Plants of Subtropical Eastern Australia

Andrew Benwell

• Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781486313655
• eBook ISBN: 9781486313679
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Plants of Subtropical Eastern Australia describes the rich flora of this biogeographically distinct region located on the east coast of Australia, covering the north coast of New South Wales and coastal South-East Queensland. This guide presents a selection of common, threatened and ecologically significant plants found in the region's major vegetation habitats including rainforest, heathland, grassy forest, wetlands and rock outcrops.

More than 500 plants are featured, with photographs and descriptive features enabling the reader to identify these species if encountered. Interesting biological, cultural and historical characteristics of each species are included, along with notes on the plant's biogeography and a map of its distribution.

Suitable for anyone with an interest in plant ecology and botany, Plants of Subtropical Eastern Australia is the definitive guide to this fascinating region of Australia and its unique flora.

The coastal floodplains and hilly to mountainous interior of SEA are covered by a mosaic of two main types of vegetation: eucalypt open forests and closed forest or rainforest. Although they occur alongside each other, the open and closed forests appear to come from different worlds, as they have little in common in terms of structure and species composition. Open forest has a canopy dominated by a single plant family (Myrtaceae) and usually a single genus (Eucalyptus) whereas in closed forest the canopy is composed of many plant families and genera.

The distribution pattern of open and closed forest is strongly influenced by topography, with eucalypt forest covering more exposed, drier and fire-prone slopes, and closed forest in more protected, moist topographic niches such as gullies and lower, south-facing slopes. The co-occurrence of two fundamentally different types of forest in the same location and climatic environment is one of the most remarkable aspects of SEA’s vegetation.

Although very different now, open and closed forests have a common heritage in the flora of Gondwanaland, which either persisted largely unchanged or evolved in new directions as the landscape was transformed by climatic and geological change. The juxtaposition of closed forest and open forest is not unique to SEA, but in this part of Australia closed forests are widespread across the landscape and more diverse under the region’s particular combination of climate, topography, geology and fire.

Table 2: The general characteristics of different types of closed forest in the SEA region

Subtropical rainforest	Altitudinal range: 0–800 (–1000) m Variants: Lowland subtropical 0–500 m elevation Cool/high elevation subtropical Low-nutrient subtropical (warm temperate rainforest) Rainfall: 1200–2500 mm Geology: most frequent on basalt and alluvium, nearly absent from sandstone Major families: Sapindaceae, Malvaceae, Moraceae, Myrtaceae, Lauraceae, Rutaceae, Vitaceae
Dry rainforest	Altitudinal range: 0–700 m Rainfall: <1200 mm Geology: most frequent on basalt, rare on sandstone Major families: Sapindaceae, Malvaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Myrtaceae, Araucariaceae, Rutaceae
Temperate rainforest	Altitudinal range: 1000–1500 m (Warm temperate rainforests are mostly Cunoniaceae-dominated forests at <800 m) Rainfall: 1200–2500 mm Major families: Cunoniaceae, Lauraceae, Myrtaceae, Fagaceae, Proteaceae, Rutaceae

Several general climatic types of closed forest are recognised in Australia, including subtropical, temperate and dry rainforest in eastern Australia (including SEA); cool temperate rainforest in Tasmania, and tropical and monsoon (deciduous) rainforest in northern Australia. Littoral rainforest is an additional broad type restricted to the coastal fringe on sandy soil. These rainforest types replace each other in a latitudinal sequence along the east coast of Australia and also altitudinally in the Great Escarpment ranges in response to variation in temperature and rainfall. The main types of closed forest in SEA are defined in the table above.

Closed forest or rainforest differs from eucalypt forest in having a more-or-less continuous canopy layer of trees and vines....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Locator Map
• The Region Defined
• Climate
• Topography
• Geology
• The Flora of Subtropical Eastern Australia
• General Vegetation Types
• Coastal Dune
• Littoral Rainforest
• Wallum Heathlands
• Swamp Forest and Wetland
• Shrubby Dry Sclerophyll Forest
• Grassy Dry Sclerophyll Forest
• Wet Sclerophyll Forest
• Upland Wet Sclerophyll Forest
• Subtropical Rainforest
• Dry Rainforest
• Temperate Rainforest
• Montane Heath and Rock Outcrop
• Exotic Species
• Glossary and Abbreviations
• References
• Index