1.
Perth
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Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth-most populous city in Australia, with a population of 2.06 million living in Greater Perth. The first areas settled were on the Swan River, with the central business district. Perth was founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the centre of the Swan River Colony. It gained city status in 1856, and was promoted to the status of a Lord Mayorality in 1929. The city is named after Perth, Scotland, due to the influence of Sir George Murray, Member of Parliament for Perthshire and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The citys population increased substantially as a result of the Western Australian gold rushes in the late 19th century, largely as a result of emigration from the eastern colonies of Australia. During Australias involvement in World War II, Fremantle served as a base for operating in the Pacific Theatre. An influx of immigrants after the war, predominantly from Britain, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, Aboriginal people have inhabited the Perth area for 38,000 years, as evidenced by archaeological remains at Upper Swan. The Noongar people occupied the southwest corner of Western Australia and lived as hunter-gatherers, the wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain were particularly important to them, both spiritually and as a source of food. The Noongar people know the area where Perth now stands as Boorloo, Boorloo formed part of Mooro, the tribal lands of Yellagongas group, one of several based around the Swan River and known collectively as the Whadjuk. The Whadjuk were part of a group of fourteen tribes that formed the south-west socio-linguistic block known as the Noongar. The judgment was overturned on appeal, the first documented sighting of the region was made by the Dutch Captain Willem de Vlamingh and his crew on 10 January 1697. The British colony would be officially designated Western Australia in 1832, Captain James Stirling, aboard Parmelia, said that Perth was as beautiful as anything of this kind I had ever witnessed. On 12 August that year, Helen Dance, wife of the captain of the ship, Sulphur. The only contemporary information on the source of the name comes from Fremantles diary entry for 12 August, Murray was born in Perth, Scotland, and was in 1829 Secretary of State for the Colonies and Member for Perthshire in the British House of Commons. The town was named after the Scottish Perth, in Murrays honour, the racial relations between the Noongar people and the Europeans were strained due to these happenings. Because of the amount of building in and around Boorloo
2.
Western Australia
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Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Southern Ocean to the south, the state has about 2.6 million inhabitants, around 11% of the national total. 92% of the lives in the south-west corner of the state. The first European visitor to Western Australia was the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog, the first European settlement of Western Australia occurred following the landing by Major Edmund Lockyer on 26 December 1826 of an expedition on behalf of the New South Wales colonial government. This was followed by the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829, including the site of the present-day capital, york was the first inland settlement in Western Australia. Situated 97 kilometres east of Perth, it was settled on 16 September 1831, Western Australia achieved responsible government in 1890, and federated with the other British colonies in Australia in 1901. Today its economy relies on mining, agriculture and tourism. The state produces 46% of Australias exports, Western Australia is the second-largest iron ore producer in the world. The International Hydrographic Organization designates the body of water south of the continent as part of the Indian Ocean, the total length of the states eastern border is 1,862 km. There are 20,781 km of coastline, including 7,892 km of island coastline, the total land area occupied by the state is 2.5 million km2. Most of the state is a low plateau with an elevation of about 400 metres, very low relief. This descends relatively sharply to the plains, in some cases forming a sharp escarpment. The extreme age of the landscape has meant that the soils are remarkably infertile, even soils derived from granitic bedrock contain an order of magnitude less available phosphorus and only half as much nitrogen as soils in comparable climates in other continents. Soils derived from extensive sandplains or ironstone are even less fertile, nearly devoid of soluble phosphate and also deficient in zinc, copper, molybdenum, the infertility of most of the soils has required heavy application by farmers of chemical fertilisers, particularly superphosphate, insecticides and herbicides. These have resulted in damage to invertebrate and bacterial populations, the grazing and use of hoofed mammals and, later, heavy machinery through the years have resulted in compaction of soils and great damage to the fragile soils. Large-scale land clearing for agriculture has damaged habitats for native flora, large areas of the states wheatbelt region have problems with dryland salinity and the loss of fresh water. The southwest coastal area has a Mediterranean climate and it was originally heavily forested, including large stands of karri, one of the tallest trees in the world. This agricultural region is one of the nine most bio-diverse terrestrial habitats, thanks to the offshore Leeuwin Current, the area is one of the top six regions for marine biodiversity and contains the most southerly coral reefs in the world
3.
