The Altai montane forest and forest steppe stretches some 1,500 km along the Altai Mountains across the border region where Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China meet, running from the Belukha Range in the northwest to the Gobi-Altai in the southeast. Its hallmark is a mosaic shaped by slope aspect: cooler, wetter north-facing slopes carry dense conifer forests of spruce and larch (including larch-cedar stands), while drier south-facing slopes give way to cold steppe and desert-steppe vegetation dominated by feather grass and Artemisia. The climate is cold and semi-arid, with cool summers and long, dry winters in which temperatures plunge well below freezing and precipitation stays low. Sitting at the crossroads of several ecoregions, altitudes, and climate zones, it harbors high biodiversity and supports a widely dispersed population of the globally threatened snow leopard, with protected areas including the Katun Nature Reserve. For gardeners, its hardy native flora includes ornamental grasses like the feather grass Stipa pennata and prairie junegrass (Koeleria).

At a glance

About the temperate conifer forests biome

Temperate forests dominated by evergreen conifers, from coastal rainforests to montane pine and fir stands. Adapted to cool, moist or seasonally dry climates, they include some of the tallest and longest-lived trees on the planet.

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's CHELSA-derived current zone range, with the CHELSA mid-century warming delta applied for the projection. Plants whose stated range falls outside both the current and projected zone end up dropped; the rest land in one of the three buckets below.

Collections for this ecoregion

Curated multi-plant collections whose members all fit this ecoregion's zone range — no won't-grow members smuggled in. Overall fit class shown per collection is the weakest link across its members.

Related ecoregions