This is a list of plants that are endemic to the Appalachian Mountains of North America.
The Appalachian Mountains of Eastern North America are a biodiversity hotspot. [1] [2] Like other mountains, the Appalachians have high rates of endemism because they create isolated "islands" of unique habitat conditions distant from other, similar habitats. The high elevations of the Appalachians functioned as refugia at the end of the last ice age, and house many relict taxa that were more widespread in Southeastern North America when the climate was cooler. [3] [4] Together with the rugged, heterogenous topography and mild, wet climate, these factors make the Appalachians one of the most biodiverse temperate regions in the world. [5]
Vaccinium erythrocarpum, commonly known as southern mountain cranberry or bearberry, more rarely as mountain blueberry or dingleberry, is a deciduous flowering shrub native to the Southeastern United States.
There are over 190 vascular plant species on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. This figure does not include algae, mosses, and lichens, which are non-vascular plants. For an island so far north, this number of species constitutes an astonishing variety of plant life. Because of the harsh climate and the short growing season, all the plants are slow growing. They seldom grow higher than 10 cm (4 in)
The Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests is an ecoregion of the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. It consists of mesophytic plants west of the Appalachian Mountains in the Southeastern United States.
Eurybia macrophylla, commonly known as the bigleaf aster, large-leaved aster, largeleaf aster or bigleaf wood aster, is an herbaceous perennial in the family Asteraceae that was formerly treated in the genus Aster. It is native to eastern North America, with a range extending from eastern and central Canada through the northeastern deciduous and mixed forests of New England and the Great Lakes region and south along the Appalachians as far as the northeastern corner of Georgia, and west as far as Minnesota, Missouri and Arkansas. The flowers appear in the late summer to early fall and show ray florets that are usually either a deep lavender or violet, but sometimes white, and disc florets that are cream-coloured or light yellow, becoming purple as they mature. It is one of the parent species of the hybrid Eurybia × herveyi.
The Appalachian–Blue Ridge forests are an ecoregion in the Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests Biome, in the Eastern United States. The ecoregion is located in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains, including the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians and the Blue Ridge Mountains. It covers an area of about 61,500 square miles (159,000 km2) in: northeast Alabama and Georgia, northwest South Carolina, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and central West Virginia and Pennsylvania; and small extensions into Kentucky, New Jersey, and New York.
Eurybia surculosa, commonly known as the creeping aster, is an herbaceous perennial in the family Asteraceae that was previously treated in the genus Aster. It is native to the eastern United States where it is found in sandy soils along the coastal plain, though when E. compacta is also present, it exists farther inland in the southern Appalachian Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau. Although the species is not seriously threatened, it is locally endangered in Virginia and Alabama. The flowers, which have bluish violet ray florets and pale yellow disc florets that eventually turn purplish, emerge in summer and persist into the fall.
Eurybia chlorolepis, commonly known as the mountain wood aster, mountain aster, or Appalachian heartleaf aster, is a perennial, herbaceous plant native to the southeastern United States. It is present only at relatively high elevations in the Appalachian Mountains. Although it is not considered seriously threatened due to a large number of sites in some of its range, it is often locally endangered and possibly extirpated in the south of its range.
In the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States, balds are mountain summits or crests covered primarily by thick vegetation of native grasses or shrubs occurring in areas where heavy forest growth would be expected.
The Circumboreal Region in phytogeography is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in Eurasia and North America, as delineated by such geobotanists as Josias Braun-Blanquet and Armen Takhtajan.
Central Europe contains several life zones, depending on location and elevation.
Rhododendron vaseyi is a species of flowering plant in the heath family known by the common name pinkshell azalea. It is endemic to the Appalachian highlands of North Carolina in widely scattered locations. While there is a main center of distribution west of Asheville, there is also a large population on Grandfather Mountain, in the northwestern corner of the state.
The Central and southern Appalachian montane oak forest is a forest system found in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Cardamine flagellifera, commonly known as Blue Ridge bittercress, is a species of herbaceous plant in the mustard family. It is native to eastern North America, where it is found primarily in the southern Blue Ridge. It is a perennial that produces white flowers in the spring.
The Garden Mountain Cluster is a region in the Jefferson National Forest recognized by The Wilderness Society for its diversity of habitats extending along the east, south and west of Burke's Garden. The cluster, part of the Appalachian Mountains in southwest Virginia, connects wildlands in the high country of Garden Mountain and adjacent streams and ridges in one of the most remote areas of Virginia.