The topography is generally low, and the landscape is dotted with isolatedinselbergs. The highest of these inselbergs isRitigala (766 meters), which lies north of the Central Highlands.
The ecoregion receives 1500–2000 mm of rainfall annually. Most rain falls during the December-to-Marchnortheast monsoon season, and it is mostly dry the rest of the year.
Villu is a lowland grassland plant community of northeastern Sri Lanka's river floodplains. The dominant grasses are species ofCymbopogon,Eragrostis,Themeda, andImperata.[4]
unique short-stature forests grow in the highest elevations ofRitigala, and are home to severalendemic species.[5]
recently discovered unique dry canal-associated evergreen forest grow near the ancient canals of the Polonnaruwa kingdom, dominated byVitex leucoxylon which represents half of the vegetation, andTerminalia arjuna, which is a common river forest tree, makes up only a fifth, but still holds the place as the second most common tree.[6] other common vegetation in descending order areMargaritaria indicus,Tamilnadia uliginosa,Barringtonia acutangula andHibiscus tiliaceus.[7] The presence of savanna plants likeTamilnadia uliginosa andAntidesma ghaesembilla suggests origin of a now nonexistent savanna.[6]
The Sri Lanka dry-zone dry evergreen forests are made up mostly of evergreen trees, which distinguish them from the deciduous trees that characterize most other tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregions. The dry-zone dry evergreen forests most closely resemble theEast Deccan dry evergreen forests of India's southeast coast.
The dry-zone dry evergreen forests are home to most of the Sri Lanka's 6000Sri Lankan elephants(Elephas maximus maximus), the island's indigenous subspecies ofAsian elephant.[8][9]
^Eric Dinerstein, David Olson, et al. (2017). An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 534–545; Supplemental material 2 table S1b.[1]
^Green, Michael John Beverly (1990).IUCN Directory of South Asian Protected Areas. IUCN, 1990.
^Department of Wildife Conservation (2008).Biodiversity Baseline Survey: Ritigala Strict Natural Reserve. Revised version. Consultancy Services Report prepared by Green, M.J.B. (ed.), De Alwis, S.M.D.A.U., Dayawansa, P.N., How, R., Singhakumara, B.M.P., Weerakoon, D., Wijesinghe, M.R. and Yapa, W.B. Infotech IDEAS in association with GREENTECH Consultants. Sri Lanka Protected Areas Management and Wildlife Conservation Project (PAM&WCP/CONSULT/02/BDBS), Department of Wildlife Conservation, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, Colombo. 46 pp.
^Borham, Maneshka (2018). "Relocating wet zone elephants to dry zone centre: Gentle giants destined to leave Sinharaja?".Sunday Observer, 3 June 2018. Accessed 2 May 2020.[2]
^Fernando, Prithiviraj & Jayewardene, Jayantha & Prasad, Tharaka & Hendavitharana, W. & Pastorini, Jennifer. (2011). Current Status of Asian Elephants in Sri Lanka. Gajah. 35. 93-103. 10.5167/uzh-59037.
^Eric Dinerstein, David Olson, et al. (2017). An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 534–545; Supplemental material 2 table S1b.[3]
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