Pindan

During the long dry season from April to November the annual plants and grasses die off, the country looks parched, and regular wildfires leave stretches of bare and blackened soil, studded with dead shrubs.

In his 1926 book “In Savage Australia” Norwegian explorer Knut Dahl described the pindan as a “crippled forest” in response to the apparent uniformity and stunted appearance of the vegetation.

[1] Typical species of trees and tall shrubs in pindan vegetation are the wattles Acacia eriopoda, A. tumida, A. monticola, A. platycarpa, A. colei, and A. adoxa, and the eucalypts Corymbia greeniana, C. flavescens and C. zygophylla.

Other plants include Grevillea wickhamii and G. refracta, Gyrocarpus americanus, Terminalia petiolaris, Lysiphyllum cunninghamii, Ventilago viminalis, Premna acuminata, Hakea macrocarpa, Persoonia falcata, Atalaya hemiglauca, Gardenia pyriformis, Pavetta kimberleyana, Carissa lanceolata, Dodonaea hispidula, Ehretia saligna and Santalum lanceolatum.

[6][7] Many savanna animals, such as agile wallabies and red-winged parrots reach their southern limits in Western Australia in the strip of pindan that parallels the coast along Eighty Mile Beach.