The Montana Valley and Foothill grasslands cover roughly 10 million hectares of rolling grassy hills and river valleys along the Rocky Mountain foothills of Montana, Wyoming, and Alberta, forming the matrix of the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The landscape is dominated by grasses such as rough fescue, Parry's oatgrass, and wheatgrass, mixed with sagebrush shrubland in drier areas and riparian forest along waterways. Summers are dry and warm and winters mild for the latitude, with warm, dry "Chinook" winds that rapidly melt snow. These grasslands were historically shaped by bison grazing and periodic fire; today only about 3% is protected, though much habitat outside reserves remains intact.

At a glance

About the temperate grasslands, savannas & shrublands biome

Temperate prairies, steppes, and pampas of grasses and forbs with few trees, under continental climates of hot summers and cold winters. Their deep, fertile soils have made them among the most extensively converted biomes for agriculture.

National refinement sub-regions

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 (1991-2020 climatology) via ArcGIS FeatureServer published 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

Curated multi-plant collections whose members all fit this ecoregion's zone range — no won't-grow members smuggled in. Overall fit class shown per collection is the weakest link across its members.

Related ecoregions