The Drummond Nature Reserve is an A class nature reserve

Nature reserve

A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...

 10 kilometres west of Bolgart, Western Australia

Bolgart, Western Australia

Bolgart is a townsite north of Toodyay in Western Australia. It is in the Shire of Victoria Plains.The town derives its name from a nearby spring. The spring was discovered and the name recorded by explorer George Fletcher Moore in 1836. The area was settled in the 1840s and one of the first...

. Named after the botanist James Drummond

James Drummond (botanist)

James Drummond was a botanist and naturalist who was an early settler in Western Australia.-Early life:...

, the reserve has 439 species of vascular plants within its boundaries, including two rare and seven priority species.

History

In 1993 the land was purchased by the Mundaring district office of the Department of Conservation and Land Management and gazetted as an A class reserve. Prior to purchasing the land was uncleared freehold grazing land. Despite this use the land was in excellent condition, though evidence of grazing impact was visible in part of the eastern area of the reserve. The reserve was named after botanist James Drummond

James Drummond (botanist)

James Drummond was a botanist and naturalist who was an early settler in Western Australia.-Early life:...

 who lived in nearby Toodyay

Toodyay, Western Australia

Toodyay is a town located in the Wheatbelt region in the Avon Valley, 85 km north-east of Perth, Western Australia. Toodyay is connected to Perth via both rail and road.-History:...

. Between 1841 and 1844 Drummond explored and collected specimens in the area which were part of his second collection.

Topography and vegetation

The Drummond Nature Reserve is constructed with a series of lateritic hills with spillway deposits plus a small outcrop of bedrock. There have been ten different vegetation areas identified, and these are based on different soil types, topography

Topography

Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...

 and drainage. The area has six different woodland types, two granite heath types, a mallee

Mallee Woodlands and Shrublands

Mallee Woodlands and Shrublands is a Major Vegetation Group which occurs in semi-arid areas of southern Australia. The vegetation is dominated by mallee eucalypts which are rarely over 6 metres high...

 vegetation type and the last two claypan wetland areas remaining in the state.

The North west corner is a Wandoo

Wandoo

Wandoo is the common name for a number of Western Australian Eucalyptus species, all of which have smooth white bark.The original "wandoo" is Eucalyptus wandoo. Other species have been given this name because of a perceived likeness with E. wandoo...

 Woodland that has been affected by salinity

Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...

 most of the trees are either dead or affect by dieback

Forest dieback

Forest dieback is a condition in trees or woody plants in which peripheral parts are killed, either by parasites or due to conditions like acid rain and drought....

, the understory has died and been replace by weeds. The granite areas have two types one is an area covered by Xanthorrhoea preissii

Xanthorrhoea

Xanthorrhoea is a genus of flowering plants native to Australia and a member of family Xanthorrhoeaceae, being the only member of subfamily Xanthorrhoeoideae. The Xanthorrhoeaceae are monocots, part of order Asparagales. There are 28 species and five subspecies of Xanthorrhoea.-Description:All are...

, Gastrolobium calycinum

Gastrolobium

Gastrolobium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. There are over 100 species in this genus, and all but two are native to the south west region of Western Australia....

with a Borya herbfield

Herbfield

Herbfields are plant communities dominated by herbaceous plants, especially forbs and grasses. They are found where climatic conditions do not allow large woody plants to grow, such as in subantarctic and alpine tundra environments...

 and the other is dominated by Melaleuca

Melaleuca

Melaleuca is a genus of plants in the myrtle family Myrtaceae known for its natural soothing and cleansing properties. There are well over 200 recognised species, most of which are endemic to Australia...

