Thought you might be interested in the science I have been doing over the past couple of days. It is in a remote part of the mallee NW of Esperance and features a large saltlake, of which only a tiny portion is shown above.

The first two photos show one of the many gypsum/clay mounds with Casuarina obesa, commonly referred to as a Swamp Oak, although there are certainly no swamps around here, only high temperatures, low rainfall and very dry gypsum soils that are probably saline too. These trees grow around the outer edge of the mounds and closest to the lake. The wind as it blows through the branchlets sound like a gale is blowing even on days with light winds.

The second photo is from the base of one of these mounds and spans across the Samphire flats, with low saltbush ones behind that are less influenced by the saltlake. The area from where these photos were taken has probably seen few if any whitemen, as access is purely by foot.

The third just shows a change in habitat with smaller eucalypts providing a pleasant shaded environment where other plant species can grow.

The last photo is taken at my campsite with the last rays of the sun, showing the large eucalypt found around these large lake areas and which provide shelter for some annual and ephemeral species. Below them is the dominant low saltbush, a feature of this region.

These two photos are of an unusual habitat from a remote area to the NE of Esperance. These places have nothing to do with saltlakes, but just under the soil surface is solid limestone, so dense that trees and shrubs cannot grow there because unless they find a fissure they cannot develop a root system and therefore cannot survive. Consequently these areas remain open and are another place where unusual annuals and ephemerals can be found. There are several such plains, some overlying granite that may in places become exposed to make the habitat even more interesting and with greater diversity.

Good work.

Low rocky outcrops also provide shallow soils over largely impervious granite; here the soils are usually acid with seepage creeping down over the granite substrate. In this type of habitat water is usually plentiful during the main rainfall times, which in southern WA is winter and early spring, after which the summer heat turns it into a very dry habitat incapable of supporting much at all.

Therefore again, annuals and ephemeral species fill these habitats at the appropriate times of the year, the outer edges of the clearings the soils are deeper and will provide for a range of taller plants better suited to that modified type of habitat. Even further back commonly into a limestone substrate another change of species will occur and a different suite of plants will dominate.

Peak Warming Man said:

Good work.

Thanks, it is a great pleasure to visit these places and record rare and unusual species.

It’s like a tended garden.

buffy said:

It’s like a tended garden.

Yes they are, particular as people have not been there in the vehicles and weeds are very few and non-intrusive.

The soils that produced these magnificent wildflower displays is a gravel and clay mixture, which in the above instance is right on the surface. It is never a soft surface, but during summer it hardens like a rock, where a pick wouldn’t make much difference. However these gravel habitats (varies with the type of overlay, mostly sand to varying depths), produce a bewildering array of wildflowers, especially Proteaceae (Grevillea, Banksia, Hakea, Isopogon, etc, etc. They also produce the most spectacular display of Verticordia species, with the most amazing range of colours.

Lovely; amazing. Thanks for sharing the images.

Michael V said:

Lovely; amazing. Thanks for sharing the images.

Ditto. Thanks PF

Are the Eucalypts in your photos E. Salmonophloia?

roughbarked said:

Are the Eucalypts in your photos E. Salmonophloia?

No they don’t grow near saltlakes, in fact the Salmon Gum was regarded as an indicator of good soil, which is generally not what you get around saltlakes.

Sands are common throughout the mallee region and can vary from a thin topping over granite, clay or limestone, to deep windblown sand that is formed into scattered rises throughout the basic mallee topography and being like islands amongst other soil types often contain species not found elsewhere.

To complicate matters there are deep white coloured sand with few impurities, and deep yellow coloured sand that is oxidised and/or influenced by fine clay particles. These sands at times abut each other and although some hardy species are found in both habitats, others strictly adhere to one or the other.

There is even a couple of heath plants, where one only grows in the white sand and the other only in the yellow. Where these sands meet, these plants will be found in almost straight lines within 10 metres of each other, but restricted to their favoured sand color.

