About Grassy Box Woodlands
Grassy box woodlands once dominated the wheat-sheep belt of south-eastern Australia, but are now one of the most poorly conserved ecosystems in Australia (Specht et al 1974). Scattered box trees are still common in the landscape but regeneration is limited and the native understorey community is very rare.
In New South Wales, the dominant trees of the woodlands vary along a rainfall gradient from east to west. Yellow Box (Eucalyptus mellidora) and Blakely's Red Gum (E. blakelyi) occur on the tablelands and on moister sites further west. White Box (E. albens) is most common on the eastern parts of the slopes, and is replaced by Grey Box (E. microcarpa), Fuzzy Box (E. conica) and Bimble (or Poplar) Box (E. populnea) further west.
While trees are the most prominent features of the woodlands, most of the plant diversity is in the understorey. Some areas are quite shrubby, especially in the Grey and Bimble Box country and on poorer soils further east.
On fertile soils the understoreys were often grassy and it is these that are the focus of the Grassy Box Woodlands Conservation Management Network. In the east, they were originally dominated by Kangaroo Grass (Themeda australis), Snow Grass (Poa sieberiana), with Wallaby Grasses (Danthonia spp.), Spear Grasses (Stipa spp.) and Windmill Grass (Enteropogon acicularis) increasing in the west. In between the grasses, a wide range of herbs, lilies and orchids can be found on good sites - Prober (1996) recorded 375 native species within the Grassy White Box Woodlands, with gradual changes in species composition from the north to the south. An important suite of birds and other animals rely on the woodlands for foraging, shelter and breeding.
Since they occur on some of eastern Australia's most fertile soils, the once continuous Grassy Box Woodlands have been reduced to widely scattered remnants of varying size, quality and tenure. The understorey of the remnants is largely dependent on management history, ranging from one or two species under a patch of trees in an improved pasture to over on hundred native species in an undisturbed remnant.
Grassy White Box Woodlands are listed nationally as an endangered ecological community under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999. White Box, Yellow Box, Red Gum woodland is listed under the Threatened Species Conservation Act, 1995 in New South Wales.
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