Len Webb Ecological Images Collection
Images Arranged by Subject Category
Environmental Factors -- Climate Environmental Factors
Environmental Factors -- Cloud
Environmental Factors -- Fire
Environmental Factors -- Mist
Environmental Factors -- Soils
Environmental Factors -- Wind
Environmental Factors -- Climate -- Drought
Dry winter season with typical clouds of "bull-dust" (fine, like talc powder) along roads.
Near Normanton, southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland, June 1970.Evidence of drought effects in eucalypt forest on dry shallow soils of spurs, western aspect, with unaffected rainforest in gullies with deeper and moister soils.
Coomera Gorge, Lamington National Park, Queensland, October 1970.Wilting and changing leaf colours of trees on shallow stony soils of ridges, e.g. Narrow-leaf Ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra) towards end of dry winter (summer rainfall zone).
Western aspect of Bunya Mountains near Dalby, Queensland, October 1970.Wilting and changing leaf colours of trees on shallow stony soils of ridges, e.g. Narrow-leaf Ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra) towards end of dry winter (summer rainfall zone).
Western aspect of Bunya Mountains near Dalby, Queensland, October 1970.Wilting and changing leaf colours of trees on shallow stony soils of ridges, e.g. Narrow-leaf Ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra) towards end of dry winter (summer rainfall zone).
Western aspect of Bunya Mountains near Dalby, Queensland, October 1970.Wilting of shallow-rooted shrubby pioneer species along disturbed roadsides towards end of dry winter season.
Goodnight Scrub northwest of Childers, Queensland, 1950s.Environmental Factors -- Climate -- Seasonality
Moderately dry winter/early summer seasonality indicated by dusty road.
Danbulla, Atherton Tableland, Queensland, November 1962.Within a few days after beginning of wet rainy summer season the thin pale bark of certain gum tree species in grassy woodland (e.g. Eucalyptus alba) turns green and photosynthetic.
Silver Plains Station east of Coen, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, 1950s.Environmental Factors -- Cloud
Early morning cloud on mountain ca. 500-600 metres altitude plays important role in drier winter, e.g. by "cloud combing" by tree crowns which condenses moist vapour.
Whitfield Range near Cairns, Queensland, July 1962.Early morning mist/cloud on mountain augments rainfall during relatively dry winters: altitude ca. 1100 metres, habitat of micro/noto vine-fern forest (cool subtropical-lower montane).
Tinaroo Range, Queensland, August 1969.Regular low cloud augments precipitation in mountainous country (typical habitat for "cloudy wet" cool temperate rainforest (microphyll/nanophyll mossy fern forest).
Waratah to Corinna road, Tasmania, November 1957.Environmental Factors -- Fire
Abrupt boundary of rainforest and grassy bald on basaltic soils, presumably result of past cliseral change, maintained by Aboriginal burning before European settlement.
Bunya Mountains, Queensland, 1958.Boundary of gallery rainforest (semi-deciduous mesophyll vine forest) and alluvial savanna maintained by annual burning.
Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1978.Burnt eucalypt woodland on sandy soils.
Near Perth, Western Australia, 1958.Burnt low grassy eucalypt woodland (E. crebra, E. exserta).
Calliope River area, Queensland, November 1965.Burnt secondary rainforest, cleared for dairying.
Maalan, off Palmerston Highway west of Innisfail, Queensland, 1958.Close-up of charred surface, typical of annual fires in low grassy woodland.
Calliope River area, Queensland, November 1965.Dynamic vegetation pattern and weed regeneration resulting from frequent burning on foothills.
Near Cairns, Queensland, November 1962.Fire invading cut-over and disturbed tropical very wet lowland rainforest, annual average rainfall ca. 4000 mm.
Near Deeral, Queensland, November 1965.Fire lit in subalpine low shrubland, after melt of May snow.
Mt Kosciusko, Queensland, 1957.Fire typically lit in layered woodland (Eucalyptus alba, Melaleuca viridiflora, etc.
South of Mt Molloy, Queensland, Date uncertain.Fire-damaged and previously logged Karri forest.
Near Pemberton, Western Australia, 1958.Fires frequent in grassy woodland on foothills adjacent to cane farms, burnt annually in the past.
Cairns area, Queensland, October 1968.Fires frequent in grassy woodland on foothills adjacent to cane farms, burnt annually in the past.
Cairns area, Queensland, October 1968.Grassland/savanna dominated by Blady Grass or Kunai (Imperata) on alluvial plain, maintained by annual burning by Aborigines.
Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1978.Grassland/savanna dominated by Blady Grass or Kunai (Imperata) on alluvial plain, maintained by annual burning by Aborigines.
Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1978.Illustrating fire as primary factor in sclerophyll grassy woodland and savanna in tropical Australia.
Silver Plains Station, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, 1954.Inside edge of gallery viewed from adjacent savanna, recently burnt.
Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1978.Old jungle fowl nesting ground, as relict after retreat of rainforest by burning, now inside edge of savanna (see Image 2-6).
Lockhart River alluvial plain, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1978.Picturesque and quintessential expression of the dry sclerophyll woodland in which fire is a primary ecological factor, plus ubiquitous termites responsible for the hollow trunks and limbs.
