La Costa xeric shrublands
RESOLVE 603
The La Costa xeric shrublands stretch along northern Venezuela's Caribbean coast, running from Sucre state in the east to Yaracuy state in the west and taking in plains, hills, and isolated mountains that rise from sea level to about 1,000 meters. The vegetation is dense, drought-adapted thorn scrub, savanna, and dry forest, dominated by cacti and by legume and caper families, with characteristic genera such as Prosopis, Cereus, Caesalpinia, Erythroxylum, Jacquinia, and Mimosa alongside coastal mangroves and lagoons. The climate is semi-arid, with annual rainfall ranging from roughly 300 to 1,000 millimeters. Despite heavy modification since 16th-century colonization replaced much of the original scrub with farms and pasture, the ecoregion still shelters notable endemics, including the yellow-shouldered amazon parrot and the vermilion cardinal, the latter treated as its flagship species. For dry-climate gardeners, its native drought-hardy genera like Prosopis, Caesalpinia, and columnar Cereus cacti are well suited to low-water, xeriscape plantings.
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.
Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion
No catalog plants intersect this ecoregion's zone range. As the catalog grows to cover this region's climate band, suggestions will surface here.
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.