Mallee are trees or shrubs, mainly certain species of eucalypts, which grow with multiple stems springing from an underground lignotuber, usually to a height of no more than . The term is widely used for trees with this growth habit across southern Australia, in the states of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

and Victoria, and has given rise to other uses of the term, including the

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syst ...

s where such trees predominate, specific geographic areas within some of the states and as part of various species' names.

Etymology

The word is thought to originate from the word ''mali'', meaning water, in the Wemba Wemba language, an Aboriginal Australian language of southern New South Wales and Victoria. The word is also used in the closely related Woiwurrung language and other Aboriginal languages of Victoria, South Australia, and southern New South Wales.

Overview

The term ''mallee'' is used describe various species of

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

s or

woody plant A woody plant is a plant that produces wood as its structural tissue and thus has a hard stem. In cold climates, woody plants further survive winter or dry season above ground, as opposite to herbaceous plants that die back to the ground until sp ...

s, mainly of the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

''Eucalyptus'', which grow with multiple stems springing from an underground bulbous woody structure called a lignotuber, or mallee root, usually to a height of no more than . The term is widely used for trees with this across southern Australia, across the states of Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. The term is also applied to other eucalypts with a similar growth habit, in particular those in the closely related genera ''

Corymbia ''Corymbia'', commonly known as bloodwoods, is a genus of about one hundred species of tree that, along with ''Eucalyptus'', ''Angophora'' and several smaller groups, are referred to as eucalypts. Until 1990, corymbias were included in the gen ...

'' and ''

Angophora ''Angophora'' is a genus of nine species of trees and shrubs in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Endemic to eastern Australia, they differ from other eucalypts in having juvenile and adult leaves arranged in opposite pairs, sepals reduced to projec ...

''. Some of the species grow as single-stemmed trees initially, but recover in mallee form if burnt to the ground by bushfire. Over 50 percent of eucalypt species are mallees, and they are mostly slow-growing and tough. The lignotuber enables the plant to regenerate after fire, wind damage or other type of trauma.

Range

Mallees are the dominant vegetation throughout semi-arid areas of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

with reliable winter rainfall. Within this area, they form extensive

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

s and shrublands covering over in New South Wales, north-western Victoria, southern South Australia and southern Western Australia, with the greatest extent being in South Australia (). There are also some species found in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

, namely '' Eucalyptus gamophylla'' (blue mallee), '' Eucalyptus pachycarpa'' and '' Eucalyptus setosa'', but these are isolated rather than forming woodland.

Farming on mallee land

Grubbing the land of mallee stumps for

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

purposes was difficult for early settler farmers, as the land could not be easily

plough A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...

ed and sown even after the trees were removed. In the colony of South Australia in the late 19th century, legislation which encouraged closer settlement made it even tougher for farmers to make a living. Grubbing the mallee lands was a laborious and expensive task estimated at £2–7 per acre,Richard Smith and his stump jumping plough (1)
and the government offered a £200 reward for the invention of an effective machine that would remove the stumps. To assist with the challenges of farming on mallee lands, some settlers turned their minds to the invention of technologies that could make some of the tasks easier. First the scrub or mallee roller was invented, which flattened the stumps and other vegetation, after which it would all be burnt and crops sown. The technique became known as "mullenising", as the invention of the device was attributed to a farmer called Mullen. A few years later the

stump jump plough The stump-jump plough, also known as stump-jumping plough, is a kind of plough invented in South Australia in the late 19th century by Richard Bowyer Smith and Clarence Herbert Smith to solve the particular problem of preparing mallee lands f ...

was invented on the Yorke Peninsula by Richard Bowyer Smith and perfected by his brother,

Clarence Herbert Smith Clarence Herbert Smith (10 August 1855 in Alma, Victoria — 25 July 1901 in Ardrossan, South Australia) was an Australian agriculturalist, engineer, blacksmith and inventor. He was a farmer at Kalkabury, north of Arthurton, South Australia, f ...

. This machine had individually movable ploughshares, enabling the whole plough to move over stumps rather than having to steer around them, and proved a great success.

Uses of the term

The term is applied to both the tree itself and the whole plant community in which it predominates, giving rise to the classification of

mallee woodlands and shrublands Mallee Woodlands and Shrublands is one of 32 Major Vegetation Groups defined by the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy. Description " Mallee" refers to the growth habit of a group of (mainly) eucalypt species that ...

as one of Australia's major vegetation groups. This in turn has given rise to regions referred to as "the Mallee" in Victoria and

and

. Several common names of eucalypt species have "mallee" in them, such as the Blue Mountains mallee (''Eucalyptus stricta'') and blue mallee ('' E. gamophylla'' and '' E. polybractea''). The malleefowl is a

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

characteristic of mallee habitat. The term is used in the phrase ''strong as a mallee bull'', and is

colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conve ...

ly used is for any remote or isolated area, or as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are al ...

for

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a ...

Species

Widespread mallee species include: * '' E. dumosa'' (white mallee) * '' E. socialis'' (red mallee) * '' E. gracilis'' (yorrell) * '' E. oleosa'' (red mallee) * '' E. incrassata'' (ridge-fruited mallee) * '' E. diversifolia'' (soap mallee) The following four Western Australian species can be found in the Waite Arboretum in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

, and are suitable for gardens: *''

Eucalyptus pleurocarpa ''Eucalyptus pleurocarpa'', commonly known as tallerack, talyerock or tallerack is a species of mallee that is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It has smooth bark, broadly lance-shaped to elliptical, grey or glaucous leaves that ...

'', or tallerack *''

Eucalyptus pyriformis ''Eucalyptus pyriformis'', commonly known as pear-fruited mallee or Dowerin rose, is a species of low, straggly Mallee (habit), mallee that is endemism, endemic to Western Australia. It has smooth greyish brown bark sometimes with ribbony bark ne ...

'', or dowerin rose *'' Eucalyptus preissiana'', or bell-fruited mallee *'' Eucalyptus grossa'', or coarse-leaved mallee An example of a mallee in a high-rainfall area is the rare yellow-top mallee ash, ''

Eucalyptus luehmanniana ''Eucalyptus luehmanniana'', commonly known as the yellow top mallee ash, is a species of mallee that is endemic to a small area in New South Wales. It has smooth white bark, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of between ...

''.

Etymology

Overview

Range

Farming on mallee land

Uses of the term

Species

See also

References

Further reading