Vegetation class map
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Key:
<1%
1-10%
10-50%
>50%
Estimated percentage landcover for vegetation class
Structure
Dry open eucalypt forest to 30 m tall, with a mixed sclerophyll and mesophyll shrub stratum and semi-continuous grassy groundcover.
Trees
Corymbia maculata (spotted gum), Eucalyptus crebra (narrow-leaved ironbark), E. moluccana (grey box), E. propinqua (grey gum), E. siderophloia (grey ironbark) and Syncarpia glomulifera (turpentine). May also have Angophora costata (Sydney red gum) and Eucalyptus punctata (grey gum) though mainly in the eastern Hunter valley.
Shrubs
Acacia parvipinnula (silver-stemmed wattle) and Allocasuarina torulosa (forest oak) are present as tall shrubs or small trees. Smaller shrubs include Breynia oblongifolia (coffee bush), Daviesia ulicifolia (gorse bitter pea), Lissanthe strigosa (peach heath), Notelaea longifolia (large mock-olive), Persoonia linearis (narrow-leaved geebung), Pultenaea villosa, Rapanea variabilis (muttonwood).
Forbs
Calotis lappulacea (yellow burr-daisy), Desmodium varians (slender tick-trefoil), Dichondra repens (kidney weed), Pratia purpurascens (white root), Vernonia cinerea, Cheilanthes sieberi (poison rock fern), Cymbopogon refractus (barbed wire grass), Entolasia stricta (wiry panic), Microlaena stipoides var. stipoides (weeping grass), Themeda australis (kangaroo grass).
Habitat
Foothills and undulating terrain in rain shadow valleys below 400 m elevation in the eastern parts of coastal rainshadow valleys, on well-drained loams derived from shales, foothills and undulating terrain below 400 m on loamy soils derived from shales. They are associated with the major coastal river valleys along the New South Wales coast, and occur in local areas that are transitional between Coastal Valley Grassy Woodlands and Northern Hinterland Wet Sclerophyll Forests.
Distribution
Eastern parts of the Hunter, Manning and Macleay river valleys. Examples occur around Cessnock, the grounds of the University of Newcastle and further north on roads leading west from the towns of Taree and Kempsey. Unique to New South Wales.
Notes
Varies floristically with latitude and in response to clay influence. Grades locally into Coastal Valley Grassy Woodlands on soils with greater clay content and into Northern Hinterland Wet Sclerophyll Forests with increasing soil moisture status. Shares affinities with Clarence Dry Sclerophyll Forests in the north and Cumberland Dry Sclerophyll Forests in the south. Fragmented by clearing for agricultural land uses.
Sources
NPWS (1999); NPWS (2000)
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See a
list of species, populations and ecological communities
associated with the Hunter-Macleay Dry Sclerophyll Forests vegetation class.