Vegetation class map
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Key:
<1%
1-10%
10-50%
>50%
Estimated percentage landcover for vegetation class
Structure
A variety of structural forms including dense scrubs, sometimes with interstitial grassy groundcover, open sedge-heaths or grasslands with scattered shrubs.
Trees
Typically none
Shrubs
Leptospermum laevigatum (coast teatree) or Melaleuca armillaris subsp. armillaris may form dense thickets, excluding other shrubs, as do Cassinia tenuifolia (bullybush) and Melaleuca howensis on the Lord Howe Island group. Outside the thickets Acacia myrtifolia (red-stemmed wattle), A. suaveolens (sweet wattle), Allocasuarina distyla (scrub sheoak), Banksia integrifolia subsp. integrifolia (coast banksia), B. oblongifolia, Dodonaea triquetra, Hakea laevipes subsp. laevipes, Lambertia formosa (mountain devil), Melaleuca nodosa, Pultenaea maritima and Westringia fruticosa (coastal rosemary) occur, while Pandanus tectorius var. australianus (screw pine) is scattered north from Port Macquarie.
Forbs
Dianella caerulea (blue flax lily), Gonocarpus teucrioides (raspwort), Hydrocotyle peduncularis, Mirbelia rubiifolia, Patersonia sericea (silky purple-flag), Polymeria calycina, Thesium australe (only rarely), Lindsaea linearis (screw fern), Entolasia stricta (wiry panic), Isolepis nodosa (knobby club-rush), Lepidosperma concavum, Lomandra longifolia (spiny-headed mat-rush), L. obliqua (twisted mat-rush), Oplismenus imbecillus, Poa poiformis, Ptilothrix deusta, Themeda australis (kangaroo grass).
Habitat
Exposed headlands and coastal plateaux with loamy soils derived from a variety of substrates and enriched by maritime sea spray.
Distribution
Restricted patches scattered along the New South Wales coastline, extending into Victoria and Queensland, to many offshore islands and Lord Howe Island.
Notes
A variable group of assemblages whose composition depends on latitude and disturbance history. May grade locally into other heathlands, with declining influence of salt-laden winds, or into or dry sclerophyll forests with decreasing levels of exposure. Adam et al. (1989) report a phytosociological analysis of headland vegetation between Forster and the Victorian border. They define a number of shrub-dominated communities relevant to this map unit.
Sources
Adam et al. (1989); Keith & Bedward (1999); NPWS (2000)
See all threatened species associated with this vegetation class
See a
list of species, populations and ecological communities
associated with the Coastal Headland Heaths vegetation class.