The Russian Arctic Desert spans the highest-latitude island groups of the Barents and Kara Seas, covering Norway's Svalbard archipelago along with Franz Josef Land, Severny Island, and Severnaya Zemlya in the Russian Arctic, much of it lying above 75 degrees north. Across rocky, glacier-scoured terrain its sparse plant cover is dominated by mosses, lichens, and low-growing herbs, with dwarf Arctic birch surviving as a ground-clinging creeper that hugs the soil to escape the wind. The climate is severe and truly arctic, bringing long, cold winters, very brief summers in which no month averages above 10 degrees Celsius, and landscapes of snow, ice, and bare rock under midnight sun and polar night. Despite this harshness the region supports notable wildlife, including the flagship Svalbard rock ptarmigan, large ivory gull colonies, and roughly 6,000 polar bears, and more than a third of the ecoregion lies within protected areas such as Russian Arctic National Park. For gardeners drawn to alpine and tundra plants, the endemic Svalbard poppy is among the hardy native flora that endure here.

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