The sand grains when microscopically examined are very similar in size and shape, but for this dramatic plant division to occur it is probably related to different microbes living in the sands and necessary for the health of these plants, and so this marked division is created. Probably due to the microbes in the white sands and its more limited distribution new species can evolve, as is the case with the white sandy environment above.

PermeateFree said:

roughbarked said:

Are the Eucalypts in your photos E. Salmonophloia?

No they don’t grow near saltlakes, in fact the Salmon Gum was regarded as an indicator of good soil, which is generally not what you get around saltlakes.

Eucalyptus diptera then?

I was thinking about these photos while walking The Pug this morning. I tend to think while walking/riding/jogging. Plants really do have it all over us animals. They can sit for yonks in a suspended animation (seed) and then just come back when the conditions improve. We can’t do that.

buffy said:

I was thinking about these photos while walking The Pug this morning. I tend to think while walking/riding/jogging. Plants really do have it all over us animals. They can sit for yonks in a suspended animation (seed) and then just come back when the conditions improve. We can’t do that.

We can learn a lot from plants, though I doubt I will ever learn to be a seed.

Speaking of seeds, Ikea have a range of Christmas cards which can be planted and will grow daisies.

buffy said:

I was thinking about these photos while walking The Pug this morning. I tend to think while walking/riding/jogging. Plants really do have it all over us animals. They can sit for yonks in a suspended animation (seed) and then just come back when the conditions improve. We can’t do that.

No. We cannot.

Divine Angel said:

Speaking of seeds, Ikea have a range of Christmas cards which can be planted and will grow daisies.

Who needs Ikea daisies? We need natives.

Divine Angel said:

Speaking of seeds, Ikea have a range of Christmas cards which can be planted and will grow daisies.

Mrs SS didn’t shut the gate properly saturday and the sheep got to devour an azelea and the lover branches of the new apricot tree…

Throwing wateron them at the moment,hoping they come back to life…

*rubs eyes *

I read that as throwing watermelon on them.

Divine Angel said:

Speaking of seeds, Ikea have a range of Christmas cards which can be planted and will grow daisies.

That is pretty cool.

stumpy_seahorse said:

Divine Angel said:

Speaking of seeds, Ikea have a range of Christmas cards which can be planted and will grow daisies.

Mrs SS didn’t shut the gate properly saturday and the sheep got to devour an azelea and the lover branches of the new apricot tree…

Throwing wateron them at the moment,hoping they come back to life…

Well you didn’t have to be that heavy-handed on them. Surely a firm “no” would have sufficed.

roughbarked said:

Divine Angel said:

Speaking of seeds, Ikea have a range of Christmas cards which can be planted and will grow daisies.

Who needs Ikea daisies? We need natives.

Indeed. It does make me wonder though whether the people around here who live adjacent to bushland actually like the look of their weeds dispersing through it.

Speedy said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

Divine Angel said:

Speaking of seeds, Ikea have a range of Christmas cards which can be planted and will grow daisies.

Mrs SS didn’t shut the gate properly saturday and the sheep got to devour an azelea and the lover branches of the new apricot tree…

Throwing wateron them at the moment,hoping they come back to life…

Well you didn’t have to be that heavy-handed on them. Surely a firm “no” would have sufficed.

They had to be tackled, straddled and dragged back into the yard…

stumpy_seahorse said:

Speedy said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

Mrs SS didn’t shut the gate properly saturday and the sheep got to devour an azelea and the lover branches of the new apricot tree…

Throwing wateron them at the moment,hoping they come back to life…

Well you didn’t have to be that heavy-handed on them. Surely a firm “no” would have sufficed.

They had to be tackled, straddled and dragged back into the yard…

Sheep are among the most difficult to get to do what you want unless one goes and the rest follow but the grass is greener outside the fence remember.

these welshmen and their dogs seem to have the sheep under control

ChrispenEvan said:

these welshmen and their dogs seem to have the sheep under control

Shopped.

