Abstract
Australia has a diverse tropical flora. In this chapter we review some aspects of the seedbiology of Australian tropical forest and woodland communities. Unfortunately, there is alack of knowledge of seed biology of most species and some habitats in tropical Australia.Although much less research has been carried out on the tropical flora, in comparisonwith the temperate flora of Australia, some general trends begin to emerge from publishedstudies. The Eucalyptus-dominated forest and woodland flora have a bimodal peak in seedproduction, with the woody vegetation flowering towards the end of the dry winter season, and the herb and grass understorey flowering around the end of the wet season. The rainforestcommunities show extended fruit production with a peak around early summer (i.e.December). These communities do not maintain a large seed bank. Many species producedormant seeds, but for most species seed dormancy is broken at the beginning of the followingsummer wet season. � CAB International 2007.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Seeds |
Subtitle of host publication | Biology, Development and Ecology |
Editors | SC Navie, SW Adkins, SE Ashmore |
Place of Publication | Oxfordshire, UK |
Publisher | CABI |
Pages | 416-427 |
Number of pages | 12 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781845931971 |
Publication status | Published - 2007 |