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Cumberland Plain Woodland

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Coordinates: 33°50′59″S 150°54′40″E / 33.84972°S 150.91111°E / -33.84972; 150.91111
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Cumberland Plain Woodland
Grassy plain with scattered eucalypts
Ecology
RealmAustralasia
BiomeTropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands
Borders
Geography
CountryAustralia
Elevation10–100 metres (33–328 ft)
Coordinates33°50′59″S 150°54′40″E / 33.84972°S 150.91111°E / -33.84972; 150.91111
GeologySandstone, shale, laminite and siltstone
Climate typeHumid subtropical climate (Cfa)
Soil typesClay, sand (podsol, entisols, lithosols), loam

The Cumberland Plain Woodland, also known as Cumberland Plain Bushland[1] and Western Sydney woodland,[2] is a grassy woodland community found predominantly in Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that comprises an open tree canopy, a groundcover with grasses and herbs, usually with layers of shrubs and/or small trees.[3]

Situated in the Cumberland Plain, the Cumberland Plain Woodland (CPW) is a savanna that features dry sclerophyll woodlands, grasslands and/or forests, reminiscent of Mediterranean forests. According to Office of Environment and Heritage, the community falls predominantly within the Coastal Valley Grassy Woodlands region,[4] which are part of the Grassy Woodlands formation found in the eastern corridor of New South Wales.[5]

Currently, less than 6% of the Woodlands remain in small parts distributed across the western suburbs of Sydney, totaling only around 6400 hectares.[6] Cumberland Plain Woodland was listed as an Endangered Ecological Community under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 in June 1997. The greatest threats to the Cumberland Plain Woodland include land clearing for agriculture, urban sprawl and the introduction of harmful weed species.[7]

Geography

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The Cumberland Plain Woodland region lies far-west of Sydney CBD.

In 1877, Cumberland Plain Woodlands covered 107,000 hectares and filled around 30% of the Sydney Basin. At the time of European land exploration of Australia European settlement, the Cumberland Plain contained 1,070 km² of woodlands and forests.

The westward expansion of Sydney over the plain has placed enormous pressure on the woodlands and other local ecological communities, only 6% of which remain uncleared.[8] The ecoregion contains clay soils derived from Wianamatta Shale to the west of Sydney CBD, where it receives 750–900 mm of annual rainfall.

The soils of the plain are infertile by world standards, but are not so by Australian standards. The plain is made up of eucalypt woodland with a grassy undergrowth and sclerophyllous (hard-leaved) shrub stratum, demarcating with the heath and forest communities of the sandstone plateaus that surround the plain.[9] The biotic community is mostly found on flat or hilly terrains up to about 350 m in elevation, but it may also be present on locally precipitous sites and at slightly higher elevations. Some parts of the community may have a forest structure. The Woodland features an open tree canopy, groundcover prevailed by grasses and herbs, sometimes with layers of shrubs and small trees.[10]

Locations

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Spanning through the cities of Fairfield, Liverpool, Blacktown, Cumberland, Campbelltown, Camden and Penrith, with the cities of Canterbury-Bankstown, Hawkesbury, Parramatta and Wollondilly being on the peripheries, they contain approximately 2000 ha (one-fifth) of the remaining Cumberland Plain Woodland. Its range does not extend to slightly wetter Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest, or high-rainfall ridges (such as Blue Gum High Forest in the upper North Shore), which are geologically on the Hornsby Plateau.[11]

Examples of the remnants can be seen at Defence Establishment Orchard Hills, Scheyville National Park, Rosford Street Reserve, Brenan Park, Central Gardens Nature Reserve, Fairfield Park Precinct, Prospect Hill, Prospect Nature Reserve, Western Sydney Regional Park, Wetherill Park Nature Reserve and Chipping Norton Lake, among other places.[12]

Western Sydney Airport

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The Western Sydney Airport, currently under construction at Badgerys Creek, New South Wales, will require the clearing of a large area of Cumberland Plain Woodland. Environmental offsets have been announced to ensure the protection, restoration and preservation of the woodland. The Biodiversity Offset Delivery Plan was announced on 24 August 2018 and included:

  • Restoration and management of over 900 hectares of Cumberland Plain Woodland at Defence Establishment Orchard Hills
  • Purchase of BioBanking credits through the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme[13]
  • A contribution to the Greening Australia Cumberland Seed Hub program
  • Acquisition of suitable parcels of land to be managed by local conservation groups
  • Other compensatory measures.[14]

