Found in many of the Western state deserts, the purple sage grows well throughout the Great Basin, particularly in Southern Nevada. There are three primary varieties of purple sage found in Nevada: the carnosa, argentea and dorrii, the primary variation being in leaf size and location. The purple sage is a perennial shrub that was used as both a food source and a medicinal plant by the native peoples of Nevada, the Paiute, Washoe and Western Shoshone Indians.

Pinyon-juniper woodlands comprise one of Nevada's most extensive vegetation types, occupying 14,178 square miles, or approximately thirteen percent, of the state's land area. From Nevada's main highways, these woodlands appear as tree-covered hill slopes on distant mountain ranges.

Nevada lies almost entirely within the Basin and Range physiographic province. This vast area covers about 300,000 square miles and is surrounded by the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains on the west, the Columbia Plateau on the north, and the Colorado Plateau and Wasatch Front of the Rocky Mountains on the east. South of Nevada, the Basin and Range province extends into Mexico and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

Most mountain ranges of the northern hemisphere grade in elevation from one forest type to another in a steady progression from less cold-hardy to more cold-hardy trees, eventually giving way to alpine tundra where trees can no longer survive the extremely cold temperatures. The Great Basin mountain ranges of Nevada provide a notable exception to this rule. In most of these ranges there is no continuous forest zone above the pinyon-juniper woodland.