Wetland
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A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink, Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, the water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens, and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to people about wetland issues. Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they may also play a role in water-sensitive urban design. A patch of land that develops pools of water after a storm would not be considered a wetland. Wetlands have unique characteristics, they are distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough period each year to support aquatic plants. A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil, Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions. A wetland is an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic processes, There are four main kinds of wetlands – marsh, swamp, bog and fen. Some experts also recognize wet meadows and aquatic ecosystems as additional wetland types, the largest wetlands in the world include the swamp forests of the Amazon and the peatlands of Siberia. Under the Ramsar international wetland conservation treaty, wetlands are defined as follows, Article 2.1, may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to the wetlands, and islands or bodies of marine water deeper than six metres at low tide lying within the wetlands. Although the general definition given above applies around the world, each county, Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas. This definition has been used in the enforcement of the Clean Water Act, some US states, such as Massachusetts and New York, have separate definitions that may differ from the federal governments. It is not uncommon for a wetland to be dry for long portions of the growing season, the most important factor producing wetlands is flooding
4.
Swan River Colony
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The Swan River Colony was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia, in 1832 the colony was renamed the Colony of Western Australia, when the colonys founding Lieutenant-Governor, Captain James Stirling, belatedly received his commission. However, the name Swan River Colony remained in use for many years afterwards. The first recorded Europeans to sight land where the city of Perth is now located were Dutch sailors, most likely the first visitor to the Swan River area was Frederick de Houtman on 19 July 1619, travelling on the ships Dordrecht and Amsterdam. His records indicate he first reached the Western Australian coast at latitude 32°20 which would equate to Rottnest or just south of there and he did not land because of heavy surf, and so proceeded northwards without much investigation. On 28 April 1656, the Vergulde Draeck en route to Batavia was shipwrecked 107 km north of the Swan River near Ledge Point, of the 193 on board, only 75 made it to shore. A small boat that survived the wreckage then sailed to Batavia for help, the wreck was rediscovered in 1963. In 1658, three Dutch Republic ships, also searching for the Vergulde Draeck visited the area. They then travelled north and subsequently found the wreck of the Vergulde Draeck and they gave an unfavourable opinion of the area partly due to the dangerous reefs. The Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh was the next European in the area, commanding three ships, the Geelvink, Nyptangh and the Wezeltje, he arrived at and named Rottnest on 29 December 1696, and on 10 January 1697 discovered and named the Swan River. His ships could not sail up the river because of a bar at its mouth. They sailed until reaching mud flats probably near Heirisson Island and they saw some Aborigines but were not able to meet any close up. Vlamingh was also not impressed with the area, and this was probably the reason for a lack of Dutch exploration from then on, in 1801, the French ships Geographe captained by Nicolas Baudin and Naturaliste captained by Emmanuel Hamelin visited the area from the south. While the Geographe continued northwards, the Naturaliste remained for a few weeks, a small expedition dragged longboats over the sand bar and explored the Swan River. They also gave unfavourable descriptions regarding any potential settlement due to mud flats upstream. Later in March 1803, the Geographe with another ship Casuarina passed by Rottnest on their way back to France. The next visit to the area was the first Australian-born maritime explorer, King was also the son of former Governor Philip Gidley King of New South Wales. However, King also was not impressed with the area, the founding father of modern Western Australia was Captain James Stirling who, in 1827, explored the Swan River area in HMS Success which first anchored off Rottnest, and later in Cockburn Sound
5.
