The West Saharan montane xeric woodlands span the high volcanic massifs that rise out of the central and western Sahara across Algeria, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Libya, including the Ahaggar (Hoggar) Mountains, the Tassili n'Ajjer plateau, and the Aïr massif. These cooler, slightly wetter highlands act as island refuges of xerophytic shrub and woodland, much of it relict Mediterranean vegetation surviving from a far wetter period roughly 5,000 years ago. The climate is harshly arid, with rare and sporadic rainfall, very hot summers, and large daily temperature swings in winter when days warm above 20°C but nights can drop below freezing. Endemic and rare plants include the Saharan cypress (Cupressus dupreziana), Saharan myrtle (Myrtus nivellei), and a wild olive (Olea europaea subspecies laperrinei), and the ecoregion's flagship animal is the critically rare Northwest African cheetah. For gardeners, these drought-adapted relicts of the genera Cupressus, Myrtus, and Olea show how Mediterranean-affiliated woody plants persist under extreme heat and aridity.

At a glance

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.

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