montane

adj

1. Of, inhabiting, or growing in mountain areas; specifically, the cool, moist upland slopes below the timberline.

   “This plant evidently occupies, like V. sabulosa and V. Curtisii, an intermediate position between lutea and tricolor; and, as I have indicated already, it is a montane, not an agrestal plant. Jordan compares it to V. vivariensis, which is also a montane plant, between V. tricolor and V. lutea.”

   “[T]he upper part of these peaks is very bare and monotonous, and almost destitute of damp precipice; and I know of only seven Montane species that grow there above 650 yards.”

   “With a like lower limit of level there are found on hills numerous Sub-alpine or Montane plants, which do not grow in the North. We must therefore divide the Northern zone also into three parts—1, Northern (restricted); 2, Northern-montane; and 3, Montane only.”

   “The temperatures are extremely constant and low as compared with those in the lowlands, although very rarely so low as to make frost possible, and the rainfall is abundant at all seasons. The Blue Mountain Region is, therefore, a tropical montane region, in the terms of [Andreas Franz Wilhelm] Schimper, lying above the hot lowlands and not attaining to a sufficient altitude for alpine influences to come into full play.”

noun

1. An animal or a plant of a montane habitat.

   “The true Montanes comprise those species, of unmistakably Alpine, Scottish, or Highland type, which not merely with us but elsewhere throughout Britain are characteristic of high latitudes and altitudes—of mountain regions only.”

   “The wintergreens, and northern montanes such as Linnaea have their stronghold in these pinewoods and some of their rarity may be due to the reduction in the extent of the forest.”