The Mediterranean conifer and mixed forests cloak the high mountain ranges of North Africa, spanning Morocco's Rif and Middle Atlas, Algeria's Tellien and Saharan Atlas, and the Kroumerie ranges of northwestern Tunisia, reaching their summit at 3,340 meters on Mount Bou Naceur. The vegetation sorts into two zones: a conifer belt of Atlas cedar, fir, and pine roughly between 1,200 and 2,500 meters, and a mixed broadleaf zone of oaks such as cork oak and Algerian oak nearer the coast, with junipers at higher elevations. The climate is mountainous Mediterranean, averaging around 1,000 mm of rainfall annually but reaching 1,600 to 2,200 mm at the highest slopes, with winters that drop below freezing and bring snow. Flowering-plant endemism exceeds 20% on the main massifs, and these forests are a last refuge for threatened mammals including the Barbary macaque, Atlas deer, and African leopard; the Atlas lion survived here in the wild until 1930. For gardeners, the region is the native home of the Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica), a widely planted ornamental conifer.

At a glance

About the temperate conifer forests biome

Temperate forests dominated by evergreen conifers, from coastal rainforests to montane pine and fir stands. Adapted to cool, moist or seasonally dry climates, they include some of the tallest and longest-lived trees on the planet.

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