Warrumbungle bush regeneration follows deadly bushfire.
Warrumbungle National Park sprouts regrowth after catastrophic bushfire
28 April 2013
published by www.heraldsun.com.au
Australia — THERE’S something strange about the trees and plants in the blackened landscape of Warrumbungle National Park.
The eucalypts look like their leaves are in the wrong place, with branches bare but trunks green and fuzzy, while it seems as if an army of phantom gardeners has carefully and evenly planted new shoots among the charcoal-black soil.
But it’s just the Australian bush’s way of dealing with catastrophic fire.
In January, one of the most intense bushfires in recent Australian history burnt through nearly 95 per cent of the 236sq km park in northern NSW. All but two small areas – White Gum Lookout and Camp Wambelong – are still closed to visitors because of the threat of branches falling from dead trees.
The two areas remaining open are restricted to day trips. However, among the trees for which the fire was fatal, there are many others which are slowly regrowing.
“They can deal with fire, it’s been part of the environment here for so long,” Steve Tucker, the acting area manager for the National Parks and Wildlife Service, said yesterday.
“The eucalypts do look strange on first sight – their leaves come out of the trunk and the main big branches which are thick enough to suffer only surface damage and are still carrying water and nutrients, while the thinner branches on top are basically dead and have no leaves.
“It’s called epicormic shoots which grow from the epicormic buds, which are under the bark of the trunk and branches.”
Then there are the small green plants which began popping up from the black soil just a few weeks after the fires finally subsided.
“They are cycads and they are the first plant to regrow after a bushfire,” Mr Tucker said.
Which isn’t surprising considering that cycads – one of the world’s oldest living plants – have had many millions of years to evolve a way to deal with flames.
Warrumbungle bush regeneration follows deadly bushfire.
Warrumbungle bush regeneration follows deadly bushfire.
