Peruvian Yungas
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The Peruvian Yungas blanket the eastern slopes and valleys of the Andes in Peru, running roughly from the Marañón Valley depression in the north to near the Bolivian border, and form a transitional belt between the Amazon lowlands to the east and the high-altitude puna grasslands to the west. These are richly layered montane forests whose composition shifts with elevation: below about 2,700 meters they include cedar (Cedrela), trumpet tree (Tabebuia), and papaya relatives (Carica), while tree ferns (Cyathea) and bamboo (Chusquea) are common and Podocarpus conifers appear in scrublands above roughly 3,500 meters. The climate grades from a tropical rainforest character in the north to a subtropical highland climate in the south, with heavy rains and temperatures that cool markedly as elevation rises. Counted among the richest montane forest ecosystems in the Neotropics, the region supports thousands of plant species and a flagship bird, the endangered long-whiskered owlet, yet it is considered nearly critically endangered owing to deforestation, coca cultivation, and agricultural pressure. Gardeners will recognize horticultural genera native here, including the orchids Epidendrum and Maxillaria.
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.
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.