Pannonian mixed forests

The Pannonian mixed forests is a temperate broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion in Europe. It covers an area of 307,720 km2 in all of Hungary, most of Slovakia, about half of Croatia and Slovenia, around a third of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Serbia, and minor parts of Austria, Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Flora

The plant communities include mixed oak-hornbeam forests, azoal floodplain vegetation and lowland to montane herb-grass steppes.

Mixed oak-hornbeam forests are mixed forests of pedunculate oak and sessile oak and hornbeam. Sub-Mediterranean thermophilous bitter oak forests grow in warmer areas. These forests are dominated by Quercus pubescens, Quercus cerris, and Quercus frainetto mixed with other trees, mainly Fraxinus ornus and Carpinus orientalis. Higher elevation areas are dominated by European beech and silver birch, downy birch, European aspen and sometimes by conifers Abies alba, Picea abies, Pinus sylvestris, Pinus nigra.

Riparian forest and azoal floodplain vegetation occurs along rivers and lakes. It is dominated by Populus nigra, Populus alba, Salix alba, Alnus glutinosa, Fraxinus oxycarpa, Ulmus minor and Quercus robur. Phragmites australis is dominant in most wetlands.

Lowland to montane herb-grass steppes dominate large areas of the ecoregion. The dominant species are Stipa zalesskii, Bromus riparius and the shrubs Prunus fruticosa and Prunus spinosa.