The Novosibirsk Islands Arctic Desert covers the New Siberian Islands, an archipelago in the Extreme North of Russia that divides the Laptev and East Siberian Seas. This is a treeless polar landscape of Arctic tundra and barren polar desert underlain by continuous, ice-rich permafrost, where only low-growing plants together with a wide variety of mosses and lichens endure; the ecoregion hosts over 200 lichen species. The climate is severe, with winters lasting roughly eight months, January temperatures near minus 32 degrees Celsius, July averages around 4 degrees, and only about 200 millimeters of annual precipitation. It is a refuge for Arctic wildlife including polar bears, Pacific walrus, snowy owls, and wild reindeer, with the ringed seal as its flagship species, while Pleistocene megafauna such as woolly mammoths are frequently found preserved in the frozen soils and sea cliffs. Among the hardy native plants of the southern islands are tealeaf willow, white arctic mountain heather, and Alpine mountain-sorrel, genera familiar to growers of true alpine and rock-garden plantings.

At a glance

About the tundra biome

Treeless polar and high-mountain landscapes of low shrubs, sedges, mosses, and lichens, where cold and a short growing season cap plant height. Soils are frequently frozen as permafrost, and these systems recover only slowly from disturbance.

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