Central Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe
Central Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe
The Central Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe is a vast high-elevation ecoregion stretching across the Tibetan Plateau of China, reaching east to Qinghai Lake and extending into adjacent parts of India, with land ranging from roughly 3,500 meters to nearly 6,000 meters in elevation. Vegetation is sparse, typically covering only about a fifth of the ground, and is dominated by sedges such as Kobresia and Carex together with purple feathergrass (Stipa purpurea), alongside cushion plants and alpine forbs in more stable, moister soils; there are no trees. The climate is cold and arid, classified as a tundra (Köppen ET) regime with no month averaging above 10 degrees Celsius, and precipitation declining from the northwest toward the southeast. Because the harsh conditions are largely unsuited to agriculture, the ecosystem remains relatively intact and still supports roaming herds of wild ungulates, including the migratory Tibetan antelope, argali, Tibetan wild ass, and the endangered Przewalski's gazelle, along with predators such as the snow leopard and gray wolf. For gardeners, several alpine genera native here, including Saussurea, Leontopodium, and Arenaria, are familiar in cold-hardy rock and cushion-plant horticulture.
RESOLVE 750
Palearctic
243,123 sq mi
Montane Grasslands & Shrublands
Tipo de paisagem
Montane Grasslands & Shrublands
Região vegetal
Palearctic
Pegada da região
243,123 sq mi
Pressão sobre o habitat
Nature Could Reach Half Protected (Dinerstein NNH 2)
Origem e cuidado
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Use isto como o padrão geral de plantio para a região: High-elevation grasslands, meadows, and shrublands above the treeline or in mountain basins, including alpine and páramo systems. Cool temperatures, intense sunlight, and specialized, often endemic flora characterize them. Para decisões de jardim, combine esse contexto com a lista de plantas abaixo e depois refine pelas restrições de luz, água, solo e tamanho adulto do seu local.
Range & origins
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 33.3°N, 88.3°E.
A região ao longo do tempo
Pegada moderna
RESOLVE 2017 mapeia 243,123 sq mi
Este limite é uma pegada ecológica moderna de Central Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe, não uma linha permanente no planeta. É útil para o contexto atual de plantas e fauna porque segue padrões recorrentes de vegetação, clima, relevo e perturbações.
Por que aqui
Condições de montane grasslands & shrublands
A região fica no reino Palearctic e é classificada como montane grasslands & shrublands. Altitude, umidade, fogo, solos, costas e o uso humano da terra podem tornar a paisagem real mais variada do que uma única cor no mapa sugere.
Pressão de mudança
Nature Could Reach Half Protected
O Plotwright mostra isto como a pegada RESOLVE atual. Ao longo de décadas a séculos, o aquecimento, as perturbações, as espécies invasoras, o uso da terra e a restauração podem mover a borda viva de uma região mesmo quando o mapa de referência permanece fixo.
Coleções de plantio
Receitas de plantio prontas em que cada membro aguenta a faixa climática desta região. O selo de encaixe usa a planta mais sensível da coleção, então uma coleção resiliente é um ponto de partida mais seguro do que qualquer destaque isolado.
Resiliente ao clima · 2 plantas
Bright shade foundation
A part-shade planting with shrub structure and low foliage contrast.
Resiliente ao clima · 8 plantas
Climate-resilient natives for warming zones (eastern NA)
A pollinator-supporting palette of eastern North American natives with broad hardiness ranges and wide native distributions. Built for gardeners who want a planting that can handle warming zones without giving up wildlife value.
Resiliente ao clima · 6 plantas
Mediterranean drought-tolerant edible
A low-water edible palette of culinary herbs + a hardy grape for hot dry sunny sites. Mediterranean-origin plants thrive on neglect; their primary failure mode is overwatering, not underwatering.
Resiliente ao clima · 9 plantas
Native pollinator border (eastern US)
A continuous-bloom native pollinator strip for eastern North America. Covers spring through frost with host + nectar plants spanning monarchs, native bees, hummingbirds, and specialist Lepidoptera. Little bluestem provides the matrix grass + Hesperiidae host.
Resiliente ao clima · 4 plantas
Sunny pollinator border
A durable sunny border with summer bloom, seedheads, and upright winter texture.
