Appenine deciduous montane forests
RESOLVE 644
The Apennine deciduous montane forests occupy the higher elevations of the Apennine Mountains running down the spine of the Italian peninsula, surviving as disconnected patches that stretch southward for over 350 kilometers through central Italy. The dominant cover is montane broadleaf forest led by European beech (Fagus sylvatica), often mixed with silver fir (Abies alba), deciduous oaks (Quercus), maples (Acer), whitebeams and rowans (Sorbus), with cold meadows and grasslands taking over above the treeline. The climate is temperate-cool and notably wet, with rainfall ranging from roughly 1,000 mm in the southern mountains to 2,500 mm in the north and abundant winter snow at altitude. The ecoregion is the last stronghold of the critically endangered Marsican brown bear and the endemic Apennine (Abruzzo) chamois, and a 2017 assessment found about 46 percent of its area falls within protected reserves such as Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park. For gardeners, several ornamental woody genera native here, including holly (Ilex aquifolium), yew (Taxus baccata) and linden (Tilia), are familiar temperate landscape plants.
About the temperate broadleaf & mixed forests biome
Four-season forests of deciduous hardwoods — oak, maple, beech — often mixed with conifers, shaped by warm summers and cold winters. Trees leaf out in spring and color in autumn; the generally fertile soils have made these forests heavily settled and farmed.
Collections for this ecoregion
No curated collection's plants all fit this ecoregion's zone range. We surface a collection only when every member would grow here — partial fits get filtered out rather than mislead. As the catalog and the curated set both grow, this section will fill in.