Platanus
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Platanus /ˈplætənəs/ is a genus consisting of a small number of tree species native to the Northern Hemisphere. They are the living members of the family Platanaceae. All members of Platanus are tall, reaching 30–50 m in height, all except for P. kerrii are deciduous, and most are found in riparian or other wetland habitats in the wild, though proving drought-tolerant in cultivation. The hybrid London plane has proved tolerant of urban conditions. They are often known in English as planes or plane trees, some North American species are called sycamores, although the term sycamore also refers to the fig Ficus sycomorus, the plant originally so named, and to the Sycamore maple Acer pseudoplatanus. The flowers are reduced and are borne in balls, 3–7 hairy sepals may be fused at the base, male and female flowers are separate, but borne on the same plant. The number of heads in one cluster is indicative of the species, the male flower has 3–8 stamens, the female has a superior ovary with 3–7 carpels. Male flower-heads fall off after shedding their pollen, after being pollinated, the female flowers become achenes that form an aggregate ball. The fruit is a multiple of achenes, typically, the core of the ball is 1 cm in diameter and is covered with a net of mesh 1 mm, which can be peeled off. The ball is 2. 5–4 cm in diameter and contains several hundred achenes, each of which has a seed and is conical. There is also a tuft of many thin stiff yellow-green bristle fibers attached to the base of each achene and these bristles help in wind dispersion of the fruits as in the dandelion. The leaves are simple and alternate, in the subgenus Platanus they have a palmate outline. The base of the stalk is enlarged and completely wraps around the young stem bud in its axil. The axillary bud is exposed only after the leaf falls off, the mature bark peels off or exfoliates easily in irregularly shaped patches, producing a mottled, scaly appearance. On old trunks, bark may not flake off, but thickens, within subgenus Platanus, genetic evidence suggests that P. racemosa is more closely related to P. orientalis than it is to the other North American species. There are fossil records of plane trees as early as 115 million years, despite the geographic separation between North America and Old World, species from these continents will cross readily resulting in fertile hybrids such as the London plane. The following are recognized species of trees, Planes are susceptible to plane anthracnose. The most severe infections are associated with cold, wet spring weather, P. occidentalis and the other American species are the most susceptible, with P. orientalis the most resistant
6.
Ficus macrophylla
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Its common name is derived from Moreton Bay in Queensland, Australia. It is best known for its imposing buttress roots, as Ficus macrophylla is a strangler fig, seed germination usually takes place in the canopy of a host tree and the seedling lives as an epiphyte until its roots establish contact with the ground. It then enlarges and strangles its host, eventually becoming a tree by itself. Individuals may reach 60 m in height, the large leathery, dark green leaves are 15–30 cm long. The fruits are small, round and greenish, ripening and turning purple at any time of year, the fruit is known as a syconium, an inverted inflorescence with the flowers lining an internal cavity. Like all figs, it has an obligate mutualism with fig wasps, figs are pollinated by fig wasps. Many species of bird, including pigeons, parrots and various passerines, Ficus macrophylla is widely used as a feature tree in public parks and gardens in warmer climates such as California, Portugal, Italy, northern New Zealand, and Australia. Old specimens can reach tremendous size and its aggressive root system allows its use in only the largest private gardens. Christiaan Hendrik Persoon published a description of the Moreton Bay fig in his 1807 Synopsis Plantarum, the type specimen has been lost but was possibly located in Florence. The specific epithet macrophylla is derived from the Ancient Greek makro large and phyllon leaf, Australian botanist Charles Moore described Ficus columnaris in 1870 from material collected from Lord Howe Island, choosing the species name from the Latin columnaris for the column-like roots. English botanist E. J. H. Corner reduced this to synonymy with F. macrophylla in 1965, green noted it was distinct enough for subspecies status in 1986. The species is commonly known as the Moreton Bay fig, after Moreton Bay in southern Queensland. The term has also been generalised to other fig species in Australia. An alternate name—black fig—is derived from the colour of the ageing bark. With over 750 species, Ficus is one of the largest angiosperm genera, based on morphology, Corner divided the genus into four subgenera, later expanded to six. In this classification, the Moreton Bay fig was placed in subseries Malvanthereae, series Malvanthereae, in his reclassification of the Australian Malvanthera, Dixon altered the delimitations of the series within the section, but left this species in series Malvanthereae. J. J. G. van Steenis, editor of the Flora Malesiana, berg combined sections Stilpnophyllum and Malvanthera into an expanded section Stilpnophyllum. This left the Moreton Bay fig in subsection Malvanthera, section Stilpnophyllum, based on DNA sequences from the nuclear ribosomal internal and external transcribed spacers, Danish botanist Nina Rønsted and colleagues rejected previous subdivisions of the Malvanthera
7.
