| Brigalow is a kind
of woodland. The name brigalow is also given to a distinctive tree form.
From the central base of a large woody root stock known as a lignotuber, a
number of trunks grow out like the ribs of an umbrella.Depending on the
soil and the species, a brigalow may reach from a little over a metre to
as high as 12 metres. This plant form has advantages in dry country, one
being that fires may destroy the above ground trunks but new shoots will
rapidly develop from the root stock safe below the soil. |
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| The closely packed brigalow is
an acacia or wattle with long boomerang shaped leaves of misty blue. Some
botanists suggest that the brigalow country of inland northern New South
Wales and southern Queensland can be regarded as the northern equivalent
of the mallee country.
When brigalow covered huge areas it was
known as the national scrub. Because it grows on good soil, suitable for
farming, recent years have seen the widespread clearing of this area and
today only a few small reserves of virgin brigalow country are left. |
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| Many other trees
are associated with the brigalow including the bottle tree, a gracefully
shaped species with a trunk shaped like a slender bottle, its narrow neck
topped by a crown of leaves. In dry times both leaves and trunk provide
food and water for hungry and thirsty stock. Brigalow country suffered
severely during the prickly pear invasion of the last century and today
various species of this cactus are still something of a problem. |