The Magnificent Mallee; long despised, finally treasured. #1

 This is a topic close to my heart. I grew up in South Australia, and Adelaide is nearer to
remaining mallee than any other state capital (with the possible exception of Melbourne).
Dad loved it, and I spent time in the mallee long before I encountered any real forests,
let alone wet ones. It seems strange then that it has taken me this long to tackle it
here, but maybe I've never felt ready to do it justice. Such excuses however can lead to us
to never doing anything worthwhile so, prompted by a recent camping trip to
north-western Victoria, here's my tribute to a uniquely Australian habitat.

"No-one knows who made the mallee, but the devil is strongly suspected", at least according to an anonymous writer in The Bulletin in 1901. 

Mallee to the horizon from Warepil Lookout in Hattah-Kulkyne National Park,
north-western Victoria.

The Bulletin disparager came from a long line of whitefella mallee-bashers. Surveyor-General John Oxley (admittedly pretty much always a glass-three-quarters-empty character, judging by his journals), wrote of the mallee country along the Cocoparra Range in south-western NSW in 1817 as "country of the most miserable description... abandoned by every living creature capable of getting out of there". (The local people were understandably uninterested in making his acquaintance.) Others wrote similarly. Later reports however revealed the real reason for the general antipathy. Charles Sturt in 1833, the first to enter the vast South Australian-Victoria mallee lands, of which Hattah-Kulkyne above is but a remnant, described it as "barren and unproductive as the worst of the country we have passed through". An 1851 report to the Victorian Government Surveyor reported that "throughout the whole of the scrub there is neither stone nor timber fit for any useful purpose". The crime of this lovely, subtle and uniquely Australian landscape was that it wasn't apparently 'useful', so there was no point to it. 

Sandhill Wattle Acacia ligulata flowering in mallee in Wyperfeld NP, north-western Victoria.

Nor was this attitude limited to the 19th century by any means. The term 'desert' was applied to the spectacularly rich and highly floral mallee heath country of eastern South Australia and western Victoria - the Ninety Mile Desert in SA, Big and Little Deserts in Victoria. Now, I love the desert lands, but there was no affection in these labels. They couldn't grow wheat or wool, so were effectively sterile.

But there were mallee farmers, and they were tough. Low rainfall, low soil nutrients (ie by European farming standards) and the incredible resilience of the mallee eucalypts, which resprouted from massive underground lignotubers (of which more in a moment) immediately after clearing, made the farmers' lives hell. Moreover the lignotubers ('mallee roots') simply broke their ploughs. In time though ingenuity, technology and science proved too much for even the ancient mallee habitats. Mulleinising in the 1870s meant clearing the bush by dragging water tanks on chains between horses (later tractors), then burning, rough planting and again burning the stubble to knock the regrowth back again. Taller wheat strains just kept their heads above the regenerating scrub. About this time too a Mr Smith of Maitland on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula invented the 'stump jump plough' so that it wasn't necessary to grub out all of the stumps. The invention of superphosphate at Roseworthy College north of Adelaide in the 1880s allowed continuous cropping to assist in controlling regeneration. After this over a million hectares of mallee in the higher rainfall, sandy loam soils north of Adelaide, on the Yorke Peninsula (where almost no original vegetation now remains) and in Western Victoria, were rapidly cleared. 

Millions of hectares more followed in the periods after both world wars, in western NSW, the far north-west of Victoria, Eyre Peninsula and out towards the Nullarbor, and in the south-west of WA. The pace slowed though as erosion issues and soil degradation followed, though the discovery of the role played by missing trace elements (especially cobalt and copper) triggered another burst in the 1950s and 60s. Ironically the Ninety Mile Desert was now redubbed Coonalpyn Downs... It wasn't until the 1970s that mallee conservation became something to consider.

So, perhaps belatedly on my part, what is 'the mallee'?

This map (courtesy of the Australian National Botanic Gardens) gives an indication of
the current (green) and estimated former (pink) distribution of mallee woodlands,
mostly in the semi-arid 200 - 550mm rainfall zone. However we should note that the
current range by no means implies continuous or undamaged mallee.
Most is fragmentary, and what remains doesn't reflect the
original diversity of the different mallee habitats.

The word apparently echoes one used by people in western Victoria to describe the multi-stemmed habit of eucalypts that grow in these low rainfall, low nutrient regions.

Mallee form, Mungo National Park, western NSW.

