Antarctic Beech Trees of Gondwanaland
When you think of Australia which landscapes do you picture?
Rusty red sunburnt country… Aquamarine coral reefs… Pearly white beaches… or… Lush green rainforest?
With only 0.3% of the continent covered by rainforest it is not surprising that the first three landscapes listed generally steal the limelight. Yet the rainforests contain about half of all Australian plant families and a third of Australia’s mammal and bird species.
Stepping into the Australian rainforest feels like stepping back into the ancient world of Gondwanaland when, 140 million years ago, Australia was part of a large southern continent connected to Antarctica, South America, Africa and India.
Gondwanaland ~ Showing fossil connections
The vegetation found here is the most ancient in Australia with plant forms showing little change over the aeons of time from their fossilised ancestors and it is here one can see the magnificent Antarctic Beech trees.
Up until recently it was thought that these amazing huge dinosaurs of the forest were now only reproducing by copsing, or suckering, as they grow in circles encompassing the older remnant of a predecessor.
Their moss and lichen covered trunks, frequently adorned with birds-nest ferns and creepers rise atop exposed gnarled roots from which they have grown for hundreds of years.
Antarctic Beeches ~ Nothofagus Moorei
These ancient mammoth like sculptures can be found in the few remaining pockets of cool temperate rainforests, which thankfully are now World Heritage listed, and lie between Barrington Tops (200km north of Sydney) and the Lamington National Park just over the border into Queensland.
My favourite spot for time travelling back into their pre-historic kingdoms to view these awe-inspiring relics is in the Border Ranges National Park, which is on the NSW side of the Qld/NSW border 
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August 13th, 2010 at 00:37
[...] and Africa ~ There has therefore been debate whether their genus is connected from the days of Gondwanaland when Australia was connected to these land masses or whether, the more likely speculation that the [...]