The Crimean Submediterranean forest complex occupies two coastal enclaves on the northern shore of the Black Sea, spanning the southern coast of Crimea into the Crimean Mountains and the Black Sea coast of Russia's Krasnodar Krai along the flank of the Caucasus. Despite its relatively high latitude, the ecoregion has a Mediterranean-style climate of hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters, which supports a wealth of typically Mediterranean flora. Lower elevations carry shrublands and woodlands of Christ's thorn, pistachio, downy oak, and three junipers (Greek, prickly, and foetid), while higher slopes give way to oriental beech, European hornbeam, and sessile oak, with pine dominating the highest zones. The flagship species is the southern crested newt, and roughly 3,144 square kilometers, about 10 percent of the ecoregion, lies within protected areas. For gardeners, the same mild winters that favor native pistachio and juniper also sustain the region's intensively cultivated vineyards.

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