This form comprises a massive underground lignotuber (ie literally a woody tuber), a 'mallee root' up to a metre in diameter from which grow several equal-sized 'stems' which are actually branches. The foliage grows only at the tips of these branches. The key trigger appears to be low phosphate levels; it seems that low soil phosphate levels inhibit the cell growth which would otherwise lead to stem or leaf formation, and diverts it to carbohydrate production which is converted to wall material in the lignotuber. The lignotuber thus holds considerable nutrient reserves (but not water, despite a much-repeated myth). Roots grow from the lignotuber and these may hold water, a fact which was of course well known to Indigenous people. The lignotuber confers a remarkable resiliency, as the mallee farmers discovered. In a 1920s experiment scientists defoliated one-year-old seedlings 26 times in succession before they, not the eucalypt, gave up the battle.

The top of a large lignotuber protruding from the ground, with the branches growing
up from it. Hattah-Kulkyne National Park.

Some 130 species of eucalypts grow as mallees. However, only about 20 of these always grow thus; the other 130 surprisingly adopt the form only if the conditions - especially the low-phosphate soils - require it. Lignotubers are known in other plant groups elsewhere in the world, but what is unique to Australia is the ability of these species to adopt a mallee form only if the conditions are right. I have stood on dunes in the south-east of South Australia among mallee Pink Gums E. fasciculosa, and looked out at tall single-stemmed trees of the same species growing in the deep soil of the paddocks. This was before digital camera days I'm afraid, but here's another example.

Gum-barked Coolabah (though it has several names across its broad inland distribution)
E. intertexta, near Cobar, western NSW.

The same species growing as a mallee at Redbank Gorge,
western Tjoritja (MacDonnell Ranges) National Park.

This raises another point too; that mallee eucalypts can be found well outside of the area designated on the map above, provided of course that the soil conditions are right.

Port Jackson Mallee E. obstans, Currarong, north end of Jervis Bay, south coast NSW.
This mallee grows in sand and sandstone along the coast from here to Sydney.

Blue Mountains Mallee Ash E. stricta, Blackheath, Blue Mountains, NSW.
This one too, well out of the mallee zone, grows on shallow sandy soils on ridges.

And this in turn leads us the secondary use of the term 'mallee', which I have more than hinted at already. Almost inevitably the habitat that produced the mallee tree's unique form became in time known as simply 'the mallee'. But in this sense too there is not just one uniform 'mallee'. The model may have been updated since, but in Victoria back in the 1990s there were 31 major communities and some 100 vegetation sub-communities recognised. However for our purposes I'm going to look at just three basic mallee habitat 'types', defined by their dominant understorey (though course nature is never interested in being put in our boxes, so it's not always so clear cut).

Mallee-Heath, as the name suggests, has an understorey of heathy shrubs (banksias, hakeas, grevilleas, casuarinas and callitris for example) and grows in deep sand in higher rainfall areas of the zone. For this reason it was one of the first regions of the mallee zone to be cleared for agriculture. Here are a couple of surviving examples.

Sand Stringybark E. arenacea, Little Desert NP, north-western Victoria.
(This species was, until 1988, included with the more widespread Brown Stringybark, E. baxteri.)

Yalata Mallee E. yalatensis, Nullarbor Plain, South Australia.
This very attractive mallee is found around the fringes of the Nullarbor
and, curiously, in an isolated population far to the east near Mannum,
on the Murray River in South Australia.

Mallee with a sparse heathy understorey (with also some saltbush I think),
Gawler Rangers NP, north of the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.

Fire in Mallee-Heath (as well as the following Mallee-Spinifex) is especially ferocious. All above ground vegetation is burnt and the volatile oils burn in great gas flares above the vegetation. Regeneration though is probably the most rapid of any tree formation in the world. A new stem cluster appears immediately, growing far faster than in other situations because of added potash in the soil, the resources in the lignotuber and reduced root competition for nutrients.

Regenerating burnt mallee, Gluepot Reserve, north of the River Murray in South Australia.
(Actually this was not at all the fiercest mallee fire, as the dead stems are still standing,
though most other plants have gone.)

Mallee-Spinifex also grows on deep sands but in lower rainfall areas. Spinifex refers to various species of the very prickly hummock grass Triodia spp., also known as Porcupine Grass, which forms very important animal habitat, especially for reptiles and invertebrates, but also small birds and mammals. Beyond the mallee, spinifex dominates some 25% of the Australian land area. Here are examples of Mallee-Spinifex from five different states and territories!

Sharp-capped Mallee Eucalyptus oxymitra in harsh gravel on exposed hillsides at the
start of the Ormiston Pound walk, western Tjoritja (MacDonnell Ranges) NP,
central Australia in the Northern Territory.

Normanton Box Eucalyptus normantonensis growing as a mallee form over
spinifex by the excellent dinosaur museum at Lark Quarry, central Queensland.

