The Great Basin shrub steppe spans most of Nevada and much of Utah, with adjoining areas of California and Idaho, bounded by the Sierra Nevada to the west and the Wasatch Mountains to the east. Its landscape is a series of uplifted fault-block mountains separated by intervening basins, vegetated by big sagebrush along with bluebunch wheatgrass, Idaho fescue, and pinyon-juniper woodlands. The climate is extreme and arid: less than 250 mm of annual precipitation, with recorded temperatures at Elko, Nevada ranging from -42°C to +42°C. Roughly 100 internally drained basins hold remnant Pleistocene lakes such as Great Salt Lake and Pyramid Lake. Invasive cheatgrass and the unnaturally frequent fires it fuels are a leading conservation threat.

At a glance

About the deserts & xeric shrublands biome

Arid and semi-arid lands where low, erratic rainfall and high evaporation limit vegetation to drought-adapted shrubs, succulents, and sparse grasses. Day-to-night temperature swings are large, and life is finely tuned to water scarcity.

National refinement sub-regions

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 (1991-2020 climatology) via ArcGIS FeatureServer published 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