Temperate Forest

A biome of the mid-latitudes, carrying four distinct seasons and enough year-round rainfall to sustain closed forest without the extreme cold of the boreal belt further north. Its defining and most visible feature is the broadleaf deciduous tree, which sheds its leaves each autumn in a display of color driven by the breakdown of chlorophyll, then regrows them each spring; many temperate forests also carry a mixed component of evergreen conifers. Temperate forests once covered most of eastern North America, Western Europe and much of East Asia before extensive clearing for agriculture and settlement, and California's giant sequoia groves are among the tallest and longest-lived examples of this biome anywhere on Earth.