Ficus rubiginosa
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Ficus rubiginosa, commonly known as the rusty fig or Port Jackson fig, is a species of flowering plant native to eastern Australia in the genus Ficus. Beginning as a seedling that grows on plants or rocks, F. rubiginosa matures into a tree 30 m high. The leaves are oval and glossy green and measure from 4 to 19.3 cm long and 1.25 to 13.2 cm wide. The fruits are small, round and yellow, and can ripen and turn red at any time of year, peaking in spring, like all figs, the fruit is in the form of a syconium, an inverted inflorescence with the flowers lining an internal cavity. F. rubiginosa is exclusively pollinated by the fig wasp species Pleistodontes imperialis, the syconia are also home to another fourteen species of wasp, some of which induce galls while others parasitise the pollinator wasps, and at least two species of nematode. Many species of bird, including pigeons, parrots and various passerines, ranging along the Australian east coast from Queensland to Bega in southern New South Wales, F. rubiginosa grows in rainforest margins and rocky outcrops. It is used as a tree in parks and public spaces. Ficus rubiginosa was described by French botanist René Louiche Desfontaines in 1804, in searching for the type specimen, Australian botanist Dale Dixon found one from the herbarium of Desfontaines at Florence Herbarium and one from the herbarium of Étienne Pierre Ventenat at Geneva. As Ventenat had used Desfontaines name, Dixon selected the Florence specimen to be the type in 2001, the specific epithet rubiginosa related to the rusty coloration of the undersides of the leaves. Indeed, rusty fig is a common name, others include Illawarra fig. It was known as damun to the Eora and Darug inhabitants of the Sydney basin, in 1806, German botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow gave it the botanical name Ficus australis in Species Plantarum, but this is a nomen illegitimum as the species already had a validly published name. Italian botanist Guglielmo Gasparrini broke up the genus Ficus in 1844, in 1862, Dutch botanist Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel described Urostigma leichhardtii from material collected from Cape Cleveland, Queensland, noting it had affinities to F. rubiginosa. In 1867, he placed Urostigma as a subgenus in the reunited Ficus, Miquel also described Ficus leichhardtii variety angustata from Whitsunday Island, later classified as F. shirleyana by Czech botanist Karel Domin. Queensland state botanist Frederick Manson Bailey described Ficus macrophylla variety pubescens in 1911 from Queensland, all these taxa were found to be indistinguishable from F. rubiginosa by Dixon in 2001. They found F. rubiginosa to be most closely related to the rainforest species F. watkinsiana and they classified these species in a new series Rubiginosae in the subsection Platypodeae. Relationships are unclear and it is uncertain into which direction the group radiated, joseph Maiden described variety lucida in 1902, and Bailey described variety glabrescens in 1913. Both had diagnosed their varieties on the basis of their hairlessness, Maiden described a taxon totally devoid of hair, while Bailey described his as nearly glabrous. A spreading, densely-shading tree when mature, F. rubiginosa may reach 30 m or more in height, the trunk is buttressed and can reach 1.5 m in diameter
8.
