The Tarim Basin deciduous forests and steppe ecoregion lies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China, occupying ribbons of riparian forest and steppe that thread through the otherwise arid heart of the world's most landlocked basin. Its defining habitat is Tugay woodland dominated by the deciduous desert poplar (Populus euphratica), accompanied by Siberian elm, oleaster (Elaeagnus angustifolia), and salt-tolerant tamarisk (Tamarix ramosissima), with reed swamps of Phragmites australis where water gathers. The climate is harshly arid and continental, swinging from around -20C in winter to 40C in summer, with rainfall on the basin floor averaging only about 50 mm a year as surrounding mountains block monsoon and winter storms. Water diversion and dam construction along the Tarim River severely degraded these forests through the late twentieth century, and the endangered Yarkand deer (Cervus elaphus yarkandensis) fell from roughly 10,000 animals in the 1950s to fewer than 3,000 by the 1990s before restored river flows after 2000 allowed some recovery. For gardeners, the hardy poplars, oleaster, and tamarisk native here illustrate the kind of drought- and salt-tolerant trees suited to extreme dryland conditions.

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