Recém-possível até 2070 · 3 plantas
Kitchen patio planters
A compact edible collection for containers, patios, and near-door harvesting.
Regiões de plantio semelhantes
Explore outras regiões com um ritmo semelhante de verões quentes e secos. Suas listas de plantas podem sugerir espécies e combinações que valem a pena comparar.
RESOLVE 749 - Palearctic
Altai alpine meadow and tundra
The Altai alpine meadow and tundra ecoregion crowns the high Altai Mountains where the borders of Russia, Kazakhstan, China, and Mongolia meet, sitting above the conifer treeline in Central Asia's northernmost ranges. Above the treeline, low-alpine meadows mix grasses such as Stipa feather grass and clumping Festuca with herbaceous wildflowers, dwarf birch (Betula rotundifolia) in wetter northern areas, and sedge-meadows of Kobresia and Carex, giving way to sparse moss, lichen, and creeping cushion plants on the highest plateaus. The climate has a distinctly arctic character, with brief temperate summers, extreme cold winters, and a tundra-like regime where no month averages above 10 degrees Celsius. The ecoregion supports apex predators including snow leopards, lynx, gray wolves, and wolverines, with the vulnerable Altai argali wild sheep serving as a flagship species. Higher slopes also host hardy ornamental and medicinal natives such as dwarf rhododendrons, saxifrage, rhodiola, juniper, and honeysuckle.
Montane Grasslands & Shrublands
Zones 4b-7b
+6.2°F by 2070
34,811 sq mi
NNH tier 2
RESOLVE 751 - Palearctic
Eastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows
The Eastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows ecoregion threads along the high Himalaya across five countries, reaching eastward from central Nepal near the Kali Gandaki River through Bhutan and India's Arunachal Pradesh to northern Myanmar and Tibetan China. Nested between the treeline near 4,000 meters and the snowline around 5,500 meters, it shifts from low alpine shrublands dominated by stunted, twisted rhododendrons into open meadows that burst with brightly colored flowers each spring and summer. Characteristic meadow genera include Meconopsis, Primula, Gentiana, Saxifraga, Androsace, Leontopodium, and Pedicularis. The climate is sharply seasonal: the May-to-September monsoon delivers heavy rainfall, with much drier rainshadow pockets, summer temperatures averaging about 20 degrees Celsius, and winters dropping below freezing. Renowned for exceptional botanical richness with over 7,000 plant species recorded, it shelters snow leopards, blue sheep, Himalayan tahr, and takin. Many of its native ornamentals, especially the blue poppies (Meconopsis), rhododendrons, and primulas, are treasured by alpine and rock gardeners.
Montane Grasslands & Shrublands
Zones 5a-11a
+6.1°F by 2070
46,781 sq mi
NNH tier 2
RESOLVE 752 - Palearctic
Ghorat-Hazarajat alpine meadow
The Ghorat-Hazarajat alpine meadow occupies the high mountainous interior of central Afghanistan, fanning out westward from the capital city of Kabul at its eastern point. Its vegetation is a mix of thornbush meadows and alpine grassland, with Himalayan juniper shrub thickets and herbs and flowering plants including sainfoin, Astragalus, Cousinia, and Artemisia, set across elevations that climb from roughly 1,248 to 4,868 metres. The climate is cold and dry with large seasonal swings and warm summers, giving a mean annual temperature of about 3.2 degrees Celsius and average annual precipitation near 416 millimetres. The ecoregion is best known for the critically endangered Afghan brook salamander (Paghman mountain salamander), which clings to cold high-mountain streams within a potential range of less than 10 square kilometres; less than 1 percent of the region is officially protected, with Band-e Amir National Park, famed for its travertine lakes, the main reserve. For gardeners, several cold-hardy native genera that thrive here, including Astragalus and Artemisia, are familiar in dryland and rock-garden plantings.
