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The Boreal Kingdom or Holarctic Kingdom (Holarctis) is a floristic kingdom identified by botanist Ronald Good (and later by Armen Takhtajan
Armen Takhtajan

Armen Leonovich Takhtajan or Takhtajian , is a Soviet-Armenians botanist, one of the most important figures in 20th century plant evolution and plant taxonomy and biogeography....
), which includes the temperate-to-arctic portions of North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
 and Eurasia
Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
. Its flora is inherited from the ancient supercontinent of Laurasia
Laurasia

Laurasia was a supercontinent that most recently existed as a part of the split of the Pangaean supercontinent in the late Mesozoic era . It included most of the landmasses which make up today's continents of the northern hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia , Baltica, Siberia , Kazakhstania, and the North China Craton and East China Craton craton...
.






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Rhododendron Palustre
The Boreal Kingdom or Holarctic Kingdom (Holarctis) is a floristic kingdom identified by botanist Ronald Good (and later by Armen Takhtajan
Armen Takhtajan

Armen Leonovich Takhtajan or Takhtajian , is a Soviet-Armenians botanist, one of the most important figures in 20th century plant evolution and plant taxonomy and biogeography....
), which includes the temperate-to-arctic portions of North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
 and Eurasia
Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
. Its flora is inherited from the ancient supercontinent of Laurasia
Laurasia

Laurasia was a supercontinent that most recently existed as a part of the split of the Pangaean supercontinent in the late Mesozoic era . It included most of the landmasses which make up today's continents of the northern hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia , Baltica, Siberia , Kazakhstania, and the North China Craton and East China Craton craton...
. However, much of the floristic kingdom (and most of its Circumboreal Region
Circumboreal Region

The Circumboreal Region is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in Eurasia and North America, as delineated by such geobotanists as Josias Braun-Blanquet and Armen Takhtajan....
) was glaciated during the Pleistocene
Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 1.8 million to 10,000 years Before Present covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
 and has a very young flora. Tertiary relicts found refuge in the southern and mountainous parts of the kingdom, especially in the Eastern Asiatic Region
Eastern Asiatic Region

The Eastern Asiatic Region is the richest floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom and situated in temperate climate East Asia. It has been recognized as a natural floristic area since 1872 August Grisebach's volume Die Vegetation der Erde and later delineated by such geobotanists as Ludwig Diels, Adolf Engler , Ronald Good and Arm...
 and North American Atlantic Region
North American Atlantic Region

North American Atlantic Region is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom identified by Armen Takhtajan and Robert F. Thorne, spanning from the East Coast of the United States and Gulf Coast of the United States coasts to the Great Plains and comprising a major part of the United States and southeastern portions of Canada....
.

Good noted that the plant species of temperate North America and Eurasia were very closely related, despite their separation by the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
 and the Bering Strait
Bering Strait

The Bering Strait is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65? 40' north, slightly south of the polar circle....
.

Millions of years ago, before the opening of the Atlantic Ocean, North America and Eurasia were joined as a single continent, Laurasia
Laurasia

Laurasia was a supercontinent that most recently existed as a part of the split of the Pangaean supercontinent in the late Mesozoic era . It included most of the landmasses which make up today's continents of the northern hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia , Baltica, Siberia , Kazakhstania, and the North China Craton and East China Craton craton...
. After the opening of the Atlantic, the continents were connected to one another periodically via land bridges linking Alaska
Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
 and Siberia
Siberia

Siberia , is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of North Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the Soviet Union from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the 16th century....
. Until a few million years ago, the global climate was warmer than at present, especially at higher latitudes, and many temperate-climate species were distributed across North America and Eurasia via Alaska and Siberia. The sharply cooler climate of the past few million years eliminated a temperate-zone connection between North America and Eurasia, but common Laurasian origins and a long history of temperate-climate land bridges account for the botanical similarities between the temperate floras on the two continents.

A floristic kingdom is the botanical analogue to an ecozone
Ecozone

An ecozone or biogeographic realm is the largest scale biogeography division of the earth's surface based on the historic and evolutionary distribution patterns of plants and animals....
, which takes into account the distribution of animal as well as plant species. Many biogeographers
Biogeography

Biogeography is the study of the distribution of biodiversity over space and time. It aims to reveal where organisms live, and at what abundance....
 distinguish the Boreal Kingdom as comprising two ecozones, the Nearctic
Nearctic

The Nearctic is one of the eight Terrestrial ecoregion ecozones dividing the Earth's land surface.The Nearctic ecozone covers most of North America, including Greenland and the highlands of Mexico....
 (North America) and Palearctic
Palearctic

The Palearctic or Palaearctic is one of the eight ecozones dividing the Earth surface.Physically, the Palearctic is the largest ecozone....
 (Eurasia). Others, based on the distribution of related plant and animal families, include the Palearctic and Nearctic in a single Holarctic
Holarctic

The Holarctic ecozone refers to the habitats found throughout the northern continents of the world as a whole. This region is divided into the Palearctic, consisting of Northern Africa and all of Eurasia, with the exception of Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, and the Nearctic, consisting of North America south to northern Mexico....
 ecozone, which corresponds to Good's Boreal Kingdom.

The kingdom is subdivided into three floristic subkingdoms and nine floristic regions.

Subdivisions


Boreal Subkingdom

  • Circumboreal Region
    Circumboreal Region

    The Circumboreal Region is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in Eurasia and North America, as delineated by such geobotanists as Josias Braun-Blanquet and Armen Takhtajan....
  • Eastern Asiatic Region
    Eastern Asiatic Region

    The Eastern Asiatic Region is the richest floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom and situated in temperate climate East Asia. It has been recognized as a natural floristic area since 1872 August Grisebach's volume Die Vegetation der Erde and later delineated by such geobotanists as Ludwig Diels, Adolf Engler , Ronald Good and Arm...
  • North American Atlantic Region
    North American Atlantic Region

    North American Atlantic Region is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom identified by Armen Takhtajan and Robert F. Thorne, spanning from the East Coast of the United States and Gulf Coast of the United States coasts to the Great Plains and comprising a major part of the United States and southeastern portions of Canada....
  • Rocky Mountain Region
    Rocky Mountain Region

    The Rocky Mountain Region is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in western North America delineated by Armen Takhtajan and Robert F....

Tethyan Subkingdom

  • Macaronesian Region
  • Mediterranean Region
  • Saharo-Arabian Region
    Saharo-Arabian Region

    The Saharo-Arabian Region is a floristic region of the Holarctic Kingdom proposed by Armen Takhtajan. It occupies the temperate parts of the Sahara desert, Sinai Peninsula, Arabian Peninsula , Southern Palestine and Lower Mesopotamia....
  • Irano-Turanian Region

Madrean Subkingdom

  • Madrean Region
    Madrean Region

    The Madrean Region is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in North America, as delineated by Armen Takhtajan and Robert F. Thorne. It occupies arid or semiarid areas in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico and is bordered by the Rocky Mountain Region and North American Atlantic Region of the Holarctic Kingdom in...