Vegetation of New England and The Maritime Provinces - Setting

Setting

This ecoregion is bordered by the oak-dominated Northeastern coastal forests on the coastal plain to the south; the Gulf of St. Lawrence lowland forests on the coasts and islands of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence; and to the north and northeast the Eastern forest-boreal transition and the Eastern Canadian forests. There is also a disjunct patch of forest-boreal transition on the Adirondack Mountains.

In Canada the New England-Acadian forests ecoregion includes the Eastern Townships and Beauce regions of southern Quebec, half of New Brunswick and most of Nova Scotia, and in the United States northwestern Connecticut, northwestern Massachusetts, Lake Champlain and the Champlain Valley of Vermont, and the uplands and coastal plain of New Hampshire, and almost all of Maine. This entire area is sometimes referred to as the Atlantic Northeast. Specific areas include the Bay of Fundy coast, northern Appalachian Mountains including the uplands and the Saint John River valley of New Brunswick and the highlands of the Nova Scotia peninsula with the highest peaks being the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

The climate consists of warm summers and cold snowy winters with the Atlantic Ocean bringing rain all year round. The seaboard lowlands of this region, which extends to mid-coastal Maine, exhibits a more mild climate and has a somewhat distinct vegetation in which hardwoods play a more important role.