Pine
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A pine is any conifer in the genus Pinus, /ˈpiːnuːs/, of the family Pinaceae. Pinus is the genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The Plant List compiled by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts 126 species names of pines as current, together with 35 unresolved species, the modern English name pine derives from Latin pinus, which some have traced to the Indo-European base *pīt- ‘resin’. Before the 19th century, pines were often referred to as firs, the genus is divided into three subgenera, which can be distinguished by cone, seed, and leaf characters, Pinus subg. Pinus, the yellow, or hard pine group, generally harder wood. Ducampopinus, the foxtail or pinyon group Pinus subg, strobus, the white, or soft pine group, generally with softer wood and five needles per fascicle Most regions of the Northern Hemisphere host some native species of pines. One species crosses the equator in Sumatra to 2°S, in North America, various species occur in regions at latitudes from as far north as 66°N to as far south as 12°N. Various species have been introduced to temperate and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, where they are grown as timber or cultivated as ornamental plants in parks, a number of such introduced species have become invasive and threaten native ecosystems. Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous trees growing 3–80 m tall. The smallest are Siberian dwarf pine and Potosi pinyon, and the tallest is a 81.79 m tall ponderosa pine located in southern Oregons Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, the bark of most pines is thick and scaly, but some species have thin, flaky bark. The branches are produced in regular pseudo whorls, actually a very tight spiral, the spiral growth of branches, needles, and cone scales are arranged in Fibonacci number ratios. The new spring shoots are sometimes called candles, they are covered in brown or whitish bud scales and point upward at first, then turn green. These candles offer foresters a means to evaluate fertility of the soil, pines are long-lived, and typically reach ages of 100–1,000 years, some even more. The longest-lived is the Great Basin bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva, one individual of this species, dubbed Methuselah, is one of the worlds oldest living organisms at around 4,600 years old. This tree can be found in the White Mountains of California, an older tree, now cut down, was dated at 4,900 years old. It was discovered in a grove beneath Wheeler Peak and it is now known as Prometheus after the Greek immortal, pines have four types of leaf, Seed leaves on seedlings, born in a whorl of 4–24. Juvenile leaves, which follow immediately on seedlings and young plants, 2–6 cm long, single, green or often blue-green and these are produced for six months to five years, rarely longer. Scale leaves, similar to bud scales, small, brown and non-photosynthetic, needles, the adult leaves, are green and bundled in clusters called fascicles
9.
Taxodium distichum
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Taxodium distichum is a large slow-growing and long-lived tree typically reaching heights of 30–35 m and a trunk diameter of 1–2 m. The bark is gray-brown to red-brown, thin and fibrous with a texture, having a vertically interwoven pattern of shallow ridges. The leaves are alternate and linear, with blades borne on the twig that are spirally arranged on the stem. Unlike most other species in the family Cupressaceae, it is deciduous, losing its leaves in the winter months and it is monoecious, with male and female flowers forming on slender tassel-like structures near the edge of the branchlets. The male and female strobili are produced from buds formed in the fall, with pollination in early winter. The seed cones are green maturing gray-brown, globular, and 2-3.5 cm in diameter and they have from 20 to 30 spirally arranged, four-sided scales, each bearing one or two triangular seeds. The number of seeds per cone ranges from 20 to 40, the cones disintegrate when mature to release the large seeds. The seeds are 5–10 mm long, the largest of any species in the family, and are produced every year. The seedlings have three to 9 cotyledons, the main trunks are surrounded by cypress knees. The oldest known specimen, located in Bladen County, North Carolina, is over 1,620 years old, making this one of the oldest living plants in eastern North America. The closely related Taxodium ascendens is treated by botanists as a distinct species, while others classify it as merely a variety of bald-cypress. It differs in shorter leaves borne on erect shoots, and in ecology, a few authors also treat Taxodium mucronatum as a variety of bald cypress, as T. distichum var. mexicanum Gordon, thereby considering the genus as comprising only one species. Mature planted specimens are seen as far north as Pittsburgh, and Ottawa, in Ottawa, in the Central Experimental Farm Arboretum, an average winter may kill back a quarter to half of new growth. Ancient bald cypress forests, with some more than 1,700 years old. The largest remaining stands are at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, near Naples. And in the Three Sisters tract along eastern North Carolinas Black River, the Corkscrew trees are around 500 years of age and some exceed 40 m in height. The Black River trees were cored in 1986 by University of Arkansas dendrologists with dates ranging back to 364 AD. In the northern and more part of its range from Delaware and Maryland to Williamsburg, Virginia
10.
