Wet Eucalypt forest with Mountain Ash.

As the climate of Australia's distant past

Changed and became more arid, unfavourable

Conditions sent the great rainforests into

Retreat. Their decline presented the

opportunity for the rise of a different

vegetation, adapted to surviving and

exploiting the drier conditions. The

1st of these plants probably evolved from

the fringe-dwellers of the rainforests,

those occupying the marginal areas where

less moisture and lower levels of soil

nutrients were the norm. The ancestors

of modern eucalypts, the casuarinas or

she-oaks, and the Callitris pines were

all contenders for the occupation of the

newly - available ecological niche.

set design©Kids4ME2004

Music - The Forest Speaks