Temperate Rainforest

A biome of the cool mid-latitudes, roughly 40 to 60 degrees north and south, defined less by temperature than by exceptionally heavy and near-constant moisture: direct rainfall through most of the year, often supplemented near the coast by fog drip condensing on the forest canopy. That sets it apart from the Temperate Forest biome further inland, which carries a true dry season and is dominated by broadleaf deciduous trees; a temperate rainforest instead stays wet enough to support evergreen, often coniferous, giants that never need to shed their leaves against drought. The largest example, the Pacific temperate rainforest of North America, runs roughly 1,900 kilometers along the coast from northern California through British Columbia to southeast Alaska, built on towering conifers such as coast redwood, Sitka spruce, western hemlock and Douglas fir; comparable but floristically distinct temperate rainforests occur in Chile and Argentina's Valdivian forest and in smaller patches of New Zealand and Tasmania.