The Ozark Highlands mixed forests sit at the western edge of North America's central hardwoods region, covering about two-thirds of Missouri plus parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and a corner of southeastern Kansas. The rolling-to-dissected landscape (reaching a maximum of around 1,000 m) is dominated by oak-hickory and oak-hickory-pine forests interspersed with fire-maintained patches of prairie and oak savanna, with shortleaf pine as the flagship species. The climate is humid warm temperate, with hot summers and cool winters. The wider central hardwoods region holds relatively few tree species but high herbaceous diversity (some 2,527 species of herbaceous plants and shrubs), and the Ozarks themselves feature extensive karst topography of sinkholes, caves, and spring-fed streams that shelter endemic cave species such as the grotto salamander and southern cavefish. Only about 4% of the ecoregion is protected.

At a glance

About the temperate broadleaf & mixed forests biome

Four-season forests of deciduous hardwoods — oak, maple, beech — often mixed with conifers, shaped by warm summers and cold winters. Trees leaf out in spring and color in autumn; the generally fertile soils have made these forests heavily settled and farmed.

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