Rainforests are vegetation types dominated by broad-leaved trees that form a dense upper canopy (layer of foliage) and contain a diverse array of vegetation. Contrary to common thinking, not all rainforests occur in places with high, constant rainfall; for example, in the so-called “dry rainforests” of northeastern Australia the climate is punctuated by a dry season, which reduces the annual precipitation. Nor are all forests in areas that receive large amounts of rainfall true rainforests; the conifer-dominated forests in the extremely wet coastal areas of the American Pacific Northwest are temperate evergreen forest ecosystems. Therefore, to avoid conveying misleading climatic information, the term rainforest is now preferred over rain forest.
This section covers only the richest of rainforests—the tropical rainforests of the ever-wet tropics.
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Tropical rainforests grow mainly in three regions: the Malesian botanical subkingdom, which extends from Myanmar (Burma) to......
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