The Madeira evergreen forests cover the Madeira archipelago, an autonomous region of Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean roughly 560 km west of Morocco, along with the nearby Desertas and Selvagens islands. The defining habitat is laurisilva, a relict subtropical laurel forest of glossy-leaved evergreen trees in the Lauraceae family, including Canary laurel (Laurus novocanariensis), til (Ocotea foetens), and Persea indica, alongside other Macaronesian trees such as Clethra arborea and Picconia excelsa. The climate is mild, oceanic and humid, moderated by the surrounding Atlantic, with frequent cloud, mist and fog at higher elevations where the forest grows on cool, wet slopes. These forests form the largest surviving stand of a laurel-forest type that once spread across southern Europe, and they shelter many endemic species, from the Trocaz pigeon and Zino's petrel to dozens of vascular plants found nowhere else; the laurisilva is protected within Madeira Natural Park and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. Gardeners may recognize Clethra arborea, the lily-of-the-valley tree, as an ornamental native to this ecoregion.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 32.7°N, 17.0°W.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
°C
°F
Current zone range (2011–2040)
11b-13a
Plotwright
CHELSA-derived typical winter month at this ecoregion's bbox grid.
Projected (2041–2070)
11b-13a
Plotwright
Where the CHELSA models say the typical winter month is heading.
Average warming this ecoregion is on track for: +2.6°F by mid-century. SSP3-7.0 (current trajectory) · CHELSA v2.1 bio06 sampled across 7 of 10 points within this ecoregion's bounding box.
At a glance
Dominant biome
Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
Realm
Palearctic
Approximate area
314 sq mi
Conservation tier
Nature Imperiled (Dinerstein NNH 4)
About the temperate broadleaf & mixed forests biome
Four-season forests of deciduous hardwoods — oak, maple, beech — often mixed with conifers, shaped by warm summers and cold winters. Trees leaf out in spring and color in autumn; the generally fertile soils have made these forests heavily settled and farmed.
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 · 52
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 temperate broadleaf & mixed forests ecoregions to explore: