Types of Forests: Coniferous forests

Coniferous forest. Image credit chcentralmich.com

• Coniferous forests consists of evergreen trees which do not shed their leaves at any time of the year.
• These are confined to the cool temperature, latitude in belts stretching across northern USA. Southern Canada, Scandinavia, northern Europe and the former Soviet Union among others.
• Coniferous forest, the vegetation is composed primarily of cone-bearing needle-leaved or scale-leaved evergreen trees.
• Found in areas that have long winters and moderate to high annual precipitation.
• The northern Eurasian coniferous forest is called the taiga, or the boreal forest
• The forests consists of pure stands of softwoods like pines, firs and spruce.
• Trees are fast maturing, have adapted to snowy conditions, droughts and a short growing season.
• Since they grow well in areas with poor sandy soils, they offer little competition from human activities like farming.

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