Montane Grasslands & Shrublands
Zones 6b-10b
+6.2°F by 2070
25,671 sq mi
NNH tier 4
RESOLVE 753 - Palearctic
Hindu Kush alpine meadow
The Hindu Kush alpine meadow spans the high Hindu Kush range across northern Afghanistan, northwestern Pakistan, and southern Tajikistan, a steep, mountainous landscape whose terrain mostly sits between 3,000 and 4,000 meters and climbs to peaks above 6,500 meters. Roughly half of it is bare rock or gravelly soil with sparse vegetation, while the remainder carries subalpine thickets, cushion shrublands, and alpine meadows of grasses and herbs, including the genera Primula, Sibbaldia, Astragalus, and Onobrychis. The climate is cold and continental with large seasonal swings, much of the high-elevation precipitation falling as snow. Over 200 vertebrate species have been recorded, with the markhor as the flagship species alongside Siberian ibex, argali, and the endangered Kashmir musk deer, yet the ecoregion currently has no protected areas. For gardeners, the native alpine flora here includes cold-hardy ornamental cushion and rock-garden genera such as Primula and Sibbaldia.
Montane Grasslands & Shrublands
Zones 5b-9b
+5.2°F by 2070
10,911 sq mi
NNH tier 4
RESOLVE 754 - Palearctic
Karakoram-West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe
The Karakoram-West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe is a vast high-elevation grassland ecoregion centered on the Karakoram Range west of the Himalaya, spanning portions of Pakistan, India, China, and Afghanistan within the upper Indus catchment. Most of it is open steppe of Stipa and Festuca grasses and forbs on slopes above 3,000 meters, while valley bottoms hold dense thickets of woody plants such as sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides), willow, tamarisk, and wild rose, with relict juniper forests in remote pockets. The climate is cold and arid, with annual precipitation ranging from roughly 200 to 900 millimeters, about 90 percent of it falling as snow, and extreme topographic relief where river channels below 2,000 meters sit beneath massifs exceeding 8,000 meters. Its flagship species is the woolly flying squirrel, and its rich community of wild sheep and goats, including Marco Polo sheep, argali, markhor, urial, and ibex, supports the snow leopard, with protection afforded by parks such as Hemis, Khunjerab, and Deosai. Hardy native ornamentals here include the showy larkspur Delphinium cashmerianum, shrubby cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa), and Rosa webbiana.
Montane Grasslands & Shrublands
Zones 4b-11b
+5.0°F by 2070
55,325 sq mi
NNH tier 3
RESOLVE 755 - Palearctic
Khangai Mountains alpine meadow
The Khangai Mountains alpine meadow ecoregion runs along the central ridge of the Khangai Mountains in central Mongolia, capping the range's highest elevations between conifer forests to the north and semi-arid steppe to the south. Above the treeline, the habitat is open high-mountain meadow of low shrubs, grasses, sedges, mosses and lichens, with characteristic plants including dwarf birch, shrubby cinquefoil, Cotoneaster uniflora, and Kobresia bog sedges in marshy ground, alongside occasional pine and larch. The climate is harshly continental and cold semi-arid, with average January temperatures below -20 degrees C, summers near 20 degrees C, and annual precipitation over 400 mm. It shelters notable wildlife such as Siberian ibex, Mongolian marmot, snow leopard and Altai snowcock, and most of the region is now protected within Tarvagatai Nuruu and Khangai Nuruu national parks. For gardeners in cold climates, native flowering plants here include Asian globeflowers, garland larkspur and rosebay willowherb.
Montane Grasslands & Shrublands
Zones 4a-6a
+5.3°F by 2070
14,308 sq mi
NNH tier 2
Sources & citations
Cite this page
Para planos de aula, artigos ou notas de plantio regionais que usem esta página do Plotwright. Para citar a estrutura de ecorregiões subjacente ou um perfil editorial específico, use os cartões de fontes abaixo.
Plotwright. (n.d.). Central Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe (Central Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe). Retrieved 2026, June 15, from https://plotwright.garden/regions/resolve-750
Fontes para esta região
Esta página cita primeiro o Plotwright pela visão compilada e depois lista as páginas de fontes da estrutura, do clima e editoriais a montante para que os leitores possam citar o material original diretamente.
RESOLVE 2017 Terrestrial Ecoregions (Dinerstein et al.)
Estrutura principal de ecorregiões
Backs 4 fields
ID do RESOLVE
Bioma + reino
Área
Nível NNH