Sclerophyll forests are a typically Australian vegetation type having plants with hard, short and often spiky leaves. They occur in a band around Australia from southern Queensland to the south-west of Western Australia.
Sclerophyll is a Greek word meaning "hard-leaved" (sclero = hard; phyllon = leaf). The hardness in the leaves comes from lignin and prevents the leaves from wilting in dry conditions. However, Australian sclerophyllous plants evolved in response to low levels of soil phosphorus, not to low levels of moisture.
Phosphorus is essential for the proliferation of the living cells that are responsible for most plant growth. But sclerophyllous plants grow by laying down lignin and can continue to grow in places where phosphorous is scarce.
Most Australian soils are low in phosphorus, and sclerophyllous plants are more common in Australia than in any other continent, especially in the families of plants that underwent a major radiation in Australia. These plants include eucalypts and tea-trees (Myrtaceae), banksias and grevilleas (Proteaceae), boronias (Rutaceae), native fuschias (Epacridaceae), wattles (Mimosaceae) and peas (Fabaceae).
There are two types of sclerophyll forests, dry and wet, both of which have a canopy of eucalypts. Dry sclerophyll forests are 10 - 30 metres tall and have a hard-leaved understorey, whereas wet sclerophyll forests are taller than 30 metres and have a soft-leaved understorey, such as tree ferns.
Dry sclerophyll forests are extremely diverse. A plot, one tenth of a hectare in size, in dry sclerophyll forest around Sydney would contain 70 - 100 plant species, compared with less than 50 species in the same size rainforest in the same region.
Dry sclerophyll forests also have a high percentage of endemic species. For example, 75% of the species in the south-west of Western Australia are only found in that region.
R Major
Terrestrial Ecology
Australian Museum
Copyright © Australian Museum, 2003
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