Vegetation class map
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Key:
<1%
1-10%
10-50%
>50%
Estimated percentage landcover for vegetation class
Structure
Closed tussock grassland with a variety of perennial herbs including erect, scrambling and rosette forms, as well as geophytic orchids and lilies in the spaces between the tussocks.
Trees
Typically none
Shrubs
Typically none
Forbs
Acaena ovina, Asperula conferta (common woodruff), Chrysocephalum apiculatum (common everlasting), Convolvulus erubescens (Australian bindweed), Cullen tenax (emu-foot), Epilobium hirtigerum (hoary willow-herb), Euchiton sphaericus (Japanese cudweed), Geranium solanderi var. solanderi (native geranium), Goodenia pinnatifida (scrambled eggs), Leptorhynchos squamatus subsp. A (scaly buttons), Rumex brownii (swamp dock), Solenogyne gunnii, Swainsona recta (bladder pea), Wahlenbergia communis (tufted bluebell), Austrodanthonia caespitosa (ringed wallaby grass), Austrostipa bigeniculata (yanganbil), A. scabra subsp. falcata, Bothriochloa macra (red grass), Carex appressa (tussock sedge), C. gaudichaudiana, C. inversa (knob sedge), Elymus scaber var. scaber (common wheatgrass), Enneapogon nigricans (niggerheads), Hemarthria uncinata var. uncinata, Poa sieberiana var. sieberiana (snowgrass), Themeda australis (kangaroo grass). Poorly drained depositional flats are dominated by Poa labillardieri (tussock).
Habitat
Undulating tablelands varying in altitude from 600 to 1500 m, and receiving between 500 and 750 mm of rainfall annually. Rarely on upper slopes except on the Monaro tablelands. Soils are fertile, periodically damp clays, usually derived from basalt, alluvium, granites, limestone or other fine-grained sedimentary rocks.
Distribution
Principally Monaro tableland with smaller outlying occurrences around Goulburn, Braidwood, Bathurst and Guyra. Disjunct occurrences of related assemblages on the basalt plains west of Melbourne, Victoria.
Notes
An extensive and variable group of assemblages grading locally into adjacent tablelands grassy woodlands. Composition varies with substrate, catenary position and grazing history. Extensively depleted and degraded by agricultural land uses.
Sources
Costin (1954); Benson (1994); Keith & Bedward (1999); Thomas et al. (2000)
See all threatened species associated with this vegetation class
See a
list of species, populations and ecological communities
associated with the Temperate Montane Grasslands vegetation class.