Near Mt Carbine on Cooktown road, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1962.Recent destructive fire in remnant of relict cool temperate rainforest tree fern Dicksonia -- fire escape from adjacent farm "Lucerne Patch".
Bunya Mountains, Queensland, October 1970.Recent fire damage in grassy forest: box (Eucalyptus leptophlebia), bloodwood (E. polycarpa) on red sandy soils.
Near Laura, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, October 1962.Recent fire effects on surface soil in open eucalypt forest.
Barrington Tops area, New South Wales, 1960s.Recently burnt floor of semi-deciduous gallery rainforest.
Lockhart River alluvium, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1978.Recently burnt savanna on river alluvium, as done customarily annually by Aborigines.
Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1978.Recently burnt stunted paperbark forest (Melaleuca viridiflora) with Hakea, Petalostigma, etc.
Silver Plains Station, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, 1960s.Scorching by wildfire of degraded gallery forest along creek.
Near Dirty Creek, Portlands Roads road, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1956.Secondary rainforest species at disturbed and burnt edge of gallery forest.
Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, November 1978.Typical riverine paperbark forest plus adjoining eucalypt woodland which are regularly burnt.
Old Lockhart (Aboriginal settlement) Road, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, 1970s.View of tall open forest with some rainforest elements typically surviving in deep gullies protected from running crown fires. Recovery after 1934 fire.
Styx River Valley, Tasmania, November 1957.Environmental Factors -- Fire Plus Toxic Soil Parent
Fire-degraded grassy woodland on soils from serpentinite.
North of Canoona, Queensland, January 1962.Environmental Factors -- Mist
Early stage of succession of warm temperate/submontane rainforest with emergent Brush Box (Lophostemon confertus) and Flooded/Rose Gum (Eucalyptus grandis).
Peach Mt, Whian Whian State Forest, New South Wales, Late 1950s.Environmental Factors -- Soils
Bigarella's interpretation of soil profile: ancient buried red earth formed during wet warm climate in Miocene, then covered by recent basalt flow.
Bunya Mountains, Queensland, June 1980.Bigarella's interpretation: (eucalypt woodland on) sediment with lateritic gravel over soil from Silurian rocks.
East of Wondai, Queensland, June 1980.Bigarella's interpretation: basaltic (polygenetic) soil profile with buried red soil indicating wet warm climate period of Miocene age then further basaltic flows and eroded topsoils.
Bunya Mountains, Queensland, June 1980.Bigarella's interpretation: basaltic (polygenetic) soil profile with buried red soil indicating wet warm climate period of Miocene age then further basaltic flows and eroded topsoils.
Bunya Mountains, Queensland, June 1980.Bigarella's interpretation: cleared rainforest with subsequent/consequent solifluction erosion, as well as formation of terracettes, etc., typical of basaltic slopes in (often abandoned) dairying country.
Mt Mee area, Queensland, June 1980.Bigarella's interpretation: truncated red soil (krasnozem) below gravelly brown (cf. prairie) soil deposited during gry Glacial period.
Bunya Mountains, Queensland, June 1980.Bigarella's interpretation: typical erosion pediments associated with down-wearing of hills.
Bunya Mountains area, Queensland, June 1980.Oligotrophic (low fertility) brown earth on rhyolitic parent materials.
Whian Whian State Forest, New South Wales, Late 1950s.Oligotrophic brown earth with organic layer (and charcoal fragments) on rhyolitic parent materials.
Whian Whian State Forest, New South Wales, Late 1950s.Polygenetic soil with recent aeolian sand (with stunted sclerophyll woodland) overlying podsol type, older sand deposition profile adjacent to creek.
Western coast of Hinchinbrook Island, Queensland, November 1971.Two-layered (polygenetic) soil profile interpreted as evidence for past warm wet climate, succeeded by erosion deposits during recent dry Glacial period.
Bunya Mountains, Queensland, June 1980.Yellow-brown oligotrophic earth.
Whian Whian State Forest, New South Wales, Late 1950s.Environmental Factors -- Wind-exposure
Coastal "scrubs" including more tolerant rainforest elements in lee of coastal dunes.
Newcastle Bay, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, May 1962.Dead salt wind-sensitive littoral vegetation, e.g. Banksia exposed by destruction of salt-tolerant vegetation seaward. Clearing of sand dune causes destabilisation.
South of Noosa, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 1963.Dead salt wind-sensitive littoral vegetation, e.g. Banksia exposed by destruction of salt-tolerant vegetation seaward.
South of Noosa, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 1963.Salt-air "scald" on coastal windward side of crown of Brush Box, recently exposed by real estate development. Close-up of crown.
Gold Coast, Queensland, 1960s.Salt-air "scald" on coastal windward side of crown of Brush Box, recently exposed by real estate development.
Gold Coast, Queensland, 1960s.Streamlined crowns of coastal vegetation occuping hind-dunes - no "blow-outs" of sand visible in undisturbed areas.
South of Freshwater, Cooloola, Queensland, May 1970.Streamlining of vine forest on coastal cliff with favourable soil and no human impacts.
Captain Billy Landing, "Heathlands" (Capelands), Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, July 1975.