The Ozark Mountain forests cover the rugged, largely forested uplands of northern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma, spanning the Boston Mountains, the Arkansas Valley, and the Ouachita Mountains. This temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is dominated by oak-hickory and oak-hickory-pine woodland, with shortleaf pine on dry south- and southwest-facing slopes and bottomland deciduous forest on valley floodplains. The climate is humid and warm temperate, with hot summers and mild winters. The region is notably rich in endemic species, including the Fourche Mountain salamander and Ouachita madtom, and the eastern collared lizard serves as its flagship species.

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