1384.6 - Statistics - Tasmania, 2005  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 13/09/2002   
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Contents >> Environment >> Flora

Tasmania contains Australia's largest tracts of cool temperate rainforest, covering around 10% of the State. Cool temperate rainforests tend to grow in areas receiving over 1,200 mm of rain a year and are dominated by particular trees, such as myrtle, leatherwood, celery-top pine, sassafras, Huon pine, pencil pine, King Billy pine and deciduous beech.

Tasmania is fortunate in possessing a very large number of unique plant species that occur nowhere else in the world. Its rainforest and alpine communities are unique assemblages of plants of great botanical significance, for example the native conifer of which the Huon pine is a good example.

FLORA, Tasmania
Biological
classification
Common name
(example)
Estimated no. of
described species
Possible total
no. of species(a)

Angiospermophyta
- Dicotyledonaebroadleaved plants
1,445
1,500
- Monocotyledonaegrasses, sedges, lillies
756
800
Bryophytamosses, liverworts
648
1,000
Chlorphyta (macro)green macroalgae
100
130
Chromophycophytadiatoms, dinoflagellates
128
2,000
Coniferophytaconifers
12
12
Filicinophytaferns
104
120
Lycopodophytalycopods (club mosses)
11
20
Phaeophyta (macro)brown macroalgae
150
200
Rhodophyta (macro)red macroalgae
500
750

(a) Estimating the possible total number of species is difficult, and in most cases should only be considered speculative.

Source: State of the Environment Tasmania, Volume 1, 1996.



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