The Central European mixed forests stretch across the formerly glaciated lowland plains of northeastern Europe, spanning eastern Germany and the Baltic shore through Poland, the Czech Republic, southern Lithuania, Belarus, and western and central Ukraine, with portions reaching Russia, Romania, and Moldova. This temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is naturally dominated by oak, European hornbeam, lime, and beech, while Norway spruce and European silver fir grow more commonly in the north; centuries of forestry have made Scots pine the most planted tree, reaching up to 90 percent of stands in western Poland. The climate is humid continental, becoming increasingly continental toward the east. Today only about a third of the region remains forested, the rest a patchwork of farmland, meadows, and wetlands, though the Białowieża Forest survives as one of Europe's last fragments of primeval woodland and shelters European bison, brown bear, Eurasian lynx, grey wolf, and the characteristic white-backed woodpecker.

At a glance

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.

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