The Wrangel Island Arctic Desert is a Palearctic tundra ecoregion covering Russia's Wrangel Island, a remote, mountainous island in the Arctic Ocean between the Chukchi and East Siberian Seas, roughly 140 km off the Chukotka coast. Its vegetation is a mosaic of polar desert with hard-packed, gravelly soils and Arctic tundra, treeless and dominated by low-growing plants such as dwarf willows (Salix), sedges (Carex), and mountain-avens. The climate is severe and dry, with prolonged frosty winters, strong northerly winds, and very low annual precipitation. Because the island escaped glaciation during the last ice age, it shelters an exceptionally rich flora of 417 vascular plant species and subspecies, double that of any comparable Arctic territory, including endemic plants and numerous relict species of ancient Beringia. The island is protected as the Natural System of Wrangel Island Reserve, a strict nature reserve inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Among its hardy natives are alpine and rock-garden genera familiar to cold-climate gardeners, including Saxifraga, Primula, Potentilla, and Draba.

At a glance

About the tundra biome

Treeless polar and high-mountain landscapes of low shrubs, sedges, mosses, and lichens, where cold and a short growing season cap plant height. Soils are frequently frozen as permafrost, and these systems recover only slowly from disturbance.

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's NRCan Plant Hardiness Zone 1981-2010 GeoTIFF published 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