Floristic Zoning

division of the earth’s surface into areas that differ in the systematic composition, origin, and development of their floras. The entire earth’s surface or only parts thereof may be zoned.

Floristic zoning is hierarchical in principle: mutually subordinate spatial units of various rank are distinguished. The largest unit is the floristic kingdom. Next in rank is the region, which is followed by the province, district, locality, and microregion. In the interest of greater detail, intermediate categories, for example, the subregion and the subprovince, may be distinguished. Floristic zoning is sometimes related to geobotanical regionalization (complex botanicogeographic regionalization) and landscape regionalization.