The Sinú Valley dry forests occupy northwestern Colombia, centered on the Sinú River valley within the belt of low hills lying between the Magdalena lowlands and the Gulf of Urabá. These seasonal dry forests are dotted with dispersed trees such as kapok, balsa, and calabash, and historically yielded prized timbers including mahogany, Spanish cedar, and guayacan. Rainfall is strongly seasonal, with a pronounced dry period in the early months of the year and fertile soils renewed by annual flooding of the Sinú River. Wedged between the Chocó moist forests and the Magdalena valley, the region serves as a genetic corridor and contact zone, and is notably the only known area where two tapir species overlap in range, with the Baird's tapir as its flagship; the World Wildlife Fund rates it Critical/Endangered. Gardeners may recognize one of its threatened endemics, the orchid Cattleya aurea, long over-collected from the wild.

At a glance

About the tropical & subtropical dry broadleaf forests biome

Tropical forests that pass through a pronounced dry season, when many trees drop their leaves to conserve water. They hold high biodiversity but are among the most threatened tropical habitats, sensitive to fire and to clearing for agriculture.

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

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.

Related ecoregions