The Taiheiyo montane deciduous forests stretch along the eastern, Pacific-facing slopes of Japan's largest island, Honshu, reaching from Kyushu in the south to northeastern Honshu, with smaller patches on Shikoku and a large inland section centered on the Akaishi Mountains of the southern Japanese Alps. These mountain forests are dominated by Japanese beech (Fagus), accompanied at higher elevations by stone pine and spruce (Picea), with katsura (Cercidiphyllum) and an understorey of dwarf bamboo. The climate is humid continental with warm summers and cold, often sub-zero winters, spanning elevations from sea level to about 3,000 meters and including Mount Kitadake, the country's second-highest peak. The Japanese macaque is the ecoregion's flagship species, alongside Asiatic black bear, sika deer, and Japanese serow, and protected lands here include Minami Alps National Park and part of Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. Gardeners will recognize many ornamental genera native to these forests, including Prunus, Tilia, Betula, Cercidiphyllum, and Cryptomeria.

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.

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