Climate-influenced "Changes" in Vegetation

Some examples:

1. As you move from regions with neutral to acid soils into regions (usually hot or cold semi-deserts with level terrain) with alkaline soil, you find shrubs and subshrubs dominating the landscape, most of which are halophytes, most of which are chenopodiaceous.
2. As you move from cool, moist regions into hot, dry (low desert) regions you encounter more and more plants that are succulent, thorny, poisonous?, and/or foul smelling, etc. etc.

But a much cleaner if less dynamic approach would be:

1. Alkaline valleys and basins are dominated by halophytic, mostly chenopodiaceous shrubs and subshrubs
2. Low deserts are rich in succulent, thorny, poisonous, and foul-smelling plants

[Best? To give a single thumbnail characterization of vegetational generalities for the major climate types, either worldwide or N. Hemisphere.]

Or another approach:

1. Warm wet summer, warm wet winter (i.e. rain forest, wet tropics).  Dominant vegetation is solid forest of evergreen dicots and palms and epiphytes.  High diversity of trees and vines and epiphytes, fewer shrubs and herbs?
2. Warm wet “summer”, warm dry “winter” (i.e. dry tropics, “monsoon” climate)  Forests and woodlands of mostly dry-deciduous trees.  More herbs? And fewer epiphytes.
3. Warm wet summer, cold (effectively dry) winter (“temperate” climate).  Forests of cold-hardy deciduous trees and shrubs and understory herbs.  Fairly high diversity at all levels.  Showy fall color.  No epiphytes.
4. Warm to cool dry summer, cool wet winter (Mediterranean climate).  Mixed evergreen forest, savannah, grassland, and chaparral.  No epiphytes.
5. Warm dry summer, cold (dry) winter (steppe climates?).  Shrub-dominated landscapes with many herb,or grassland, or sparse woodlands with conifers (especially pine)
6. Cool wet summer, cold (dry) winter (montane/alpine climates).  Perennial herbs dominant in extreme cases, or conifer forest in less extreme.
7. Warm dry summer, warm dry winter (low desert).