The Hainan Island monsoon rain forests cover the mountainous interior of Hainan Island in southern China, rising to the 1,840-meter Wuzhi (Five Finger) Mountain at their core. The forest is strongly seasonal: deciduous trees such as Kleinhovia hospita, Spondias pinnata, and Tilia hainanensis drop their leaves during the dry winter, leaving a thin canopy and a grassy understory, while evergreen Castanopsis, Lithocarpus, and Schima clothe the wetter slopes and cloud forests above about 1,600 meters hold conifers including Dacrydium, Podocarpus, and Pinus. Climate is tropical and monsoonal, with rain concentrated in the summer wet season and a marked rain-shadow gradient: the east coast receives roughly 2,000 millimeters of rain a year while the west sees only about 1,000. The island is a biodiversity stronghold with around 4,200 plant species and many endemics, and it is recognized as an Endemic Bird Area, home to the endemic Hainan partridge. For gardeners, the region is the native home of ornamental and useful genera such as Spondias, Albizia, and Castanopsis.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 19.1°N, 109.5°E.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
°C
°F
Current zone range (2011–2040)
12b-13b
Plotwright
CHELSA-derived typical winter month at this ecoregion's bbox grid.
Projected (2041–2070)
12b-13b
Plotwright
Where the CHELSA models say the typical winter month is heading.
Average warming this ecoregion is on track for: +3.2°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.
At a glance
Dominant biome
Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Realm
Indomalayan
Approximate area
5,997 sq mi
Conservation tier
Nature Could Recover (Dinerstein NNH 3)
About the tropical & subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome
Warm, wet, highly productive forests — including tropical rainforests — with closed canopies, near year-round growing seasons, and the richest terrestrial biodiversity on Earth. Low seasonality and high rainfall sustain dense, layered vegetation from canopy to forest floor.
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 · 4
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 tropical & subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregions to explore: