http://ianluntecology.com/2013/10/13/forgotten-woodlands-future-landscapes/

Forgotten woodlands, future landscapes

Picture a gorgeous woodland in the early 1800s. What do you see? Majestic gum trees with bent old boughs, golden grasses, a mob of sheep or kangaroos, and a forested hill in the distance? The luminous landscape of a Hans Heysen painting, perhaps.

It’s an iconic Aussie landscape. But something’s missing. The trees are wrong. Or at least, they aren’t all there.

Two hundred years ago, another group of trees – Honeysuckle, Oak, Lightwood and Cherry – formed extensive woodlands across many parts of south-east Australia. Today we call these trees Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata), Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata), Wild Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis), and Lightwood (Acacia implexa) or Blackwood (A. melanoxylon).

Did you picture a woodland dominated by any of these species? If not, I wonder why. Do we picture eucalypt woodlands because eucalypts now dominate our local bush? In doing so, did we forget the felled species and remember the hardy and persistent?

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more on link:

neomyrtus_ said:

http://ianluntecology.com/2013/10/13/forgotten-woodlands-future-landscapes/

Forgotten woodlands, future landscapes

Picture a gorgeous woodland in the early 1800s. What do you see? Majestic gum trees with bent old boughs, golden grasses, a mob of sheep or kangaroos, and a forested hill in the distance? The luminous landscape of a Hans Heysen painting, perhaps.

It’s an iconic Aussie landscape. But something’s missing. The trees are wrong. Or at least, they aren’t all there.

Two hundred years ago, another group of trees – Honeysuckle, Oak, Lightwood and Cherry – formed extensive woodlands across many parts of south-east Australia. Today we call these trees Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata), Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata), Wild Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis), and Lightwood (Acacia implexa) or Blackwood (A. melanoxylon).

Did you picture a woodland dominated by any of these species? If not, I wonder why. Do we picture eucalypt woodlands because eucalypts now dominate our local bush? In doing so, did we forget the felled species and remember the hardy and persistent?

__________________________________
more on link:

Such individual trees have been rare for a long time, let alone dominatory

Those trees are common today, but in the habitat described (Parkland), were they ever common there, or did the regular aboriginal burning that created those landscapes by restricting the growth of saplings also restricting the growth of the species mentioned.

It should also be borne in mind that an open woodland was not the favoured habitat of these species. Nevertheless they were probably common at the time of early settlement, but Europeans of the time were renowned for chopping down timber for house, furniture and fence construction of which most of those species were very popular, so no doubt they would have been cut down with some vigour.

The parkland landscapes would not have covered all the country although obviously quite common under aboriginal management. Where you had heath, swamps, waterways, etc, the landscape would have been different, so there was plenty of habitat for the species mentioned to grow and prosper, that is until Europeans found a use for them.

In northeast NSW Red Cedar was so highly regarded as a timber that they logged it out.

Australian Red Cedar (Toona australis) logging cleared huge areas of forest to not only provide “red gold” but farming space for settlers which in time would provide fertile ground for dairy farming.

Now Camphor Laurel (Cinnamomum camphora) dominates the landscape so much that the tree has been declared a noxious weed, which is ironic in that if agroforested it is a useful cabinet timber.

“The Big Scrub was the largest area of subtropical lowland rainforest in eastern Australia. It was intensively cleared for agricultural use in the 19th century by colonists. Only a few remnants survived the clearing, with less than 1% now existing”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Scrub

It’s well known that some Australian plants only survive in areas that are regularly burnt out. Apart from the well-known ones, I was once told that the loss of Harpullia pendula (tulipwood) from Lamington National Park was because people were no longer burning it off.

Two hundred years ago, another group of trees – Honeysuckle, Oak, Lightwood and Cherry – formed extensive woodlands across many parts of south-east Australia. Today we call these trees Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata), Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata), Wild Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis), and Lightwood (Acacia implexa) or Blackwood (A. melanoxylon).

