The Eastern Australian temperate forests cover the southeastern Australian wet-eucalypt forest belt — from coastal southeast Queensland through New South Wales (the Great Dividing Range east slopes), eastern Victoria, and the immediately adjacent inland tablelands. Mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans), messmate, manna gum, and brown stringybark anchor the wet-forest canopies, with tree ferns, sassafras, and southern beech in the understory of the wettest gullies. Sydney + Newcastle + Wollongong + Melbourne all sit at or near the coastal edge of this ecoregion.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 29.5°S, 152.0°E.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
°C
°F
Current zone range (2011–2040)
10b-13a
Plotwright
CHELSA-derived typical winter month at this ecoregion's bbox grid.
Projected (2041–2070)
10b-13a
Plotwright
Where the CHELSA models say the typical winter month is heading.
Average warming this ecoregion is on track for: +3.1°F by mid-century. SSP3-7.0 (current trajectory) · CHELSA v2.1 bio06 sampled across 10 of 10 points within this ecoregion's bounding box.
• The 2019-2020 Black Summer fires burned ~24% of the eastern Australian temperate-forest biome — a historically unprecedented single-season fraction; the projected envelope (warmer + drier + longer fire seasons) suggests the new return interval is structurally compressed.
• Wet-eucalypt species (mountain ash in particular) are obligate seeders that need ~20+ year intervals between high-severity fires to set seed; compressed fire return below that threshold is an existential ecological risk.
• Garden-relevant: cool-climate eucalypts (snow gum, manna gum, alpine ash) and shrub-layer Banksia, Grevillea, and Westringia ship globally and remain core Mediterranean-climate garden plants.
At a glance
States / provinces
Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria
Dominant biome
Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
Realm
Australasia
Approximate area
114,255 sq mi
Elevation range
0 – 7,300 ft
Climate type
Temperate oceanic to subtropical (Köppen Cfa / Cfb)
Conservation tier
Nature Imperiled (Dinerstein NNH 4)
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.
Climate-resilient picks · 79
These plants fit this ecoregion today AND remain in range under the mid-century SSP3-7.0 projection. Lead with these for a planting that holds up as the climate shifts.
No curated collection's plants all fit this ecoregion's zone range. We surface a collection only when every member would grow here — partial fits get filtered out rather than mislead. As the catalog and the curated set both grow, this section will fill in.
Related ecoregions
Other temperate broadleaf & mixed forests ecoregions to explore: