Australia, like any large continent, possesses a great diversity of landforms and vegetation types. During our explorations in this country, Vilis and I have learned to recognize broad vegetation categories – dry tropics savannah, with its scattered gums and grassy understory; wet tropics rainforest cluttered with ensnaring vines and groundcover palms; coastal heathland thick with low-growing, densely twigged shrubs; temperate rainforest comprised of some of the earth’s tallest trees; spinifex grassland in barren, rocky desert, and so on. The more we travelled, the more we noticed differences within these broad vegetation categories; for example, the warm, lowland wet tropics rainforest near Mission Beach has a completely different character to that of Paluma’s cool, upland wet tropics rainforest. As well, the vast expanses of savannah woodland through which we drove en route to the Northern Territory constantly changed in composition and character, and although I recognized only a few of the gum species, I was fascinated by the many permutations of tree shape and leaf and trunk colour. The desert vegetation surrounding Alice Springs featured mulga woodlands and spinifex grasslands again subtly different in character from those Vilis and Janis observed in Western Australia.

In addition to vegetation types that covered extensive land areas, we’ve also encountered those occurring in much more restricted areas corresponding to particular environmental conditions. These included spagnum bogs, upland moors, and pockets of moss-covered beech in Tasmania; vine thickets (a type of dry rainforest) in rocky crevices on peaks near Townsville, coastal mangrove forests and freshwater wetlands in Queensland, and relic cycads growing in shaded red-rock gorges near Alice Springs.

Today’s post is a photo collection of some of Australia’s various vegetation types, which, to a Canadian, have been most intriguing. As our son Janis said on his arrival in Townsville in late April, when his head swivelled back and forth while he took in his surroundings, “This is quite a change in vegetation.” So it has been. Here’s a look.