Why does australia have such a small amount of permanent plants? is it the climate or something?

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Ozmaniac

We're all having great deal of trouble understanding what you're talking about.

The native vegetation in every country is determined at least in part by its climate - Australia is no different.

Our country has thousands of square miles of dense tropical rainforest, temperate rainforest, eucalypt forest, mallee scrub and other native vegetation and a bewildering array of unique plant species. We have arid desert in the centre of this vast country but that's only in the centre: huge tracts of land are covered in bush of one type or another - more than in the USA and more than in Europe. Of course we also have a huge amount of agriculture (we're one of the world's major agricultural producers), but the country is so large that there is still plenty of native vegetation remaining.

Back to the research, but this time, look somewhere with accurate information.

EDIT:
Here are some resources with more accurate information, but note that they only refer to forests. An arid continent like Austrlia is too dry to sustain forest coverage in the dry areas which cover 70% of the landmass but forests and woodlands are only part of our permanent vegetation:
http://affashop.gov.au/PdfFiles/australias_forests.pdf
http://www.cbd.int/countries/?country=au
There are also vast tracts of shrubland:
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Eastern_Australia_mulga_shrublands

rustupd

strange to me too
please explain what you mean

Billybean

What do you mean "small amount of permanent plants"?
Seems a very strange thing to say to me.

tamara m

Small amount of permanant plants?! in my local area there are close to two thousand species of endemic natives! and that is within a 50 km radius.

Iceman

Strange to me as well!

SteveK

In 2005, the Australian Government's Australian Biological Resources Study published "The Number of Living Species in Australia and the World" - http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/publications/other/species-numbers/pubs/number-living-species-report.pdf

It estimated there were around 20,000 flowering plants (about 90% endemic), about 3000 bryophytes, gymnosperms, ferns and allies, and probably well over 250,000 fungi, algae, cyanophytes, etc.

I'd say that's more than a small amount! Despite our generally dry climate, there are a vast array of environments allowing great species diversification - quite a number of species are limited to small areas.

From your further information, I can say that it is definitely NOT true to say that only 1% of Australia has permanent plants - it is significantly higher than that.

Kirra

We have a lot of trees in my town that would be well over 100 years old...

Explain what you mean by permanent?

OzNana

Most of the centre of Australia is desert. We have rainforests in some parts of Australia, farmland and bushland in other parts. We have state forests, and snowy mountain ranges. We have several different climate and time zones each with different types of vegetation.

N G

... replanted? You mean naturally? The thing is we don't have many plants at all. And many of them reseed.

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