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 |  | | |
| - Dicotyledonae | broadleaved plants | 1,445 | 1,500 |
| - Monocotyledonae | grasses, sedges, lillies | 756 | 800 |
| Bryophyta | mosses, liverworts | 648 | 1,000 |
| Chlorphyta (macro) | green macroalgae | 100 | 130 |
| Chromophycophyta | diatoms, dinoflagellates | 128 | 2,000 |
| Coniferophyta | conifers | 12 | 12 |
| Filicinophyta | ferns | 104 | 120 |
| Lycopodophyta | lycopods (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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