The Amazon rain forest is the largest contiguous rain forest in the world. It is so large and so lush with tree growth that its transpiration is actually responsible, in part, for the wet climate of the region. Plant diversity is so great here that no comprehensive plant guide currently exists for many parts of […]
Lowlands Tropical rainforests lie on the eastern half of Central America and typically have many tall, broad-leaved evergreen trees 130 feet (40 meters) or more in height, and 4-5 feet (1.2-1.5 meters) in diameter that form a dense canopy. Shade-seeking plants, such as palms, figs, ferns, vines, philodendrons, and orchids, form the forest undergrowth beneath […]
Island ecosystems are unique and fragile. Some, like those in Guam and New Zealand, can never be returned to their original state, but with extensive wildlife management, many native species can be saved from extinction. New Guinea, Fiji, and many smaller islands are in earlier stages of development, and wildlife destruction can still be controlled. […]
Tropical savanna ranges from savanna grassland, which is dominated by tall grasses lacking trees or shrubs, to thicket and scrub communities, which are composed primarily of trees and shrubs of a fairly uniform size. The most common type of savanna in Africa is the savanna woodland, which is composed of tall, moisture-loving grasses and tall, […]
One of the world’s five mediterranean climate regions is found in central Chile. This climate is characterized by warm, dry summers and cool, wet winters. The vegetation, called matorral, is composed primarily of leathery-leaved, evergreen shrubs that are well adapted to the long summer drought. The matorral is the only mediterranean area that has bromeliads. […]
The desert and steppe region in Central and West Asia has twenty to twenty-five thousand species of plants. This region stretches from north and northwest China and Mongolia in the east to Turkey in the west and from Kazakhstan in the north to the Arabian Peninsula in the south. This region’s vegetation changes from semi […]
Along the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, the soil is saturated with water and is very salty. Tides regularly inundate lowlying vegetation. The plants in these salt marsh areas consist mainly of grasses and rushes. Marshes are a vital breeding ground and nursery for fish and shellfish. They play an […]
A forest of mainly broad-leaved, deciduous trees is the native vegetation of much of eastern North America. Narrow fingers of this forest, growing along rivers, penetrate westward into the interior grasslands. Early settlers from Europe cut most of the eastern forest, but second-growth forest now covers considerable areas. The plants are closely related to plant […]
The cerrado region of east central Brazil and southward is not only the largest savanna biome of South America but also one of the most romanticized of the world’s savannas. As in the Old West of North America, the grasslands of Brazil have cowboys who traditionally have used the cerrado for farming and cattle ranching. […]
The Caribbean region comprises the islands from the Bahamas to Trinidad and is noted for its tropical vegetation and flowers. This region has been significantly affected by human activities. Deforestation began with the development of sugarcane culture in the seventeenth century. When forests are cut for farmland, soil erosion and depletion often occur. Jamaica, Haiti, […]
The third-richest region, tropical rain / dry forests, is found in South Asia, which reaches from the Philippines in the east to Pakistan in the west, and from the Himalayas in the north to Thailand in the south. Twenty five thousand to thirty thousand species of plants grow there. This region has both tropical rain […]
Listed in order of decreasing land area, the three main biomes of Africa are subtropical desert, tropical savanna, and tropical forest. The flora in southern Africa has been most studied. The flora of central and northern Africa is less known. The subtropical desert biome is the driest of the biomes in Africa and includes some […]
In the semiarid and arid West, the natural vegetation is grass and shrubs. Over a large part of California, this takes the form of a fire-adapted scrub community called chaparral or Mediterranean scrub, in which evergreen, often spiny shrubs form dense thickets. The climate, with rainy, mild winters and hot, dry summers, is like that […]
Threats to the Forest
The primary threat to the health of forests around the world comes from humans. As human populations grow, three types of pressure are placed on forests. First, forests are cleared to provide land for agriculture or for the construction of new homes. This process has occurred almost continuously in the temperate regions for thousands of […]