E. Australian forests

The Australian forest flora consists mainly of evergreen hardwoods, mainly eucalyptus or gum tree (figure 2.5). Of the 700 species of the genus eucalyptus, 95% occur naturally in Australia. There are 40 palm species in the country. A limited area, about 5 per cent of the forest land, has favourable soils and rainfall and contains forests of the Indonesia type, and forest area of similar size is covered by conifers, mainly cypress pine.

The conifer forests are exhausted and do not meet the domestic demand for lumber, and large quantities have to be imported from New Zealand and North America. To some extent this deficit will be covered by large – scale plantations of exotic pines. The wild eucalyptus forests form the base of an important lumber and pulping industry. They are mostly old and on average rather slow-growing. On good sites, however, many of the eucalyptus species are capable of very high production and some have become important for plantations in other parts of the world.

F. Forests of China

China, once well-covered with forests, has a forested area covering only 9 per cent of the country. This still constitutes a considerable forest area, of which three quarters is productive forest land (figure 2.6). Half of this is covered by coniferous forests, mainly concentrated in the north-eastern part of the country. The South, South-West and central regions contain a considerable part of hardwood forests.

There are three main forest zones in China, namely the subtropical, the warm-temperate and cool-temperate. In the subtropical zone (Taiwan, Hainan and Southern part of Southern provinces) evergreen broadleaf trees, such as several species of oak, occur together with palms, tree ferns and bamboos. The warm-temperate zone includes the rest of China south provinces along the Yangtze River. Its forests contain deciduous broadleaf species such as oak, maple, poplar, and even some conifers, such as pine.