Toona ciliata
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Toona ciliata is a forest tree in the mahogany family which grows throughout southern Asia from Afghanistan to Papua New Guinea and Australia. It is commonly known as the red cedar, toon or toona, Australian redcedar, Burma cedar, Indian cedar and it is also known as Indian mahogany. In Australia its natural habitat is now extensively cleared subtropical rainforests of New South Wales, the Australian population was formerly treated as distinct species under the name Toona australis. The species can grow to around 60 m in height and its trunk can reach 3 m in girth, the largest recorded T. ciliata tree in Australia grew near Nulla Nulla Creek, west of Kempsey, New South Wales and was felled in 1883. The southernmost limit of distribution is on basaltic soils, growing west of the Princes Highway near the village of Termeil, south of Ulladulla, southern Illawarra. It also naturally occurs at Norfolk Island and it is one of Australias few native deciduous trees. The timber is red in colour, easy to work and very highly valued and it was used extensively for furniture, wood panelling and construction, including shipbuilding, and was referred to as red gold by Australian settlers. Heavily and unsustainably exploited in the 19th Century and early 20th Century, almost all the trees have been cut out. Availability of this timber is now limited, timber is currently also harvested in New Guinea. Although it is not generally a viable plantation species, trees are harvested by Forestry in the Atherton region of Queensland. The tree exudes a chemical that the cedar tip moth seeks out. The red cedar is planted in subtropical and tropical parts of the world as a shade tree. It is grown in the Hawaiian Islands and southern and eastern Africa, in parts of Zimbabwe and South Africa, it has naturalised, growing to maturity and spreading from seed. It is a seed producer and establishes readily. Cedar wood Macleay River Toona sureni Australian timbers National Register of Big Trees Distribution Map
11.
Araucaria bidwillii
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Araucaria bidwillii, the bunya pine, is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the plant family Araucariaceae. It is found naturally in south-east Queensland Australia and two disjunct populations in north eastern Queenslands World Heritage listed Wet Tropics. There are many old planted specimens in New South Wales, and around the Perth and they can grow up to 30–45 m. The bunya pine is the last surviving species of the Section Bunya of the genus Araucaria and this section was diverse and widespread during the Mesozoic with some species having cone morphology similar to A. bidwillii, which appeared during the Jurassic. Fossils of Section Bunya are found in South America and Europe, the scientific name honours the botanist John Carne Bidwill, who sent the first specimens to Sir William Hooker in 1843. Native in Queensland, historically trees were found in populations recorded as abundant and widespread in habitats of South East Queensland. Natural ecosystems having Bunya pines are found again approximately 1,000 km to the north, there the species natural populations are rare and restricted. Two outlying restricted populations are known in the Cannabullen Falls and Mt. Lewis areas, a. bidwillii has a limited distribution within Australia in part because of the drying out of Australia with loss of rainforest and poor seed dispersal. The remnant sites at the Bunya Mountains and Mount Lewis in Queensland have genetic diversity, the cones are large, soft-shelled and nutritious and fall intact to the ground beneath the tree before dehiscing. At the start of European occupation, A. bidwillii occurred in great abundance in southern Queensland, today, the species is usually encountered as very small groves or single trees in its former range, except on and near the Bunya Mountains, where it is still fairly prolific. A. bidwillii has unusual cryptogeal seed germination in which the seeds develop to form an underground tuber from which the shoot later emerges. This erratic germination has been one of the problems in silviculture of the species. Although there are no reported dispersal agents for the seeds of A. bidwillii, macropods and various species of rats are known as predators of the seeds, the bush rat was observed caching bunya seeds some distance uphill from parent trees, possibly allowing ridge-top germination. Brushtail possums were mentioned as carrying the seeds up trees, in a study in 2006, the short-eared possum was shown to disperse the seed of A. bidwillii. Natural populations of species have been reduced in extent and abundance through exploitation for its timber. Most populations are now protected in reserves and national parks. A recent problem in small plantations of A. bidwilli in Southeast Queensland is the introduction of red deer. Red deer, unlike possums and rodents, eat bunya cones while still intact, the bunya, bonye, bunyi or bunya-bunya in various Australian Aboriginal languages was colloquially named the Bunya Pine by Europeans
Media related to Hyde Park, Perth at Wikimedia Commons