The forests of eastern Beringia are dominated by black and white spruce (Picea mariana, P. glauca) with the interior often supporting large tracts of black spruce muskeg. Hardwoods, such as white birch (Betula papyrifera), balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera), and aspen (Populus tremuloides), can be locally abundant and are associated with disturbed sites. Unlike western Beringia, larch (Larix larcinia) is limited in its distribution. On favorable mountain slopes, alder (Alnus crispa) forms dense thickets beyond spruce treeline. A second alder species (Alnus rugosa) is restricted to lowlands, most commonly found in floodplains. Tundra occupies much of the northern and western areas of eastern Beringia (Bliss, 1981; Murray, 1978) with low shrub heath (including birch (Betula nana, B. glandulosa), willow (Salix) and heaths (Ericales)) and shrub tussock tundra (dominated by sedges, birch and heaths) being the most common treeless landscapes. These tundra types are also found beyond altitudinal tree limit, but the highest elevations support little vegetation.

The present vegetation in western Beringia is a mixture of light coniferous forest and tundra (Kozhevnikov, 1989). Open larch (Larix dahurica) forests occur in valley bottoms up to mid-elevations from the Kolyma drainage to the western border of the Anadyr depression. Broadleaf trees are not common and typically occur in disturbed valley settings (Populus suaveolens, Chosenia arbutifolia) or on rocky hillsides (e.g., Betula platyphylla). The understory is dominated by shrubs of dwarf stone pine (Pinus pumila), birch (Betula exilis, B. middendorfii), willow, and heaths. Stone pine also forms a belt of shrub tundra just beyond altitudinal tree limit. Higher elevations are rock-covered and support little or no vegetation. In southern and central Chukotka, a high shrub tundra of stone pine and alder (Alnus fruticosa) occurs to the east of the larch forest. A birch-willow-heath-alder low shrub tundra characterizes most of northern Chukotka, with coastal areas dominated by grass-sedge -Artemisia tundra with prostrate willow and occasional birch shrubs. The most depauperate tundra occurs on Wrangel Island with a grass-sedge-willow tundra found in more favorable areas of the coastal plain and with rocky barrens in the interior uplands.

We use several methods to show the distribution of modern vegetation types, each with slight variations in the classifications used. The Matthews classification is a gridded data set of Beringian vegetation that uses palnt charateristics that are related to broader climatic factors.  The compilation by Edwards and others (1998) is a simplified map designed for comparisons to biomization of modern pollen assemblages. 

Beringian Vegetation: Map from Edwards and others (1998).

Gridded Matthews Vegetation: Vegetation map of Beringia by Matthews (1992).