forest tropical marine semi-evergreen forest A semi-evergreen forest is a forest which undergoes a long dry season and, as a consequence, has a two-storey layer structure, a dry canopy, a leaf litter layer that only decays during moist periods trees with very small leaves or which shed their leaves to conserve water and which flower during the dry season and grow during the wet season. ORCID:0000-0002-4366-3088 mesophytic ecosystem semi-evergreen forest