Studies of the Flowering Season and Fruit Production of some Arid Zone Shrubs and Trees in Western Australia

Abstract

The C.S.I.R.O. Division of Wildlife Research has been studying the biology of emus, Dromaius novaehollandiae Latham, since 1959. Early in the study it was found that the birds fed extensively upon the flowers, fruits and seeds of a number of native shrubs. Therefore individual plants of a number of species were marked and their flowering periods and fruit production were followed up to 1972. Some of the results of these studies have already been published (Davies 1968, 1969, 1973). The present paper presents additional results about the species dealt with earlier, as well as presenting results from other species. Several authors have studied arid zone shrubs in Western Australia, notably Melville (1947), Wilcox (1960) and Hellmuth (1971), and comparable studies have been made in South Australia (Hall, Specht & Eardley 1964), the Northern Territory (Maconochie 1973) and New South Wales (Preece 1971a, b). Other references are given in papers contributed to a Symposium entitled 'The Mulga Lands of Australia' and published as volume 7, No. 1, of the journal Tropical Grasslands.