Shopped.

only after they were slaughtered and butchered.

ChrispenEvan said:

these welshmen and their dogs seem to have the sheep under control

Lol

roughbarked said:

PermeateFree said:

roughbarked said:

Are the Eucalypts in your photos E. Salmonophloia?

No they don’t grow near saltlakes, in fact the Salmon Gum was regarded as an indicator of good soil, which is generally not what you get around saltlakes.

Eucalyptus diptera then?

No, E. diptera prefers heavy soils, especially over limestone.

buffy said:

I was thinking about these photos while walking The Pug this morning. I tend to think while walking/riding/jogging. Plants really do have it all over us animals. They can sit for yonks in a suspended animation (seed) and then just come back when the conditions improve. We can’t do that.

The downside of being a plant is it is more difficult to move location, due to environmental change making it unsuitable for survival.

The above is typical mature WA mallee around Esperance with a soil of fine sand/clay over limestone; the limestone I might add is not dense and impenetrable to tree roots as detailed earlier, but is crumbly permitting roots to work their way through it. This type of country is like a sea, with other soil types, saltlakes and rocky outcrops acting like islands within it.

Mature mallee is generally easy to walk through as the tree/mallee canopy dominating the available moisture and sunlight, making it unsuitable for smaller plants. However after a bushfire, the entire region will spring to life with masses of different plant species not seen since the previous fire, which may be several decades ago. Some of these post-fire plants may only last a year or two, whilst many shrubs will battle on for several years before the eucalyptus eventually push most of them out and come to dominate again.

“ My science”

bugger, I was expecting something that would save humanity, from humanity

or something on water divining, or homoeopathy,,,

& all there is are photos of landscapes (nice photos though).

Here’s a video pf you can watch, a presentation by a real ecologist , titled -

Part 1: Climate Sensitivity and Drought: Landscape Changes vs CO2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FuKSK7kP0s

very informative pf.. you might learn something ?

The_observer said:

“ My science”

bugger, I was expecting something that would save humanity, from humanity

or something on water divining, or homoeopathy,,,

& all there is are photos of landscapes (nice photos though).

Here’s a video pf you can watch, a presentation by a real ecologist , titled -

Part 1: Climate Sensitivity and Drought: Landscape Changes vs CO2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FuKSK7kP0s

very informative pf.. you might learn something ?

Nobody appeared interested so I stopped, however it was an insight into my laboratory. Although you would probably dig it up if there was and coal below.

PermeateFree said:

The_observer said:

“ My science”

bugger, I was expecting something that would save humanity, from humanity

or something on water divining, or homoeopathy,,,

& all there is are photos of landscapes (nice photos though).

Here’s a video pf you can watch, a presentation by a real ecologist , titled -

Part 1: Climate Sensitivity and Drought: Landscape Changes vs CO2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FuKSK7kP0s

very informative pf.. you might learn something ?

Nobody appeared interested so I stopped

Got more attention than you or it deserved

The_observer said:

PermeateFree said:

The_observer said:

“ My science”

bugger, I was expecting something that would save humanity, from humanity

or something on water divining, or homoeopathy,,,

& all there is are photos of landscapes (nice photos though).

Here’s a video pf you can watch, a presentation by a real ecologist , titled -

Part 1: Climate Sensitivity and Drought: Landscape Changes vs CO2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FuKSK7kP0s

very informative pf.. you might learn something ?

Nobody appeared interested so I stopped

Got more attention than you or it deserved

shrugs

No, although some forms are mistaken for them. It is the Salt Gum, Eucalyptus salicola that can have either a grey or bronze smooth trunk. It is very common around many saltlakes to the north of Esperance, although it seems to prefer soils with a high gypsum content. Grows to 20 metres and is notable for its height, as it is by far the tallest tree found on the harsh dry gypsum mounds on large playa lakes.