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So they called the Silver Banksia the Honeysuckle??

dv said:

Two hundred years ago, another group of trees – Honeysuckle, Oak, Lightwood and Cherry – formed extensive woodlands across many parts of south-east Australia. Today we call these trees Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata), Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata), Wild Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis), and Lightwood (Acacia implexa) or Blackwood (A. melanoxylon).

—-

So they called the Silver Banksia the Honeysuckle??

Many plants have many common names.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Two hundred years ago, another group of trees – Honeysuckle, Oak, Lightwood and Cherry – formed extensive woodlands across many parts of south-east Australia. Today we call these trees Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata), Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata), Wild Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis), and Lightwood (Acacia implexa) or Blackwood (A. melanoxylon).

—-

So they called the Silver Banksia the Honeysuckle??

Many plants have many common names.

True enough but I hadn’t heard that one

As an aside, while looking for some photos of red cedar to see if any are still growing around the redoubt area I discovered that they are one of the few native trees that are deciduous, so they should be easy to spot in winter I’d guess.

dv said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Two hundred years ago, another group of trees – Honeysuckle, Oak, Lightwood and Cherry – formed extensive woodlands across many parts of south-east Australia. Today we call these trees Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata), Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata), Wild Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis), and Lightwood (Acacia implexa) or Blackwood (A. melanoxylon).

—-

So they called the Silver Banksia the Honeysuckle??

Many plants have many common names.

True enough but I hadn’t heard that one

A lot of Banksias could be called silver due to the underside of the leaf.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

roughbarked said:

Many plants have many common names.

True enough but I hadn’t heard that one

A lot of Banksias could be called silver due to the underside of the leaf.

Could be, but ain’t. Only Banksia marginata is the Silver Banksia.

Peak Warming Man said:

As an aside, while looking for some photos of red cedar to see if any are still growing around the redoubt area I discovered that they are one of the few native trees that are deciduous, so they should be easy to spot in winter I’d guess.

That’s how the cedar getters spotted them in the rainforest. By looking out from high vantage points when they put on their flush of new leaves, they are quite strongly red in contrast to the forest.

dv said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

True enough but I hadn’t heard that one

A lot of Banksias could be called silver due to the underside of the leaf.

Could be, but ain’t. Only Banksia marginata is the Silver Banksia.

It is also the Honeysuckle Banksia, Warrok and Dwarf Honeysuckle.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

roughbarked said:

A lot of Banksias could be called silver due to the underside of the leaf.

Could be, but ain’t. Only Banksia marginata is the Silver Banksia.

It is also the Honeysuckle Banksia, Warrok and Dwarf Honeysuckle.

Jolly good, but I didn’t know that

dv said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Could be, but ain’t. Only Banksia marginata is the Silver Banksia.

It is also the Honeysuckle Banksia, Warrok and Dwarf Honeysuckle.

Jolly good, but I didn’t know that

It is no biggie.. Common names are common names.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

roughbarked said:

It is also the Honeysuckle Banksia, Warrok and Dwarf Honeysuckle.

Jolly good, but I didn’t know that

It is no biggie.. Common names are common names.

So they are

dv said:

Two hundred years ago, another group of trees – Honeysuckle, Oak, Lightwood and Cherry – formed extensive woodlands across many parts of south-east Australia. Today we call these trees Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata), Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata), Wild Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis), and Lightwood (Acacia implexa) or Blackwood (A. melanoxylon).

—-

I don’t think any of the trees mentioned above ever formed extensive woodlands, other than perhaps Allocasuarina verticillata and even then, they only made up a small portion of the woodlands. They were however common species, as they are today, but most then as they do today occupy different habitats, either coastal, swampy ground, along waterways and sub-alpine. they are not common woodland species. Exocarpos cupressiformis is often a common component of forests and dense woodlands, but again is not ever a dominant species in any habitat.

It seems to me that the initial statement is incorrect and we should not be trying to make it work.