Myrtle beech
This gallery of stunning myrtle forests was captured entirely in takayna / Tarkine, an area threatened by mining and forestry activity. Conservationist photographers have worked tirelessly with environmentalists for decades to highlight the beauty of this stunning area.
Myrtle Beech
Myrtle Beech, Myrtle, Tasmanian Myrtle
Nothofagus cunninghamii
Nothofagaceae
Myrtle Beech normally grows a large tree that is the dominant species of Tasmania's cool temperate rainforests. In Tasmania's tall cathedral-like (or 'Callidendrous') rainforests, the myrtle commonly grows 30-40m tall, but can grow up to 55m in height. The Myrtle in Tasmania is a tree often likened to the forests of fairytales, with its side roots forming major buttresses around the base of the tree, mosses, lichens, fungi and epiphytes often draping the trees trunk as it rises up to an irregular branching cathedral like canopy. Its leaves are a simple heart shaped dark green 1-2cm diameter leaf, with a finely serrated edge, with younger leaves ranging from yellow to a brilliant red. In Alpine regions the Myrtle can take a shorter, shrubbier form up to 1-3m.
30-40m tall up to 55m in open rainforests. In Alpine areas it tends to be shorter and shrubbier in form - 1-3m tall.
Small heart-shaped dark green leaves with finely serrated edge, and yellow to red immature leaves. Large dominant tree in Tasmanian rainforest with a dark trunk, burls, irregularities and often covered in mosses, lichens and epiphytes.
Round bright orange fruiting bodies that sometimes protrude from myrtle trees are from the fungus Cyttaria gunnii. Myrtle grows best on rich red soils that have good rainfall, and the largest stretch of Myrtle Beech rainforest in Australia, also the largest stretch of temperate rainforest in the Southern Hemisphere, is the takayna / Tarkine in North-West Tasmania. A descendent of the ancient supercontinent, Gondwanaland, the cousins of the myrtle beech can be found in Patagonia, in Chile.
The dominant tree of temperate rainforest in South-Eastern Australia and Tasmania. An understory tree in West sclerophyll forests and alongside rivers and moist gullies, and a species of Tasmania's Alpine highlands.
Brown flowers form on the myrtle in spring and summer, with the seed spread by the wind. There are male and female flowers on the same tree - forming clusters next to leaves at the tips of the branches. There is a small woody fruit (6mm) with three small nuts.
The Myrtle Beech is found in relatively small patches in the mainland of South-Eastern Australia in rainforest gullies in places such as East Gippsland. In Tasmania, the Myrtle is extensively distributed across Western Tasmania, Tasmania's central highlands, North-East Highlands, the Tasman Peninsula and on the southern half of Bruny Island. The best place on Bruny Island to find the Myrtle is the subalpine forests and forested slopes of Mt Mangana and the forested hinterland behind Adventure Bay
The Myrtle's main immediate threat in Victoria and Tasmania is from logging operations, either through direct logging of myrtle rainforests or through roading operations which open up forests to increased risk of fire and Myrtle wilt. Myrtle wilt is a naturally parasitic fungus which attacks myrtle beech, and which proliferates around areas of disturbance - with logging and mining roading and clearance leading to a proliferation of myrtle wilt in nearby forest. The biggest current logging threat to myrtle forests occurs in the takayna/Tarkine and Western Tasmania, which is also an area of threat from mineral exploration and expansion. Fires are devastating for myrtle beach forests, and the drying out of landscapes, increased temperatures and increased risk of bushfire is a major long-term threat to myrtle beach forests.
In Tasmania, the stronghold for the Myrtle is the takayna / Tarkine in North-West Tasmania. The myrtle is also found extensively in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage area, the understory of the forested slopes of kunanyi, and on Bruny Island, the myrtle's stronghold is Mt Mangana and its forested slopes.
Major conservation efforts to protect the myrtle and myrtle beech forests, include the efforts to protect the takayna / Tarkine as a National Park and World Heritage area - an effort currently led by the Bob Brown Foundation. In Victoria efforts to protect important areas of myrtle include those efforts to protect the forests of East Gippsland, led by environment groups like the Victorian National Parks Association and Environment East Gippsland, and the proposal to create a Great Forest National Park
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