Ecological communities

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Moist Shale Woodlands
Shale Hills Woodlands
Shale Plains Woodlands

The Cumberland Plain Woodland, classed under Coastal Valley Grassy Woodlands, includes these ecological communities, with some overlapping and others plainly being sub-regions of the Woodland:[15]

  • Cumberland Shale Hills Woodland – It is one of the widespread grassy woodland communities within Cumberland Plain Woodland and is restricted to mean annual rainfall of between 750 and 900 millimetres and elevations between 50 and 350 metres above sea level. An open woodland mainly containing grey box (Eucalyptus moluccana and Eucalyptus microcarpa) and forest red gum trees, it is mostly prevalent in Prospect near Prospect Reservoir, and also on the western edges of Fairfield City, Campbelltown LGA and Liverpool LGA.[16]
  • Cumberland Moist Shale Woodlands – Located in protected areas that are intermediate between Cumberland Plain Woodland on drier areas and the Western Sydney Dry Rainforest, the community has waxy-leaved shrubs and small trees in the understorey with a ground cover of herbs, fleshy twiners and grasses, which are usually absent in the surrounding grassy woodlands. Similar to its subgroup Western Sydney Dry Rainforest due to its moist habit, some of its species would include hairy clerodendrum (Clerodendrum tomentosum) and slender grape (Cayratia clematidea). Although most of its habitat has been cleared for housing and urbanization, where only 604 ha remain intact, there are pockets of it in the southwest parts of the Fairfield City Council area, northwest of Liverpool near Green Valley, Cecil Hills and the Wollondilly LGA.[17]
  • Cumberland Shale Plains Woodland and Shale-Gravel Transition Forest – Featuring a soft topography, it is an open grassy woodland mainly containing grey boxes, forest red gums, spotted gums and ironbarks. It features shale-influenced, nutrient-poor, reddish, sandy-clay soils that support a constituents of ironstone gravels. It ranges from a woodland to a forest with an understorey that may deviate between dense shrubs and a low thin shrub with an abundant ground cover of tussock grasses, shrubs and forbs. It was once was the most common variety of native vegetation in what is now western Sydney where it occurred on flat to undulating or craggy landscape at elevations reaching approximately 350 m above sea level. Only 10% of it remaining, the community is mostly found in Prospect, Wetherill Park, Prospect and Greystanes, Cecils Hills, Liverpool LGA, Marsden Park, Holsworthy and near Bankstown, albeit in small fragments of less than 5 hectares.[19][20][21][22] [23] The Shale-Gravel Transition Forest is grouped with the Shale Plains Woodlands by the EPBC Act, although the two have been differentiated.[24]
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  • Shale Plains with walking track
    Shale Plains with walking track
  • Shale Hills with offroad driving path
    Shale Hills with offroad driving path
  • Shale Plains with a mowed track
    Shale Plains with a mowed track
  • Shale Hills with a road traversing through it
    Shale Hills with a road traversing through it
  • Shale Plains with modified landscape
    Shale Plains with modified landscape
  • Shale-Gravel Transition Forest
    Shale-Gravel Transition Forest

Vegetation

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See also: Ecology of Sydney
Selected tree and shrub species
The Blue Box is a large tree found in the Cumberland Plain.
Purple coral peas are shrubby climbers found in the woodlands.
The Golden Wattle is usually a part of sclerophyll woodland communities
River Oaks are abundant in the riparian zones within the Cumberland Plain Woodland.
White feather honeymyrtle with lance-shaped leaves that is covered with creamy-coloured flowers.

The vegetation of the ecoregion includes grasslands, savanna, open woodlands, and some patches of sclerophyll forest lying on a nutrient-poor alluvium that was deposited by the Nepean River from sandstone and shale bedrock in the Blue Mountains. Despite this, they support a tremendous regional biodiversity.[25]

The grassy woodland is dominated by Grey Box (Eucalyptus moluccana) and Forest Red Gum (E. tereticornis), with Narrow-leaved Ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra), Spotted Gum (Corymbia maculata) and Thin-leaved Stringybark (Eucalyptus eugenioides) occurring sporadically. The ecoregion may have an open layer of small trees that would include such species of Acacia decurrens, Acacia parramattensis, Acacia implexa and Exocarpos cupressiformis.[26] The shrub layer is mainly contains Bursaria spinosa, indigofera australis, Hardenbergia violacea, Daviesia ulicifolia, Lespedeza cuneata, Dillwynia, Dodonaea viscosa, with plenty grasses such as Kangaroo Grass (Themeda australis) and Weeping Meadow Grass (Microlaena stipoides).[27]

Eucalyptus species:

Non-eucalyptus trees:

Shrubs:

Grasses and sedge:

Wildlife

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See also: Ecology of Sydney § Wildlife

Bird species in the woodland include (which are mostly vulnerable and/or endangered):[28]

Mammals:[29]

Historical description

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In April 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip describes the land west of Parramatta:[2]

Parramatta in 1820s with grassy slopes and scattered trees.

