The East Siberian taiga is one of the largest unbroken tracts of boreal forest on Earth, sprawling across the heart of central and eastern Siberia in Russia from the Yenisei River westward to the Verkhoyansk, Kolyma, and Dzhugdzhur mountain ranges in the east. It is overwhelmingly a forest of larch, with Siberian larch in the west and south and Dahurian larch to the north and east, mixed in places with dark conifers such as Siberian spruce, Siberian pine, Siberian fir, and Scots pine, alongside broadleaf birches and aspen. The climate is harshly continental and subarctic, with cold mean annual temperatures and most of the ecoregion underlain by permanent permafrost that shapes its drainage and rooting conditions. This vast wilderness supports globally important populations of brown bear, grey wolf, wolverine, sable, and reindeer, and its flagship species is the Siberian musk deer. The forest understory carries low-growing acid-loving plants including marsh Labrador tea, bilberry, and cranberry, evergreen shrubs of the heath family that hint at the sour, frozen ground these northern boreal genera tolerate.

At a glance

About the boreal forests/taiga biome

The vast northern forest belt of spruce, fir, pine, and larch, defined by long, severe winters and short growing seasons. Often underlain by permafrost and wetlands, the taiga forms one of the world’s largest terrestrial carbon stores.

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