Illyrian deciduous forests
RESOLVE 794
The Illyrian deciduous forests run along the eastern coast of the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, stretching from northern Italy near Trieste down through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Albania into northern Greece. The forests are notable for a high diversity of deciduous oaks, including Hungarian oak (Quercus frainetto), downy oak (Q. pubescens), and Austrian oak (Q. cerris), mixed with Oriental hornbeam (Carpinus orientalis), sweet chestnut, and flowering ash (Fraxinus ornus); nearer the coast, evergreen holm oak, Aleppo pine, and maquis shrubland take over. The climate is largely Mediterranean, with hot summers grading into humid, wet-winter conditions. This is a strongly endemic flora, with an estimated 10 to 20 percent of plant species found nowhere else, among them Degenia velebitica, Primula kitaibeliana, and Symphyandra hofmannii, while the karst waters shelter endemic fish of the genus Paraphoxinus. Gardeners may recognize several ornamentals native here, including olive, oleander, strawberry trees (Arbutus), and tree heath.
About the mediterranean forests, woodlands & scrub biome
Regions of hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters supporting drought-adapted shrublands — chaparral, maquis, fynbos — and open woodlands. Fire is a natural shaping force, and these climates hold extraordinary plant diversity and endemism.
Collections for this ecoregion
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.