The Magellanic subpolar forests cloak the flanks of the southern Andes and adjacent lowlands of southernmost South America, spanning southern Chile and Argentina out to the Tierra del Fuego archipelago and holding the world's southernmost forests. Southern beeches of the genus Nothofagus dominate, with evergreen Magellan's beech (Nothofagus betuloides) to the wetter west giving way to deciduous lenga (N. pumilio) and nire (N. antarctica) toward the east, alongside Drimys winteri and the conifer Pilgerodendron uviferum. The climate is cold and wet, shaped by strong westerly winds that bend exposed trees into distinctive flag forms, with rainfall falling sharply from the western slopes to the drier eastern margin. The region shelters notable wildlife including the southern pudu, the world's smallest deer, and the Chilean huemul, while the introduced North American beaver remains a significant invasive threat. For gardeners, the native Drimys winteri, known as Winter's bark, is grown ornamentally for its aromatic evergreen foliage.

At a glance

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.

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