Northern Thailand-Laos moist deciduous forests
RESOLVE 258
The Northern Thailand-Laos moist deciduous forests cover the deeply-incised limestone karst mountains of northern Thailand and neighboring Laos, draining through the Ping, Wang, Yom, and Nan rivers toward the Chao Phraya and, on the Lao side, into the Mekong. Its signature habitat is mixed deciduous forest dominated by teak (Tectona grandis), growing alongside Xylia xylocarpa, Pterocarpus macrocarpus, Millettia brandisiana, Lagerstroemia, and Afzelia xylocarpa, with bamboo common where the forest has been disturbed. The climate is a tropical savanna type (Köppen Aw) with relatively even year-round temperatures, a pronounced dry season, and roughly 1,000-1,200 mm of annual rainfall. The green peafowl is the ecoregion's flagship species, though large mammals had been largely eliminated from the wild by the early 1970s and only about 20% of the region is formally protected. For gardeners, One Earth notes this is a center of diversity for wild bananas (Musa), and the native flora also includes ornamental flowering genera such as Lagerstroemia and Bombax.
About the tropical & subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome
Warm, wet, highly productive forests — including tropical rainforests — with closed canopies, near year-round growing seasons, and the richest terrestrial biodiversity on Earth. Low seasonality and high rainfall sustain dense, layered vegetation from canopy to forest floor.
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 · 4
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.
Currently suited · 48
These plants fit the ecoregion as it is today, but the mid-century projection moves them outside their stated zone range — plan for them to struggle by 2070.
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.