Barren vegetation

Barren vegetation describes an area of land where plant growth may be sparse, stunted, and/or contain limited biodiversity.

[3] Serpentine barrens are distinct due to the serpentine-rich soil produced by the hydration weathering and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic igneous bedrock.

[4] The Pine Barrens comprise 550,000 hectares of a heavily forested area of coastal plain and are home to at least 850 species of plant life, including many which are endangered or threatened.

[7] The coastal barrens of Atlantic Canada host a variety of taxonomic species such as macro lichens, mosses, and vascular plants.

[1] In Sydney, Australia, the coastal area is mostly dominated by mallee or stunted forms of eucalyptus trees, and scrubby vegetation such as Allocasuarina distyla, Angophora hispida, Banksia ericifolia and Grevillea oleoides, among other species, typically in an exposed coastal sandstone plateau with infertile, shallow, fairly damp soils.

Unique to New South Wales, such vegetation is found from Gosford to Royal National Park, with southern outliers at Barren Grounds and Jervis Bay.

Subnival zones in places like the Rockies, Andes, and Himalayas have increased greatly in the past few years due to the retreat of high elevation glaciers and the ice caps.

[17] One area for study is The Nottingham Serpentine Barrens, which covers 200 ha in southern Chester Country, Pennsylvania on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border.

For example, in the southern Appalachians, high-elevation outcrops, composition gradients are a function of elevation, potential solar radiation, a geographic gradient that corresponds to broad geological differences (mafic rocks to the northwest vs. felsic rocks in the southwest direction), and surficial geomorphology (bedrock surfaces that are less fractured in the southeast).