Oz: Oz Flora
========================================

Caption: Aussie plants

Blurb: Australian plants, and how they cope with growing in the wide
brown land.



There are a lot of plants that are unique to Australia, and a lot of
these have characteristics not seen anywhere else. These are due
mostly to the harsh environments in which the plants have to survive,
and have evolved over many millions of years.



The best known Aussie plant is the eucalyptus, or gum tree. These
come in many varieties, and various species have adapted to be able
to grow in snowbound alpine environments, costal plains or the sandy
deserts. Eucalyptus trees are evergreen, and all have a similar leaf
colour, that looks a bit like aqua. Gum trees have their seeds in
gumnuts, which are very hard marble sized nuts contining the trees
seeds.



Many Ozzie flowers have evolved uncommon shapes to keep a competitive
edge in attracting insects. Examples of these are:



	+ The Bottlebrush, whose flower is shaped like, well, a
	bottle brush. When the flowers of these die and fall off, a
	furry cylinder contining lots of seed pods is left over.
	+ The Warratah, whose flower is an onion shaped ball made up
	of lots of little coloured finger petals (like those of the
	bottlebrush) and surrounded by leaves.
	+ The Kangaroo Paw, which has three petals per flower in the
	rough shape of a Kangaroo's paw (long center petal with
	shorter side petals).
	+ The Wattle, a flowering tree whose flowers are made up of
	many hair - thin fingers of petal that sprout from a woody
	cone. These are the first flowers to appear in spring, and are
	a brilliant yellow. Eucalypt flowers are similar, and both
	leave seed bearing pods when the flowers die off.



Other Oz plants include rainforest palms, ferns, mosses and lichens,
bush shrubs like the Teatree, alpine, plain and desert grasses.



Another uncommon Australian tree is the Mangrove tree, which is
apparently the only known tree that can grow in salt water. Mangrove
trees form Mangrove swamps, where the mud and water surrounding the
exposed roots of the trees from a unique and rare eco - system.



One of the ways that plants have adapted to the harsh conditions is
by depending on fire for new growth spurts. Gumnuts and other seed
enclosures can be opened only by the heat of a bushfire, and many
grasses also need fire to seed. The eucalyptus oil in gum trees is
highly flammable, allowing the old leaves to burn off and leaving
room for new branches. Eucalyptus bark is designed to lead flames up
the tree's trunk to the leaves.


















Images on this page:
	Image:
		Filename:    Flora/Eucalyptus.jpg
		Caption:     Eucalyptus leaves with flowers and
		gumnuts
	Image:
		Filename:    Flora/Warratah.jpg
		Caption:     A warratah flower
	Image:
		Filename:    Flora/Kangaroo-Paw.jpg
		Caption:     A kangaroo paw
	Image:
		Filename:    Flora/Wattle.jpg
		Caption:     Wattle in flower


Links on this page:
	Link:
		URL:         http://www.anbg.gov.au/
		Name:        The Australian National Botanical Gardens
		Description: Lots of detailed info about Aussie plants
	Link:
		URL:         http://www.austemb.org/flora.htm
		Name:        The Aussie US Embassy Flora Page
		Description: A page on Australian state floral emblems


Navigational links:
	Link:
		URL:         Fauna.txt
		Name:        Oz: Oz Fauna
		Description: Go to the previous page
	Link:
		URL:         Mainmenu.txt
		Name:        Oz: Oz Main Menu
		Description: Go home to the Main Menu
	Link:
		URL:         Holidays.txt
		Name:        Oz: Oz Holidays
		Description: Go to the next page



Bibliographical information:
----------------------------------------
  + Title	Oz: Oz Flora
  + Creator	Starweb Document Generator V2.6
  + Subject	Australian Flora
  + Description	A brief and broad description of things
		Australian
  + Publisher	Lukas Tan
  + Contributor
  + Date	2003-05-05
  + Type	Content
  + Format	text/plain
  + Identifier	C:\Documents and Settings\Lukas\My
		Documents\Homepage\Oz\Flora.txt
  + Source	Flora.swx
  + Language	en
  + Relation	txt.swt
  + Coverage	Australia
  + Rights	Under Australian law, copyright of this document
		falls with it's publisher (Lukas Tan). Permission is
		granted for the use of the content of these pages for
		non - commercial educational purposes, provided that
		appropriate acknowledgement is given.
  + URL		http://www.effect.net.au/lukastan/Oz/