{{No footnotes, date=May 2020 The Austroriparian is a

biogeographic province This page features a list of biogeography, biogeographic provinces that were developed by Miklos Udvardy in 1975,Udvardy, M. D. F. (1975). ''A classification of the biogeographical provinces of the world''. IUCN Occasional Paper no. 18. Morges, ...

in the Southeastern

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. As designated by

Miklos Udvardy Miklos Dezso Ferenc Udvardy (March 23, 1919 – January 27, 1998) was a Hungarian-born Canadian biologist and professor at the University of British Columbia. He made significant contributions to various fields, including biogeography, evoluti ...

, it includes the humid coniferous and mixed temperate forests of the

Mississippi Alluvial Plain The Mississippi River Alluvial Plain is an alluvial plain created by the Mississippi River on which lie parts of seven U.S. states, from southern Louisiana to southern Illinois (Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Lo ...

and the

Atlantic Coastal Plain The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

from eastern Texas to southeastern Virginia, including all but the southernmost portion of

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, and covering portions of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas. In the WWF designation of

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

s, the Austroriparian province corresponds generally to the Mississippi lowland forests,

Middle Atlantic coastal forests The Middle Atlantic coastal forests are a temperate coniferous forest mixed with patches of evergreen broadleaved forests (closer to the Atlantic coast) along the coast of the southeastern United States. Setting The Middle Atlantic coastal for ...

Southeastern conifer forests The Southeastern conifer forests are a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion of the southeastern United States. It is the largest conifer forest ecoregion east of the Mississippi River. It is also the southernmost instance of temperate coniferou ...

, Florida Sand Pine Scrub, and the eastern portion of the

Western Gulf coastal grasslands The Western Gulf coastal grasslands () are a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands, subtropical grassland ecoregion of the southern United States and northeastern Mexico. It is known in Louisiana as the "Cajun Prairie", T ...

ecoregions. The Austroriparian province corresponds to the southern portion of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain

floristic province A phytochorion, in phytogeography, is a geographic area with a relatively uniform composition of plant species. Adjacent phytochoria do not usually have a sharp boundary, but rather a soft one, a transitional area in which many species from both re ...

. The name is compound of the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

terms ''Austro'' (southern) and ''

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. In some regions, the terms riparian woodland, riparian forest, riparian buffer zone, riparian corridor, and riparian strip are used to characterize a ripar ...

'' (of the river bank).

References