The Central Andean dry puna spans the high Altiplano of the southern Andes across Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, occupying the arid zone between the tree line and the permanent snow line east of the Atacama Desert. Its vegetation is mostly high-elevation grassland dominated by bunchgrasses of the genera Stipa and Festuca, with dry shrublands lower down and scattered Polylepis woodlands at higher elevations; this includes Polylepis tarapacana, the woody plant that grows at the highest elevations in the world. The climate is dry and cold, ranging from cold steppe to cold desert and receiving less than 400 millimeters of rainfall annually, and the landscape is studded with volcanoes and vast salt flats such as Uyuni, Coipasa, and Atacama. Wild camelids including the vicuna roam the puna, the endangered Andean cat is the flagship species, and the region's saline lakes and bofedal wetlands support Andean, James's, and Chilean flamingos. Cushion-forming alpine genera such as Werneria and Nototriche, along with hardy high-altitude Senecio shrubs, are among the cold-adapted plants native here.

At a glance

About the montane grasslands & shrublands biome

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.

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