The country through which they travelled was singularly fine, level, or rising in small hills of a very pleasing and picturesque appearance. The soil excellent, except in a few small spots where it was stony. The trees growing at a distance of from 20 to 40 feet [6–12 metres] from each other, and in general entirely free from brushwood, which was confined to the stony and barren spots.

In 1818, author and settler James Atkinson describes the plain as:[2]

One immense tract of forest land extends, with little interruption, from below Windsor, on the Hawkesbury to Appin, a distance of 50 miles...Forest means land more or less furnished with timber trees, and invariably covered with grass underneath, and destitute of underwood...The whole of this tract, and indeed all the forest in this county, was thick forest land, covered with very heavy timber, chiefly iron and stringy bark, box, blue and other gums, and mahogany.

In 1819, British explorer William Wentworth describes Cumberland Plain's natural landscape between Liverpool and Nepean River:[30]

In 1820s, Peter Miller Cunningham described Cumberland Plain Woodland as "a fine timbered country, perfectly clear of bush...without any impediment in the shape of rocks, scrubs, or close forest".[31]

The soil changes to a thin layer of vegetable mould, resting on a stratum of yellow clay, which is again supported by a deep bed of schistus. The trees of the forest are here of the most stately dimensions. Full sized gums and iron barks, along side of which the loftiest trees in this country would appear as pigmies, with the beefwood tree, or as it is generally termed, the forest oak, which is of much humbler growth, are the usual timber.

The forest is extremely thick, but there is little or no underwood. A poor sour grass, which is too effectually sheltered from the rays of the sun, to be possessed of any nutritive and fattening properties, shoots up in the intervals. This description of country, with a few exceptions, however, which deserve not to be particularly noticed, forms another girdle of about 10 miles (16 km) in breadth: so that, generally speaking, the colony for about 16 miles (26 km) into the interior, may be said to possess a soil, which has naturally no claim to fertility, and will require all the skill and industry of its owners to render it even tolerably productive.

At this distance, however, the aspect of the country begins rapidly to improve. The forest is less thick, and the trees in general are of another description; the iron barks, yellow gums, and forest oaks disappearing, and the stringy barks, blue gums, and box trees, generally usurping their stead. When you have advanced about 4 miles (6.4 km) further into the interior, you are at length gratified with the appearance of a country truly beautiful. An endless variety of hill and dale, clothed in the most luxuriant herbage, and covered with bleating flocks and lowing herds, at length indicate that you are in regions fit to be inhabited by civilized man. The soil has no longer the stamp of barrenness. A rich loam resting on a substratum of fat red clay, several feet in depth, is found even on the tops of the highest hills, which in general do not yield in fertility to the valleys.

