Lifting the bonnet on
Wheatbelt Woodlands
A guide to the connection between landscape and
vegetation in Southwest Australia.
Nathan McQuoid
FOREWoRD
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This is an important, pioneering book, charting a new
way of understanding and caring for woodlands on
the extraordinary landscapes of Southwest Australia.
Indeed, in many ways, this book is to woodlands what the
enlightened and inspired work of C.E. Lane-Poole and
successors was to Southwest forests in the early days of
establishing the science of, and caring for, State Forests.
regions have not, perhaps best demonstrated in
agriculture through the need to fertilise with phosphate
and trace elements, and the devastating rise of saline
groundwaters witnessed across the Wheatbelt due to the
removal of the native perennial vegetation.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that we are in
the midst of a paradigm shift, globally and locally, in
approaches to understanding how to live sustainably
on the Earth’s lands and waters, particularly those that
are relatively old, climatically buffered and infertile.
Such landscapes are commonest globally in Southwest
Australia. Coincidentally, these landscapes have been
lived in and managed by Noongar people for more than
45,000 years, an extraordinary span by any count. We
have much to learn about resilience and sustainable living
in changing circumstances from Aboriginal people.
At the same time, science in Southwest Australia has
been trying to catch up with comparable understanding
of European and other Northern Hemisphere systems.
Remarkably, more than one-third of the tree species
Nathan McQuoid considers in this book have only been
named by botanists over the past two decades. As Nathan
points out, not surprisingly, scientific understanding of
woodland tree life histories and processes is in need of
extensive further research. In these regards, we are well
behind traditional Aboriginal knowledge systems, which
thankfully are now beginning to be better appreciated and
communicated as respect for Noongar culture is becoming
accepted and more mainstream.
Early approaches by European colonists, still widely
practised, have been singularly pursued as though
Southwest landscapes and soils were the same as in the
young, often-disturbed and relatively fertile conditions
dominant in Eurasia and North America. While there
are pockets of country in Southwest Australia that have
responded well to such land management, extensive
In Nathan McQuoid, Western Australians are lucky to
have such a skilled field worker, researcher, conservation
practitioner and author. I first met Nathan in 1986 on
a trip to Calingiri, north-east of Perth, when he was a
National Park ranger and I a young plant conservation
researcher and policy officer with the then Department
of Conservation and Land Management. My interest in
woodland eucalypts started in 1978 when I was asked to
investigate the conservation status of the beautiful but
rare granite rock mallee Eucalyptus caesia. After a few
months of exploring the Wheatbelt, collecting eucalypts
on and off granite outcrops, it became apparent that
current published field guides were a good start but
deficient, with many trees and mallees not matching
available descriptions and illustrations. This view was
confirmed when I corresponded with and sent specimens
to Canberra-based CSIRO eucalypt taxonomist Ian
Brooker. I resolved to get to know eucalypts in Southwest
Australia better, to collaborate with Ian on describing new
species, and to devise conservation strategies that made
sense in the extraordinary landscapes and exceptionally
rich flora of Southwest Australia. Needless to say, this
program is ongoing, strongly reliant on, and advancing
faster than would otherwise happen, due to people with
the talents of the calibre of Nathan McQuoid.
On our first meeting, Nathan had agreed to show me
plants near Calingiri of what appeared to be hybrids
between mottlecah (Eucalyptus macrocarpa) and pearfruited mallee (E. pyriformis). I had learnt about his
astute observations in the course of an investigation of the
taxonomic and conservation status of the rose mallee (E.
rhodantha), then reputed to be such a hybrid of the above
parentage by the leading eastern Australian eucalypt
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taxonomists. Rose mallee proved to be a good species in
its own right, and the hybrids that Nathan had discovered
were even rarer than the rose mallee.
Nathan and I were kindred spirits from the start, revelling
in the delights of field work, exploring ideas on virgin
scientific turf, and developing the earliest of inklings that
new ways of thinking would be needed if there was to be
a hope of understanding the unique attributes of
Southwest Australian plants, landscapes and their
conservation management.
What you have before you, 24 years later, is a remarkably
succinct and well-written overview of contemporary
knowledge on these topics and how it might best be
applied for future custodianship of Southwest woodlands.
Nathan has eloquently highlighted the important stories
and information, pursuing an analogy with restoring
vintage cars that brings a deeply practical and pragmatic
insight into caring for such complex systems. He
highlights processes as much as things, and sensibly
begins with a landscape perspective, enabling all readers
to apply what they can readily see and understand as a
start for exploring the subtleties and complexities of some
of the Earth’s most interesting temperate woodlands.
Importantly, Nathan also devotes some time to aesthetics,
and the way that we are all enriched by caring for and
repairing old, complex, beautiful things.
Nathan offers perhaps the best tool of all – lists of sites
and drives where you can see and experience Southwest
woodlands first-hand. These are places that come alive and
will capture your imagination and heart if you are open
to their mystery and allure, as well as their great practical
value for sustainable rural living in Southwest Australia.
I am delighted that Nathan has advanced the body of
theory I recently published about old, climaticallybuffered infertile landscapes so prevalent in Southwest
Australia in a way that will encourage far more people
to look, understand and take appropriate action than
my rather esoteric contribution to obscure scientific
literature. He and I discuss such matters whenever we
meet, and continue to collaborate on new ways of testing
ideas and gaining an improved understanding of one of
the world’s greatest natural heritages.
I commend this book to all who are smitten by trees and
woodlands, and want to ensure that we have a sustainable
future with them on the truly remarkable and beautiful
landscapes of Southwest Australia.
Professor Stephen D. Hopper AC FLS FTSE
Winthrop Professor of Biodiversity, Centre for Excellence in Natural
Resource Management and School of Plant Biology, The University of
Western Australia.
Former Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Opposite: The crossroads, 85 km east of Hyden, are at the centre of an extensive intact woodland landscape.
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