This Mediterranean ecoregion fringes the northwestern Mediterranean coast, stretching from Valencia and Catalonia in northeastern Spain across the Balearic Islands to Languedoc and Provence in southern France, with a small Italian portion. Its forests are dominated by evergreen oaks, chiefly holm oak and cork oak, alongside deciduous oaks and pines such as stone pine and maritime pine, while high shrublands known as maquis or matorral are widespread and feature wild olive and carob, and lower garrigue carries aromatic shrubs. The climate is classically Mediterranean, with hot dry summers and mild rainy winters, annual average temperatures of roughly 10 to 17 degrees Celsius and rainfall often concentrated in autumn. The region holds several centers of plant diversity with high endemism, and its coastal wetlands, including the Ebro and Rhone deltas, are vital waterbird habitats; the Audouin's gull is the ecoregion's flagship species, with a large share of its global population nesting at the Ebro Delta. For gardeners, this is the native home of horticulturally familiar Mediterranean plants such as holm oak, cork oak, stone pine, wild olive, and carob, plus aromatic garrigue shrubs and local endemics like Thymus richardii.

At a glance

About the mediterranean forests, woodlands & scrub biome

Regions of hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters supporting drought-adapted shrublands — chaparral, maquis, fynbos — and open woodlands. Fire is a natural shaping force, and these climates hold extraordinary plant diversity and endemism.

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

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