, Dodonaea

Dodonaea

Dodonaea is a genus of about 70 species of flowering plants in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae, with a cosmopolitan distribution in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions of Africa, the Americas, southern Asia and Australasia. By far the highest species diversity is in Australia...

 also with a herbfield of Borya. The soil of mallee area is a yellow sandy clay with the dominant plants being the low dense Eucalyptus drummondii

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

and Allocasuarina

Allocasuarina

Allocasuarina is a genus of trees in the flowering plant family Casuarinaceae. They are endemic to Australia, occurring primarily in the south. Like the closely related genus Casuarina, they are commonly called sheoaks or she-oaks, they are notable for their long, segmented branchlets that...

.

Flora

During 1999 and 2000 the first major survey of the plants species was conducted on foot, which identified 439 species of vascular plants. This consisted of 405 native plant species and 35 alien plant species. There were two declared rare flora; the aquatic herb

Aquatic plant

Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments. They are also referred to as hydrophytes or aquatic macrophytes. These plants require special adaptations for living submerged in water, or at the water's surface. Aquatic plants can only grow in water or in soil that is...

 Trithuria leptogyne (this is the only known location of this species) and Eleocharis keigheryi

Eleocharis

Eleocharis is a genus of 250 or more species of flowering plants in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. They are known commonly as spikerushes, although spikesedges is a more technically appropriate name and most scientists who study them in earnest refer to them as such...

in two population groups. Additionally there are seven priority species in the reserve these are;

species	priority
Acacia chapmanii subsp. australis Acacia Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...	rare
Comesperma rhadinocarpum Comesperma Comesperma is a genus of shrubs, herbs and lianas in the family Polygalaceae. The genus is endemic to Australia. It was defined by the French botanist Jacques Labillardière in his 1806 work Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen. The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek words come "hair", and...	two
Tricoryne arenicola Tricoryne Tricoryne is a genus of perennial herbs in the family Xanthorrhoeaceae, subfamily Hemerocallidoideae. All species are native to Australia with one extending to New Guinea; within Australia they occur in all mainland states except the Northern Territory....	two
Platysace ramosissima Platysace Platysace is a genus of woody perennial herbs and subshrubs in the family Apiaceae. The genus is endemic to Australia.Species include:*Platysace anceps C. Norman*Platysace arnhemica Specht*Platysace cirrosa Bunge...	three
Stenanthemum tridentatum	three
Hydrocotyle lemnoides Hydrocotyle Hydrocotyle sometimes called water pennywort, Indian Pennywort, Marsh Penny, Thick-leaved Pennywort and even White Rot...	four
Schoenus Schoenus (plant) Schoenus is a genus of sedges. Plants of this genus mainly occur in Australasia.Species include:*Schoenus acuminatus*Schoenus andrewsii*Schoenus armeria*Schoenus badius*Schoenus benthamii*Schoenus capillifolius...  natans	four

In addition there have some other factors of interest in the flora of the Drummond Nature Reserve. The occurrence of Cyathochaeta equitans is the only known inland population, as this species is found predominantly in the sands of the Swan Coastal Plain

Swan Coastal Plain

The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geological and biological zone, one of Western Australia's...

. A hybrid of Eucalyptus loxophleba

Eucalyptus loxophleba

Eucalyptus loxophleba, commonly known as York gum, is a species of Eucalyptus which is endemic to Western Australia. It was first described by George Bentham in 1867....

has been found with the reserve, Schoenus aff. loliaceus which may be a new species of Schoenus

Schoenus (plant)

Schoenus is a genus of sedges. Plants of this genus mainly occur in Australasia.Species include:*Schoenus acuminatus*Schoenus andrewsii*Schoenus armeria*Schoenus badius*Schoenus benthamii*Schoenus capillifolius...

and Rhodanthe pyrethrum is at it northern limit.

Further reading

• Keighery, G. J. (2002) A biological survey of the agricultural zone: vegetation and vascular flora of Drummond Nature Reserve. (with Gibson, N., Webb, A., and Muir, W. P. in Conservation science Western Australia, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Aug. 2002), pp. 63–78
• (1992) Drummond Nature Reserve — process of creating the reserve WANPARA news, Dec. 1992, p. 7,

External links