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The Eastern Temperate Forests of North America are a vast and diverse region. Stretching inland from the Atlantic coast about 385 miles (620 km), they reach from Michigan in the north and Texas in the south; they cover the land of New England to Florida, Alabama to Michigan, and Missouri to the Appalachian Mountains.
Upper slope hardwood–conifer mixed forests are an area of transition between the northern hardwood and the mountain conifer forests. They are similar to hardwood–conifer forests, but with no red maple. Red spruce and eastern hemlock, together with sugar maple, yellow birch, and American beech are the dominant species, with scattered white pine.
Alaska is the most biodiverse state with 15 ecoregions across three biomes in the same realm. California comes in a close second with 13 ecoregions across four biomes in the same realm. By contrast, Rhode Island is the least biodiverse with just one ecoregion—the Northeastern coastal forests —encompassing the entire state.
1990 USDA Hardiness zone map detail for the northeast US. Zone 3a is light orange, zone 4b is light lavender. The area is a temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome transition zone between the true boreal forest to the north and the Big Woods and Carolinian forest to the south, with characteristics of each.
Forests typically have an open canopy and a grassy understory. The predominant trees are deciduous oaks, including Quercus brantii, Q. libani, Q. boissieri, and Q. ithaburensis ssp. macrolepis. Other forest communities include Quercus robur ssp. pedunculiflora forests and montane Pinus sylvestris forests.
Open forests of ponderosa pine and some lodgepole pine distinguish this region from the Cascades ecoregion, where hemlock and fir forests are more common, and from the lower, drier ecoregions to the east, where shrubs and grasslands are predominant. The vegetation is adapted to the prevailing dry, continental climate and frequent wildfire.
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This ecoregion contains a number of mountainous areas on the east coast of Canada and along the Saint Lawrence River in eastern Quebec (including Anticosti Island in the Saint Lawrence) and the coast up to near Labrador, on the island of Newfoundland, in the highlands of New Brunswick, and the Cape Breton Highlands on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.