The East European forest steppe is a transitional mosaic of broadleaf woodland and grassland that stretches roughly 2,100 km across the Palearctic, with most of its extent in Russia and Ukraine and outlying patches reaching into Moldova, the Carpathian foothills of Romania, and northeastern Bulgaria. It links the temperate broadleaf forests of the north with the steppe grasslands to the south, so its woodlands are built from common oak, oriental hornbeam, Scots pine, Norway maple, and European ash, with aspen and silver birch also common, while the open ground carries grasses such as feather grass and prairie junegrass alongside meadow clary, dropwort, and buttercup. The climate is temperate continental, with warm summers and cold winters marking the boundary between humid and arid environments. The region's flagship is the eastern imperial eagle, which holds its European stronghold here, but the ecoregion has been heavily transformed: forests that once covered up to a third of the territory have been reduced to roughly a tenth, and much of the land is now cropland. For gardeners, several of its native plants are familiar ornamentals or hardy landscape genera, including feather grass (Stipa) and meadow clary (Salvia pratensis).

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