Southwest Arabian Escarpment shrublands and woodlands
RESOLVE 108
The Southwest Arabian Escarpment Shrublands and Woodlands (also mapped as the Southwestern Arabian foothills savanna) drape the steep western escarpment of the Arabian Peninsula, spanning the Asir Mountains of Saudi Arabia, the western highlands of Yemen, and reaching into Oman as the land rises from the Red Sea coast toward 2,000 meters. Drought-deciduous thorn woodlands, evergreen woodlands, shrublands, and dry grasslands clothe these slopes, with Acacia and Commiphora the signature genera, while the wetter western escarpment carries a dense evergreen canopy of mature trees reaching 30 meters dominated by Combretum and Terminalia, and seasonal wadis are lined with Breonadia, Cordia, Ficus, and Mimusops. The climate is tropical to semi-arid, but the escarpment intercepts far more moisture than the surrounding desert, and its terraced slopes act as moist refugia in an otherwise arid setting. Lying within both the Horn of Africa and Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspots, the ecoregion is rich in plant endemism and shelters the critically endangered Arabian leopard, the hamadryas baboon, and endemic birds such as Philby's partridge and the Yemen warbler, though overgrazing and cutting for timber and charcoal leave it with little formal protection. Gardeners will recognize the desert rose (Adenium obesum), a widely grown ornamental succulent that grows wild among this flora.
About the deserts & xeric shrublands biome
Arid and semi-arid lands where low, erratic rainfall and high evaporation limit vegetation to drought-adapted shrubs, succulents, and sparse grasses. Day-to-night temperature swings are large, and life is finely tuned to water scarcity.
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.
Climate-resilient picks · 4
These plants fit this ecoregion today AND remain in range under the mid-century SSP3-7.0 projection. Lead with these for a planting that holds up as the climate shifts.
Currently suited · 48
These plants fit the ecoregion as it is today, but the mid-century projection moves them outside their stated zone range — plan for them to struggle by 2070.
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.