The Ordos Plateau steppe occupies the elevated highland cradled within the Great Bend of the Huang He (Yellow River) in northern China, spanning Inner Mongolia and reaching into neighboring Shaanxi and Ningxia. Vegetation shifts from east to west with growing aridity: Stipa grasslands give way to shrub steppes of Caragana and Artemisia before grading into desert steppe, while Siberian elm and poplar grow near villages and scrub willow lines the river margins. The climate is harsh and continental, receiving only 100 to 400 mm of rain that falls mostly in summer, with winters swept by intense Siberian winds across the roughly 1,500 m plateau. The ecoregion's flagship is the relict gull, a vulnerable species whose breeding lakes in the southern Ordos once hosted about a quarter of the global population but shrank by more than 80 percent between 1991 and 2014 as desertification and water demands took hold. Drought-adapted natives such as Caragana and Artemisia point gardeners toward genera suited to cold, dry, low-water settings.

At a glance

About the montane grasslands & shrublands biome

High-elevation grasslands, meadows, and shrublands above the treeline or in mountain basins, including alpine and páramo systems. Cool temperatures, intense sunlight, and specialized, often endemic flora characterize them.

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