Taiga, also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga or boreal forest is the world's largest land biome. In North America, it covers most of inland Canada, Alaska, and parts of the northern contiguous United States. In Eurasia, it covers most of Sweden, Finland, much of Russia from Karelia in the west to the Pacific Ocean, much of Norway and Estonia, some of the Scottish Highlands, some lowland/coastal areas of Iceland, and areas of northern Kazakhstan, northern Mongolia, and northern Japan.
Jack London Lake in Kolyma, Russia
The Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York form the southernmost part of the Eastern forest-boreal transition ecoregion, constituting part of the world’s taiga biome.
White spruce taiga in the Alaska Range, Alaska, United States
Siberian taiga
Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta, also known as Coniferophyta or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extant conifers are perennial woody plants with secondary growth. The great majority are trees, though a few are shrubs. Examples include cedars, Douglas-firs, cypresses, firs, junipers, kauri, larches, pines, hemlocks, redwoods, spruces, and yews. As of 2002, Pinophyta contained seven families, 60 to 65 genera, and more than 600 living species.
Conifer
The narrow conical shape of northern conifers, and their downward-drooping limbs, help them shed snow.
Tāne Mahuta, the biggest kauri (Agathis australis) tree alive, in the Waipoua Forest of the Northland Region of New Zealand.
Pinaceae: needle-like leaves and vegetative buds of Coast Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii)