The timber, strange as it may appear, is of inferior size, though still of the same nature, i. e. blue gum, box, and stringy bark. There is no underwood, and the number of trees upon an acre do not upon an average exceed thirty. They are, in fact, so thin, that a person may gallop without difficulty in every direction. Coursing the kangaroo is the favourite amusement of the colonists, who generally pursue this animal at full speed on horseback, and frequently manage, notwithstanding its extraordinary swiftness, to be up at the death; so trifling are the impediments occasioned by the forest.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Recovering bushland on the Cumberland Plain: best practice guidelines for the management and restoration of bushland Sydney, N.S.W.: Dept. of Environment and Conservation (NSW), 2005 [4], 94 p. : ill., maps (some col.). Ruth Burton. National Library of Australia. 2 August 2005. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  2. ^ a b c Western Sydney woodland Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, NSW Government. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  3. ^ Benson DH, Howell J (2002) Cumberland Plain Woodland ecology then and now: interpretations and implications from the work of Robert Brown and others. Cunninghamia 7, 631-650.
  4. ^ Coastal Valley Grassy Woodlands NSW Office of Environment and Heritage
  5. ^ Grassy woodlands NSW Office of Environment and Heritage
  6. ^ "Cumberland Plain Woodland - Woodlands vanishing from Sydney's outskirts". NSW Department of the Environment & Energy. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  7. ^ Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 Archived 2017-07-31 at the Wayback Machine (NSW Act of Parliament, online edition).
  8. ^ Benson DH, Howell J (1990a) ‘Taken for granted: the bushland of Sydney and its suburbs.’ Kangaroo Press and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.
  9. ^ Tozer M. (2003). ‘The native vegetation of the Cumberland Plain, western Sydney: systematic classification and field identification of communities’. Cunninghamia. 8, 1: 1–75.
  10. ^ Benson DH (1992) The natural vegetation of the Penrith 1:100 000 map sheet. Cunninghamia 2, 541-596.
  11. ^ Benson DH, Howell J (1990b) Sydney’s vegetation 1788-1988: utilization, degradation and rehabilitation. Proceedings of the Ecological Society of Australia 16, 115-127.
  12. ^ Clarke PJ (2000) Plant population processes in temperate woodlands in eastern Australia – premises for management. Pp 248-270 in (Eds. R J Hobbs and C J Yates) Temperate eucalypt woodlands in Australia: biology, conservation, management and restoration (Surrey Beatty & Sons: Chipping Norton).
  13. ^ NSW Government. "Biodiversity Offsets Scheme". NSW Department of Planning and Environment. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  14. ^ "Biodiversity Offset Delivery Plan". Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communication and the Arts. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  15. ^ Keith DA (2004) ‘Ocean shores to desert dunes: the native vegetation of New South Wales and the ACT.’ NSW Department of Environment and Conservation, Sydney.
  16. ^ Keith D, Pellow B, Tozer M (2005) Can’t see the biodiversity for the trees? Implications of alternative landscape models for conservation of Cumberland Plain Woodlands. P6 in (Eds. B Pellow, C. Morris, M Bedward, S. Hill, J Sanders, J Clark) The ecology and management of Cumberland Plain habitats: a symposium (University of Western Sydney: Campbelltown).
  17. ^ James T, Benson DH, Howell J (1999) Rare plants of western Sydney. Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.
  18. ^ Fairley A and Waterhouse D 2005, West Sydney Wild – Exploring Nature in Sydney’s Western Suburbs. Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd, Dural, NSW.
  19. ^ Bankstown City Council 2002, Bushland Plan of Management – Reserves at Lansdowne including Mirambeena Reserve, Lansdowne Reserve, Bogabilla Reserve and Amaroo Reserve. Unpublished report prepared for Bankstown City Council.
  20. ^ James, T., McDougall, L. & Benson, D. (1999) Rare Bushland plants of Western Sydney. (Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney).
  21. ^ Cumberland Plain Shale Woodlands and Shale-Gravel Transition Forest Department of the Environment. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  22. ^ Cumberland Plain Shale Woodlands and Shale-Gravel Transition Forest Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  23. ^ Knox KJE, Clarke PJ (2006) Fire season and intensity affect shrub recruitment in temperate sclerophyllous woodlands. Oecologia 149, 730-739.
  24. ^ Biodiversity Report Commonwealth land at Badgerys Creek Prepared for Western Sydney Unit Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development Western Sydney Airport. October 2014. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  25. ^ Earth Resource Analysis PL 1998, Cumberland Plains Woodland: Trial Aerial Photographic interpretation of remnant woodlands, Sydney. Unpublished report prepared for NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service – Sydney Zone.
  26. ^ Nichols PWB (2005) Evaluation of restoration: a grassy woodland. PhD thesis. University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury.
  27. ^ Cooke J, Willis T, Groves R (2005) Impacts of woody weeds on Cumberland Plain Woodland biodiversity. P7 in (Eds. B Pellow, C. Morris, M Bedward, S. Hill, J Sanders, J Clark) The ecology and management of Cumberland Plain habitats: a symposium (University of Western Sydney: Campbelltown).
  28. ^ Keast A (1995) Habitat loss and species loss: the birds of Sydney 50 years ago and now. Australian Zoologist 30, 3-25.
  29. ^ Pellow B (2008) Assessment of the extent, quality and rehabilitation potential of the Endangered Ecological Community ‘Cumberland Plain Woodland’ at the Ingleburn Defence Site. Janet Cosh Herbarium, Wollongong.
  30. ^ Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of NSW by William Charles Wentworth, 1819
  31. ^ Kohen, J. (September 1996). "The Impact of Fire: An Historical Perspective". Australian Plants Online. Society for Growing Australian Plants.
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