Mallee with a dense spinifex ground cover, Mungo National Park, south-western NSW.

Thick-leaved Mallee E. pachyphylla growing in a sandy spinifex plain,
Great Sandy Desert, central eastern Western Australia.

Huge (ie long unburnt) spinifex hummock in mallee, Wyperfeld NP, north-western Victoria.

The third broad mallee type is Mallee-Chenopod, ie various species of saltbushes, bluebushes, samphires etc. This is in low rainfall situations where the soil is sandy-clay. For some reason I find this habitat especially aesthetic.

Mallee with a bluebush (Maireana spp.) understorey, Red Banks Conservation Park,
mid-north South Australia.

Late afternoon over mallee-bluebush at Caiguna, west of the Nullarbor Plain
in south-eastern Western Australia.

Samphire (probably Tecticornia spp.) growing on a clay pan in mallee-bluebush
near Normantion, central southern Western Australia.

And I'm going to end this first instalment of a short series with some portraits of mallee species which I (totally subjectively) find particularly pleasing and/or interesting.

Blue-leaved Mallee E. gamophylla, Plenty Highway, central eastern
Northern Territory. The striking blueish rounded leaves are
juvenile leaves which remain in that form. It is found in sandy
country mostly dominated by spinifex.

Curly Mallee E. gillii has similar foliage. It grows in just two areas of
inland ranges; in the Barrier Range near Broken Hill,
in far western NSW (above) and in the Northern Flinders Ranges
of South Australia (at Weetootla Gorge below).

 Port Lincoln Mallee E. albopurpurea, Coffins Bay, South Australia.
This lovely mallee is found only here at the tip of Eyre Peninsula and on
Kangaroo Island. It was formerly regarded as a subspecies of E. landsdowneana
from the Gawler Ranges to the north.

Bushy Yate E. lehmanii, Cape Le Grande NP, in the east of south-western WA.
A spectacular mallee from Albany eastwards as far as Israelite Bay in hill country and dunes.

Mottlecah E. macrocarpa (above and below), Yandin Hill Lookout,
north of Perth, WA. Its flowers are possibly the most dramatic of all eucalypt flowers,
and can be up to 10cm across.

Red, Oil or Acorn Mallee E. oleosa has one of the most extensive distributions of
any mallee species, found from the south-west of WA to eastern Victoria. It flowers
profusely and its leaves were formerly harvested for their high oil content.
Here it is growing on the eastern fringe of the Nullarbor Plain.

Thick-leaved Mallee E. pachyphylla, here deep in the Great Sandy Desert of
central eastern WA though it is found widely in central Australia.

Moort E. platypus, Ravensthorpe, south-west WA. The name means 'flat or broad foot',
for the oddly shaped buds. It grows only along this section of coastline.

Bell-fruit Mallee E. preissiana, Stirling Ranges, south-west WA.

So, the first part of my ode to the marvellous mallee. I hope you've stuck with me through it, and that it has either aroused some good memories of your own, or perhaps sparked some curiosity in a habitat that you may not be familiar with. I'll be looking at some other plants and some animals of the mallee in forthcoming posts - not sure yet if it will two or three parts in all. Hope to join you then, and thanks for coming this far into the mallee with me.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 7 NOVEMBER

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Gundabooka National Park; another dryland treat

When I was a young feller growing up in Adelaide, the phrase 'back of Bourke' (an idiom for somewhere very remote and 'outback') evoked strong emotions in me; I really wanted to explore 'out there'. I did so eventually but it took a long time (and I confess that the town of Bourke no longer seems so remote!). In this semi-arid area of central northern New South Wales are several valuable reserves, one of the largest and most impressive of them being Gundabooka National Park. This park, along with the adjacent Gundabooka State Conservation Area, covers some 94,000 hectares of varied dry country landscapes about 70km south of Bourke, to the west of the highway to Cobar. Moreover the Toorale National Park and State Conservation Area, across the Darling River to the north-west, adds another 85,000 hectares to form a massive reserve system. 

(There is a significant and unfortunate caveat here though: in a State Conservation Area minerals and petroleum exploration and mining 'may be permitted', which would considerably reduce the value of the reserve. As far I am aware no such activities are currently planned for these areas, but the option is there.)

The park was gazetted in 1996 and covered 46,000 hectares, comprising the former pastoral leases of Ben Lomond and Belah; the 20,000ha of Mulgowan station were added to the south in 2002. Finally Yanda's 28,000ha in 2005 became the Gundabooka State Conservation Area to the north.

