The Jian Nan subtropical evergreen forests blanket the Nanling mountain range of southern China, spanning the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang along the divide that separates the northern Yangtze Valley from the southern Zhujiang (Pearl) River basin. These broadleaf forests are dominated by evergreen oaks and chestnuts, especially Quercus, Cyclobalanopsis, and Castanopsis, mixed with Schima, Camellia, and members of the laurel family. The climate is humid subtropical (Koppen Cfa), shaped by heavy summer monsoonal rainfall and typhoons in summer and autumn, with warm summers and cooler but frost-light winters. The ecoregion shelters notable wildlife, including the critically endangered Chinese giant salamander and primates such as Francois' langur, though only a small fraction of its area falls within protected reserves. For gardeners, it is the native home of ornamental camellias, whose tea-family relatives anchor the forest understory here.

At a glance

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.

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.

Related ecoregions