Pindan is a name given to the red-soil country of the south-western Kimberley region of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. The word “pindan” was first mentioned in print in August 1884 in the Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

 Inquirer. The term comes from a local language and applies both to the soil and to the vegetation community associated with it.

Geography

Pindan country is geographically restricted to Dampierland

Dampierland

Dampierland is an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia region in Western Australia. This area also is a distinct physiographic section of the larger Nullagine Platform province, which in turn is part of the larger West Australian Shield division.It is located in the West Kimberley ...

, including the Dampier Peninsula

Dampier Peninsula

The Dampier Peninsula is a peninsula located north of Broome and Roebuck Bay in Western Australia. It is surrounded by the Indian Ocean to the west and north, and King Sound to the east...

 and its hinterland, the area around Broome

Broome, Western Australia

Broome is a pearling and tourist town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, north of Perth. The year round population is approximately 14,436, growing to more than 45,000 per month during the tourist season...

 and Roebuck Bay

Roebuck Bay

Roebuck Bay is a bay on the coast of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Its entrance is bounded in the north by the town of Broome, and in the south by Bush Point and Sandy Point. It is named after HMS Roebuck, the ship captained by William Dampier when he explored the coast of...

, and a coastal strip extending south-westwards from Roebuck Bay adjacent to Eighty Mile Beach. It is semiarid with a tropical monsoon

Monsoon

Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...

al climate of hot, wet summers and mild, dry winters. The flat, or gently undulating, land lacks prominent landmark

Landmark

This is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories - natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares and so forth...

s and is easy to get lost in. The soils are usually red and sandy with a high clay content, low in nutrients, and susceptible both to drought and to waterlogging when wet.

Flora and fauna

Botanically the pindan forms a transitional zone between the wetter monsoon forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s of the north Kimberley and the Great Sandy Desert

Great Sandy Desert

The Great Sandy Desert is a desert located in the North West of Western Australia straddling the Pilbara and southern Kimberley regions. It is the second largest desert in Australia after the Great Victoria Desert and encompasses an area of...

 to the south-east, exhibiting a mix of monsoonal and arid species. Structurally it is a low and open woodland of scattered trees, dominated by wattle

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...

s, with eucalypt

Eucalypt

Eucalypts are woody plants belonging to three closely related genera:Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora.In 1995 new evidence, largely genetic, indicated that some prominent Eucalyptus species were actually more closely related to Angophora than to the other eucalypts; they were split off into the...

s and tall shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

s. The understorey contains grass

Grass

Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

es and herbs

Herbaceous plant

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

. During the long dry season from April to November the annual plant

Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates, flowers, and dies in a year or season. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed...

s and grasses die off, the country looks parched, and regular wildfire

Wildfire

A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...

s leave stretches of bare and blackened soil, studded with dead shrubs. During the short wet season from December to March there is profuse flowering of the diverse pindan flora, with a wide variety of insects and other animals taking advantage of the seasonal abundance.

On higher ground, pindan adopts a more open savanna

Savanna

A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...

 structure while, on low-lying ground subject to waterlogging during the wet season

Wet season

The the wet season, or rainy season, is the time of year, covering one or more months, when most of the average annual rainfall in a region occurs. The term green season is also sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities. Areas with wet seasons are dispersed across portions of the...

, paperbarks

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...

 begin to displace the other trees. Canopy height ranges from 3 m to 8 m; the trees are short and deep-rooted, often with the trunks bent or twisted. In his 1926 book “In Savage Australia” Norwegian explorer Knut Dahl

Knut Dahl

Knut Dahl was a Norwegian zoologist and explorer who made important bird collections in northern Australia.-Early years:...

 described the pindan as a “crippled forest” in response to the apparent uniformity and stunted appearance of the vegetation.

Typical species of trees and tall shrubs in pindan vegetation are the wattles Acacia eriopoda, A. tumida

Acacia tumida

Acacia tumida, known colloquially as pindan wattle, is a species of Acacia native to northern and western Australia....

, A. monticola, A. platycarpa, A. colei

Acacia colei

Acacia colei is a perennial bush or tree native to Australia and southern Asia. A common name for it is Cole's Wattle.It grows to a height of up to 9 m. Acacia colei blooms from June through July and the flowers are bright yellow.- Uses :...

, and A. adoxa, and the eucalypts Eucalyptus dampieri, E. flavescens, and E. zygophylla. Other plants include Grevillea wickhamii

Grevillea wickhamii

Grevillea wickhamii is an erect shrub or small tree to 6 metres in height which is endemic to Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland...

and G. refracta, Gyrocarpus americanus

Gyrocarpus americanus

Gyrocarpus americanus is a flowering plant in the Hernandiaceae family with a wide pantropical distribution. It is commonly and variously known as the Helicopter Tree, Propeller Tree, Whirly Whirly Tree, Stinkwood or Shitwood...

, Terminalia petiolaris, Lysiphyllum cunninghamii, Ventilago viminalis

Ventilago viminalis

Ventilago viminalis, commonly known as Supplejack, Vine Tree or whip vine, is a tree native to Northern and Central Australia from coastal regions of Queensland to the central deserts of the Northern Territory....

, Premna acuminata, Hakea microcarpa, Persoonia falcata

Persoonia falcata

Persoonia falcata, commonly known as the wild pear, is a shrub native to northern Australia....

, Atalaya hemiglauca, Gardenia pyriformis, Pavetta kimberleyana, Carissa lanceolata, Distichostemon hispidulus, Ehretia saligna and Santalum lanceolatum

Santalum lanceolatum

Santalum lanceolatum is an Australian tree of the family Santalaceae. It is commonly known as Desert Quandong, Northern Sandalwood, Sandalwood or True Sandalwood and in some restricted areas as Burdardu. The height of this plant is variable, from 1 to 7 metres...

.

Many savanna animals, such as Agile Wallabies

Agile Wallaby

The Agile Wallaby , also known as the Sandy Wallaby, is a species of wallaby found in northern Australia and New Guinea. It is the most common wallaby in Australia's north....

 and Red-winged Parrot

Red-winged Parrot

The Red-winged Parrot , is a parrot native to Australia and Papua New Guinea.-Description:The Red-winged parrot is typically about 30 to 33 cm in length. Both sexes have bright red wings and a bright green body. The male birds have a black nape, lower blue back and rump with a yellow tip on their...

s reach their southern limits in Western Australia in the strip of pindan that parallels the coast along Eighty Mile Beach.