Definition of "nival" [ni•val]

• Of, relating to, or growing in or under snow: nival species of plants. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It consists of montane to altimontane beech, and mixed beech forests, submontane to altimontane spruce and spruce-fir forests, and alpine vegetation in the European Alps. It also includes small portions of submontane acidophilous oak and mixed oak forests, nemoral, sub - and oro-Mediterranean pine forests, and nival and sub-nival vegetation of the high mountains."
• "In the present climate, most streams and rivers originating within the Arctic have a nival regime in which snowmelt produces high flows and negligible flow occurs in winter."
• "Groundwater contributions are larger than those in arctic – nival systems."