Pindan is a name given to the red-soil country of the south-western

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. The term comes from a local language and applies both to the soil and to the vegetation community associated with it.Lowe (2003).

History

The word “pindan” was first mentioned in print in 1883 by Mr Edward Townley Hardman (1845 1887) in a preliminary appendix to John Forrest’s report on the Kimberley. He stated:

“The only metalliferous deposits as yet observed by me are pindan ironstone, a poor hematite, but in large quantity; and in the Fitzroy gravels, quantities of minute dark heavy grains, which have all the appearance of stream tin. These await further chemical examination, In these gravels, opal, cats-eye, garnet, and amethyst occur, all of inferior quality so far as at present observed.

The 1891 report on the General Description and Physical Geography of the Kimberley District by Government Geologist Harry Page Woodward described the Pliocene geological formation as pindan sands and gravel, often cemented by oxide of iron:

"These sandy soils are largely developed on either side of the Fitzroy River, stretching far away to the Southward, where they form Warburton’s Great Sandy Desert; they are, as a rule, waterless; but, owing to the large rainfall, produce a large quantity of vegetation. On the Ord River there are some small stretches of this country, but never of any great extent."

Geography

Pindan country is geographically restricted to Dampierland, including the

Dampier Peninsula The Dampier Peninsula is a peninsula located north of Broome, Western Australia, Broome and Roebuck Bay in the Kimberley (Western Australia), Kimberley region of Western Australia, named after the mariner and explorer William Dampier who visited ...

and its hinterland, the area around Broome and

Roebuck Bay Roebuck Bay is a bay on the coast of the Kimberley (Western Australia), Kimberley region of Western Australia. Its entrance is bounded in the north by the town of Broome, Western Australia, Broome, and in the south by Bush Point and Sandy P ...

, and a coastal strip extending south-westwards from Roebuck Bay adjacent to

Eighty Mile Beach Eighty Mile Beach also spelled Eighty-mile Beach or 80-mile Beach, and formerly called 90-mile Beach, lies along the north-west coast of Western Australia about half-way between the towns of Broome and Port Hedland. Despite its name, it is so ...

. It is semiarid with a

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

al climate of hot, wet summers and mild, dry winters. The flat, or gently undulating, land lacks prominent

landmark A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern-day use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures ...

s and is easy to get lost in. The soils are usually red and sandy with a high clay content, low in nutrients, and susceptible both to drought and to waterlogging when wet.Soils of the Kimberley.

Flora and fauna

Botanically the pindan forms a transitional zone between the wetter monsoon

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

s of the north Kimberley and the

Great Sandy Desert The Great Sandy Desert is an interim Australian bioregion,IBRA Version 6.1
data

to the south-east, exhibiting a mix of monsoonal and arid species. Structurally it is a low and open woodland of scattered trees, dominated by wattles, with

eucalypt Eucalypt is any woody plant with Capsule (fruit), capsule fruiting bodies belonging to one of seven closely related genera (of the tribe Eucalypteae) found across Australia: ''Eucalyptus'', ''Corymbia'', ''Angophora'', ''Stockwellia'', ''Allosyn ...

s and tall

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

s. The understorey contains

grass Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family (biology), family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and spe ...

es and

herbs Herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnish (food), garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typi ...

. During the long dry season from April to November the

annual plant An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seeds, within one growing season, and then dies. Globally, 6% of all plant species and 15% of herbaceous plants (excluding trees and shrubs) are ...

s and grasses die off, the country looks parched, and regular

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

s leave stretches of bare and blackened soil, studded with dead shrubs. During the short wet season from December to March there is profuse flowering of the diverse pindan flora, with a wide variety of insects and other animals taking advantage of the seasonal abundance. On higher ground, pindan adopts a more open

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

structure while, on low-lying ground subject to waterlogging during the

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the rainy season or monsoon season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. Generally, the season lasts at least one month. The term ''green season'' is also sometimes used a ...

, paperbarks begin to displace the other trees. Canopy height ranges from 3 m to 8 m; the trees are short and deep-rooted, often with the trunks bent or twisted. In his 1926 book “In Savage Australia” Norwegian explorer Knut Dahl described the pindan as a “crippled forest” in response to the apparent uniformity and stunted appearance of the vegetation. Typical species of trees and tall shrubs in pindan vegetation are the wattles ''

Acacia eriopoda ''Acacia eriopoda'', commonly known as the Broome pindan wattle and the narrow-leaf pindan wattle, is a species of wattle in the legume family that is native to northern Western Australia. It is also known as Yirrakulu to the Nyangumarta peo ...

'', '' A. tumida'', '' A. monticola'', '' A. platycarpa'', '' A. colei'', and '' A. adoxa'', and the eucalypts ''

Corymbia greeniana ''Corymbia greeniana'' is a species of tree that is Endemism, endemic to northern Australia. It has rough bark on some or all of the trunk and larger branches, smooth bark above, broadly lance-shaped to egg-shaped adult leaves, flower buds usual ...

'', '' C. flavescens'' and '' C. zygophylla''. Other plants include '' Grevillea wickhamii'' and '' G. refracta'', '' Gyrocarpus americanus'', '' Terminalia petiolaris'', ''

Lysiphyllum cunninghamii ''Lysiphyllum cunninghamii'' (commonly known as the Kimberley bauhinia or the jigal tree) is a species of plant in the family (biology), family Fabaceae. It is native to northern Australia where it occurs from Western Australia through the Northe ...

'', '' Ventilago viminalis'', '' Premna acuminata'', '' Hakea macrocarpa'', '' Persoonia falcata'', ''

Atalaya hemiglauca ''Atalaya hemiglauca'', commonly known as whitewood or cattle bush, is a species of plant in the Sapindaceae, soapberry (Sapindaceae) family (biology), family. It is native to northern and inland Australia where it occurs from Western Australia ...

'', '' Gardenia pyriformis'', '' Pavetta kimberleyana'', '' Carissa lanceolata'', '' Dodonaea hispidula'', '' Ehretia saligna'' and '' Santalum lanceolatum''.Kimberley tropical savanna.Information Sheet on Ramsar Wetlands. Many savanna animals, such as agile wallabies and red-winged parrots reach their southern limits in Western Australia in the strip of pindan that parallels the coast along Eighty Mile Beach.

References

Notes

Sources