Mount Gunderbooka (yes, this is a variation on the spelling of the park itself) from
Little Mountain Lookout, near the Dry Tank picnic area and campground in the
centre of the national park. The mulga plains in the foreground are typical of much
of the park.

Approximate position of Gundabooka, just south of Bourke.
(It's fuzzier than I'd like, apologies.)

I have found it surprisingly difficult to find a usable map (or indeed any map) of
the park - this is a real flaw of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife
Service (NPWS) web site (probably a spinoff of their lack of resources). This one is
taken from the management plan of the park, but in the process has lost
most of its useful definition. To give you a slightly better idea I've added the red numbers.
1 is the main access to the park, along Ben Lomond Road off the Bourke-Cobar Highway.
2 is the Dry Tank campground and picnic ground (the only campground in the
national park itself), and the walk to Little Mountain.
3 is the Yapa (Mulgowan) art site on Mulareenya Creek.
4 is the Bourke to Louth road along the Darling River.
5 is the Yanda campground on the Darling River in the State Conservation Area.
(Actually if you click on it to enlarge it, it's not too bad.)

We were only there for three nights recently, so didn't explore nearly all of it, but focussed on the area around the campground and the Yapa art site. Next time we plan to camp at the Yanda campground on the Darling in the state conservation area. Our timing was a bit unfortunate, in that the growth from earlier rains had already flowered and seeded, and the burst from recent rains which had closed the park until shortly before our arrival was still coming. Since then further rains have created another excellent wildflower cover I am told!

Drifts of mulga phyllodes (pseudo-leaves) across the ground left by recent flash
flooding in the campground; new growth is coming through. 

As mentioned earlier, much of the park is dominated by woodlands of Mulga Acacia aneura, including dense stands of regrowth around the campground.

Our quite idyllic campsite among the Mulga. Between and behind the individual sites
the regrowth was dense enough to make walking through it difficult; you get some sense
of this in the background here. It will thin naturally as the trees mature.

Much of the Mulga was flowering, in response to the earlier rains.

Scattered throughout the park is Bimble (or Poplar) Box Eucalyptus populnea; both the species name and the alternative English name refer to the rounded leaves which supposedly resemble poplar leaves (personally I think it's the other way round, but that's just me). It's one of my favourite eucalypts.

Bimble Box, above and below.

This tree was growing along the very pleasant walking track to Little Mountain Lookout, which leads out of the campground/picnic ground.

There was however one worrying aspect about the trees that we hadn't previously encountered.

After a while with no such ambushes we decided that perhaps they were only dangerous
during breeding season?

It's a five kilometre return walk, mostly flat until a short moderate climb on a well-built
track with many laid sandstone steps (some of which slabs are clearly very heavy indeed),
onto a gravel ridge which looks out over the plain to the Gunderbooka Range.

Mount Gunderbooka across the mulga from Little Mountain Lookout.
It is the highest point in the vicinity, 500 metres above sea level
and some 300-350 metres above the surrounding plains.

On this gravel ridge the vegeation changes, with a shrubby understorey, including at least two or three species of emu bush, Eromophila spp., though only one was flowering while we were there.

Crimson Emu (or Turkey) Bush Eremophila latrobei, truly a spectacular flower.
Eremophila, along with Banksias and the orchids, are my favourite Australian flower
groups. This one is found right across the dry inland of Australia.

Narrow-leaf Waxflower Philotheca (formerly Eriostemon) linearis,
another shrub in flower at the lookout when we were there. It is scattered
in rocky habitats in dry inland NSW and South Australia.

The other walking track we took was the short one to the Yapa (Mulgowan) art site in the far south of the park, accessed by a well-signposted road to the south off Ben Lomond Road (7.5k from the park entrance, 12k back from the campground). When we were there we encountered a sign warning of ‘rough road, drive with care’, but in the event it was smoother than the Ben Lomond Road. The walk itself is only 700 metres each way and quite easy on a good track over a low rocky ridge to the Mulareenya Creek; the warning on the website about this 'challenging yet rewarding walking track' should be treated as a somewhat extreme example of the precautionary principle. This is a site of great significance to the Ngemba and Baakandji people, who co-manage the park through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Head of NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, which commits both parties to cooperatively manage both the cultural and natural heritage of the reserves.

A feature of our walk was the profusion of flowering Wonga Vine Pandorea pandorana sprawling over rocks and other vegetation.

Wonga Vine is a spectacular climber when in flower.

A typical scene along the walk, with reddish sandstone boulders,
Wilga Geijera parviflora and White Cypress Pine Callitris glaucophylla.

The view across Mulyareena Creek to the art site among the boulders and cliffs opposite.

