations of the Himalaya, spanning Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan and crossing Indian states including Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Sikkim. The forest is dominated by a single conifer, the Chir pine (Pinus roxburghii), which forms open stands over a sparse understory of shrubs such as barberry, blackberry, and Himalayan raspberry. Its climate is shaped by the southwestern monsoon arriving off the Bay of Bengal roughly from May through September, with a pronounced gradient in which the eastern Himalaya are wetter and the west noticeably drier. Though less species-rich than tropical rainforest, the ecoregion is important habitat, home to wildlife such as the Himalayan goral, yet more than half of its natural habitat has been cleared or degraded by overgrazing, fuelwood and fodder collection, and shifting cultivation.

The Luzon tropical pine forests cover the high country of Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines, concentrated in the Cordillera Central of the north (including peaks such as Mount Pulag and Mount Data) and extending to the Zambales Mountains of west-central Luzon. The signature tree is the Benguet pine (Pinus insularis, also called Khasi or Luzon pine), which stands thinly spaced above open, grass-covered slopes rather than forming closed canopy. The climate is strongly seasonal: rainfall is high, well over 2,500 mm a year, but falls mostly during the July-August monsoon and typhoon season, followed by a long dry season from roughly November to April when fires help keep the pine-grassland in balance. The ecoregion is rich in endemic life, with the elegant tit as its flagship bird and a notable array of endemic Cordillera mammals such as cloud rats and earthworm mice, yet it is classed as Critical/Endangered, pressured by logging, burning, agricultural clearing, and mining. For gardeners, its defining native conifer is a hardy tropical-montane pine adapted to cool uplands and a pronounced dry season.

The Northeast India-Myanmar pine forests are a montane subtropical coniferous ecoregion of the Naga Hills, spanning the border country between India's Nagaland and Mizoram states and adjacent Myanmar in three separate enclaves between roughly 1,500 and 2,500 meters in elevation. Tenasserim pine (Pinus latteri) dominates the lower slopes, giving way at higher elevations to Khasi pine and blue pine mixed with hemlock, fir, and broadleaf oaks, maples, and rhododendrons. The mountains intercept monsoon moisture pushing inland from the Bay of Bengal, so heavy, terrain-forced rainfall and complex topography shape where each forest type grows. The Khasi pine is the ecoregion's flagship species, and the forests support wildlife such as serow, sambar, Indian muntjac, and Asian black bear, though the region has little formal protection and ongoing shifting cultivation has cleared much habitat. For gardeners, the native flora is rich in familiar ornamentals, including Rhododendron, holly (Ilex), and tree-dwelling orchids of the genera Cymbidium, Dendrobium, and Vanda.

The Bahamian pineyards are a tropical and subtropical coniferous forest ecoregion spanning the northern Bahamas, on Grand Bahama, Abaco, Andros, and New Providence, together with the Caicos Islands of the Turks and Caicos. The canopy is dominated by the Bahamian pine (Pinus caribaea var. bahamensis), a variety botanically distinct from other Caribbean pines and adapted to sandy, salty ground, growing over a broad-leaved shrub understory that includes poisonwood (Metopium toxiferum), thatch palms, and the endemic five-finger. These are fire-maintained, pyrogenic forests; pollen records indicate a largely anthropogenic origin, with the modern pineyards established by about 1200 CE following Lucayan land clearing. The ecoregion carries a Critical/Endangered status and shelters notable wildlife, including endemic birds such as the Bahama yellowthroat, Bahama woodstar, and Bahama oriole, rock iguanas (Cyclura) and boas (Epicrates), and the wintering Kirtland's warbler, while logging, invasive species, and intensifying hurricanes such as Dorian remain serious threats. For gardeners, the understory native pinepink orchid (Bletia purpurea) is among the ornamental plants found here.

This ecoregion covers Bermuda, a crescent-shaped archipelago of limestone islands of low elevation in the Atlantic roughly 1,000 km off the US East Coast, with a mild subtropical climate moderated by the Gulf Stream and no recorded frosts. Its uplands were historically dominated by dense stands of three endemic plants: Bermuda cedar (Juniperus bermudiana, a juniper), Bermuda palmetto, and Bermuda olivewood, with mangrove swamps along the coast. Despite low overall species richness, the isolated islands hold notably high endemism. In the 1940s introduced scale insects devastated the cedar forests, and only about 10% of the native cedar remains today; Bermuda is also the seabird home of the Bermuda petrel (cahow), famously rediscovered in 1951.

The Central American pine-oak forests stretch along the mountainous spine of northern Central America, from the Chiapas highlands and Sierra Madre de Chiapas in southern Mexico through the uplands of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras into Nicaragua. As the name suggests, these montane woodlands are dominated by pines (Pinus species) and oaks (Quercus species), with pines tending to prevail at higher elevations and oaks lower down, alongside trees such as American sweetgum. They occupy a mid-elevation band roughly between 600 and 1,800 meters, giving way to cloud forest higher up and grading into tropical moist forest on the Caribbean slope and tropical dry forest on the Pacific slope. The region is an Endemic Bird Area and the celebrated home of the resplendent quetzal, though much of its forest is now considered critically threatened, with the stands in El Salvador almost entirely cleared. For gardeners, it is the native ground of American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), a popular ornamental shade tree prized for its fall color.