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Australian bird habitats:
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Aboriginal names: "punituk" [tjapwurrung]
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Description of habitat |
This page describes mallee, which is a special type of woodland or scrub.
Mallee is defined as a habit of plants with underground lignotubers that may initially grow with a single trunk, but then - usually in recovery from bushfire - develop multiple thinner trunks/stems above the surface. Most of these plants, which then grow to a maximum height of less than 10 m, are in the family Eucalyptus. This type of (re-)growth is a specialization of plants in semi-arid environments with reliable winter rainfall.
Where these types of plants dominate, the term "mallee" is accordingly also used to stand for the type of habitat that they create. This implies that mallee is NOT a type of plant.
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Photos |
Below we display examples of mallee, with bird species regularly found in this type of habitat.
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Bird species found in this type of habitat or plant |
This is not necessarily a complete list. We display here some examples of bird species found by us in this kind of habitat or plant. Hover your cursor on thumbnails to see names of species; click on thumbnail to go to the page describing the species.
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Example of mallee, with eucalypts growing multiple thin stems,
rather than a single large trunk
(photo courtesy of J. Wilson)
Example of mallee, with eucalypts growing multiple thin stems,
rather than a single large trunk; here a ute is shown for
comparison
(photo courtesy of J. Wilson)
Direct comparison of two
eucalypts
(Rusty Gums, Angophora leiocarpa)
with different types of growth:
On the left a tree with "normal" growth, with one thick trunk;
on the right a tree with "mallee"-type growth, i.e. multiple
thin trunks