The art is fenced for protection (pretty much universal now for publicly accessed sites) but not interpreted; I'm not in a position to know whether this is intentional or if the resources have simply not yet been made available. There is no restriction on photography however.

At the start of the walk, by the carpark, is a very pleasant new covered picnic area at the edge of a grassy woodland flood plain.

Trees present include Coolabah Apple Angophora melanoxylon, Bimble Box and
the somewhat curious Supplejack Ventilago viminalis.

This Supplejack tree began life as a small climber, scrambling through other vegetation,
then later developed a woody trunk to become a tree. Its family is Rhamnaceae.

Needless to say there was plenty of animal life but it was mostly windy and cool, so no reptiles were active. Here are some, in no particular order, except that I've left the birds to last this time. The walk to Little Mountain produced a few interesting small animals, most of which I can't properly identify.

My uneducated guess for this cockroach is Panesthia australis,
a nymph which hasn't yet developed wings.

My best offering for this one is one of the slant-faced grasshoppers, Family Acrididae.

A very hairy caterpillar which I certainly wasn't going to be touching!
However a passing flock of Black-faced Cuckooshrikes was feeding on something
on the ground and it could well have been these, as they are known to be
among the few birds to be able to do so.

Mulga Ants nest Polyrachis sp. They typically cover the mound with dropped Mulga
phyllodes; it is often asserted that this is to reduce overground flooding, but
as far as I'm aware this is just speculation.

Termite runway covered in soil to protect them from sunlight.

This spider wasp dragging an unfortunate paralysed orbweb spider was one of the
first animals I saw in the park, on my way to the toilet soon after arriving.
The spider's fate is to provide a living larder for the wasp's underground babies.

The only good think about this photo is that it was the only goat we saw in the park;
it was on top of the cliffs that houses the art site, which is always another reason to fence such sites.
This part of the world is notorious for extremely high numbers of feral goats which are
devastating the Mulga; some properties allow their numbers to build up,
then have them mustered for the goat meat industry.
The park is obviously doing a good job of managing them.

Most camp sites seem to have a memorable 'camp bird' species, which we come to associate with the camp as being regularly present there and often particularly 'friendly'. Dry Tank had two, we decided, of dramatically different sizes.

Emus Dromaius novaehollandia, father and one of his sons, approaching us
cautiously in response to my waving a hanky at them (it works from a car window too).
This photo also gives some idea of the dense Mulga around the camp ground -
it took a while to get even this clear a shot of them. They seemed to spend
a lot of time hanging around the camp, though there was no indication that
they were used to being fed.

Part of the same family crossing the camp road early one morning.

Red-capped Robins Petroica goodenovii were the other camp bird. We'd never
seen so many in a campground before! However as this photo suggests they
weren't nearly as easy to approach as the Emus were.

I've just realised that the rest of these bird photos were all taken around the campground too, with the exception of the falcon.

Brown Falcon Falco berigora sitting by the road on the drive back from the
Yapa art site. A common raptor over the entire continent, but no bird which is
being so obliging deserves to be ignored.

White-browed Treecreeper Climacteris affinis, the smallest of the Australian
treecreepers. On our first afternoon in camp there were several of these arid
land specialists on the tree trunks in and around our camp. I was quite excited
as I've generally found them to be wary and not easy to photograph (though that
could be just down to me of course). They would certainly have been eligible
for 'camp bird' status - except that we didn't see them in camp again for the
duration of our stay! (This incidentally is another name in the 'not
very useful' category - their eyebrow is actually not particularly conspicuous.
The boldly streaked undersides and face are the real giveaways.)

A bold little female Splendid Fairywren Malurus splendens inspecting me on
one of my early morning wanders. The male of the family hadn't yet moulted
into his spring finery, though others elsewhere on the trip had done so.

This Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo Chalcites basalis was calling from an exposed perch,
which is typical cuckoo behaviour. The fairywrens will need to be especially vigilant
when they start breeding!

And lastly this is a particularly abiding image for me of those morning walks,
a gorgeous male Mulga Parrot Psephotellus varius sitting up in the sun
and calling loudly.

I hope I can encourage you to put Gundabooka on your 'to visit' list. Even if you're not able to camp there next time you're in the area, it's an easy day trip from Bourke and well worth the effort - and there's more to see there than we managed this time too. Thanks for revisiting this beautiful park with me.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER

I love to receive your comments and in future will be notifying you personally by email when a new posting appears, if you'd like me to. All current subscribers have been added to this mailing list and have already been contacted. This will mean one email every three weeks at the current rate of posting. I promise never to use the list for any other purpose and will never share it.
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