Cumberland Plain Woodland

The Cumberland Plain Woodland, also known as Cumberland Plain Bushland and Western Sydney woodland, is a grassy woodland community found predominantly in Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that comprises an open tree canopy, a groundcover with grasses and herbs, usually with layers of shrubs and/or small trees.

Situated in the Cumberland Plain, the Cumberland Plain Woodland (CPW) is a savanna that features dry sclerophyll woodlands, grasslands and/or forests, reminiscent of Mediterranean forests. According to Office of Environment and Heritage, the community falls predominantly within the Coastal Valley Grassy Woodlands region, which are part of the Grassy Woodlands formation found in the eastern corridor of New South Wales.

Currently, less than 6% of the Woodlands remain in small parts distributed across the western suburbs of Sydney, totaling only around 6400 hectares. Cumberland Plain Woodland was listed as an Endangered Ecological Community under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 in June 1997. The greatest threats to the Cumberland Plain Woodland include land clearing for agriculture, urban sprawl and the introduction of harmful weed species.

In 1877, Cumberland Plain Woodlands covered 107,000 hectares and filled around 30% of the Sydney Basin. At the time of European land exploration of Australia European settlement, the Cumberland Plain contained 1,070 km² of woodlands and forests.

The westward expansion of Sydney over the plain has placed enormous pressure on the woodlands and other local ecological communities, only 6% of which remain uncleared. The ecoregion contains clay soils derived from Wianamatta Shale to the west of Sydney CBD, where it receives 750–900 mm of annual rainfall.

The soils of the plain are infertile by world standards, but are not so by Australian standards. The plain is made up of eucalypt woodland with a grassy undergrowth and sclerophyllous (hard-leaved) shrub stratum, demarcating with the heath and forest communities of the sandstone plateaus that surround the plain. The biotic community is mostly found on flat or hilly terrains up to about 350 m in elevation, but it may also be present on locally precipitous sites and at slightly higher elevations. Some parts of the community may have a forest structure. The Woodland features an open tree canopy, groundcover prevailed by grasses and herbs, sometimes with layers of shrubs and small trees.

Spanning through the cities of Fairfield, Liverpool, Blacktown, Cumberland, Campbelltown, Camden and Penrith, with the cities of Canterbury-Bankstown, Hawkesbury, Parramatta and Wollondilly being on the peripheries, they contain approximately 2000 ha (one-fifth) of the remaining Cumberland Plain Woodland. Its range does not extend to slightly wetter Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest, or high-rainfall ridges (such as Blue Gum High Forest in the upper North Shore), which are geologically on the Hornsby Plateau.

Examples of the remnants can be seen at Defence Establishment Orchard Hills, Scheyville National Park, Rosford Street Reserve, Brenan Park, Central Gardens Nature Reserve, Fairfield Park Precinct, Prospect Hill, Prospect Nature Reserve, Western Sydney Regional Park, Wetherill Park Nature Reserve and Chipping Norton Lake, among other places.

The Western Sydney Airport, currently under construction at Badgerys Creek, New South Wales, will require the clearing of a large area of Cumberland Plain Woodland. Environmental offsets have been announced to ensure the protection, restoration and preservation of the woodland. The Biodiversity Offset Delivery Plan was announced on 24 August 2018 and included:

• Restoration and management of over 900 hectares of Cumberland Plain Woodland at Defence Establishment Orchard Hills
• Purchase of BioBanking credits through the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme
• A contribution to the Greening Australia Cumberland Seed Hub program
• Acquisition of suitable parcels of land to be managed by local conservation groups
• Other compensatory measures.

The Cumberland Plain Woodland, classed under Coastal Valley Grassy Woodlands, includes these ecological communities, with some overlapping and others plainly being sub-regions of the Woodland:

• Cumberland Shale Hills Woodland – It is one of the widespread grassy woodland communities within Cumberland Plain Woodland and is restricted to mean annual rainfall of between 750 and 900 millimetres and elevations between 50 and 350 metres above sea level. An open woodland mainly containing grey box (Eucalyptus moluccana and Eucalyptus microcarpa) and forest red gum trees, it is mostly prevalent in Prospect near Prospect Reservoir, and also on the western edges of Fairfield City, Campbelltown LGA and Liverpool LGA.
• Cumberland Moist Shale Woodlands – Located in protected areas that are intermediate between Cumberland Plain Woodland on drier areas and the Western Sydney Dry Rainforest, the community has waxy-leaved shrubs and small trees in the understorey with a ground cover of herbs, fleshy twiners and grasses, which are usually absent in the surrounding grassy woodlands. Similar to its subgroup Western Sydney Dry Rainforest due to its moist habit, some of its species would include hairy clerodendrum (Clerodendrum tomentosum) and slender grape (Cayratia clematidea). Although most of its habitat has been cleared for housing and urbanization, where only 604 ha remain intact, there are pockets of it in the southwest parts of the Fairfield City Council area, northwest of Liverpool near Green Valley, Cecil Hills and the Wollondilly LGA.
  • Western Sydney Dry Rainforest – Predominantly cleared within the Cumberland Plain and a component of Moist Shale Woodlands, it occurs on the secured clay-rich soils of the wavy hills and ranges of western Sydney in around Abbotsbury near Calmsley Hill City Farm, and areas in the MacArthur region to the southwest, albeit in a very small isolated pocket. Grey myrtle (Backhousia myrtifolia) is the most prevalent species with a ground cover being sparsely made up of herbs and ferns. Other salient species include fig (Ficus rubiginosa), wild quince (Alectryon subcinereus) and whalebone tree (Streblus brunonianus). The rainforest canopy may include spotted gums, wattles and paperbarks. Shrubs such as hairy clerodendrum (Clerodendrum tomentosum) and large mock olive (Notelaea longifolia) are also present. Rainfall is usually below 900 millimeters per annum in the rainforests within Cumberland Plain.
• Cumberland Shale Plains Woodland and Shale-Gravel Transition Forest – Featuring a soft topography, it is an open grassy woodland mainly containing grey boxes, forest red gums, spotted gums and ironbarks. It features shale-influenced, nutrient-poor, reddish, sandy-clay soils that support a constituents of ironstone gravels. It ranges from a woodland to a forest with an understorey that may deviate between dense shrubs and a low thin shrub with an abundant ground cover of tussock grasses, shrubs and forbs. It was once was the most common variety of native vegetation in what is now western Sydney where it occurred on flat to undulating or craggy landscape at elevations reaching approximately 350 m above sea level. Only 10% of it remaining, the community is mostly found in Prospect, Wetherill Park, Prospect and Greystanes, Cecils Hills, Liverpool LGA, Marsden Park, Holsworthy and near Bankstown, albeit in small fragments of less than 5 hectares. The Shale-Gravel Transition Forest is grouped with the Shale Plains Woodlands by the EPBC Act, although the two have been differentiated.

• 
  Shale Plains with walking track
• 
  Shale Hills with offroad driving path
• 
  Shale Plains with a mowed track
• 
  Shale Hills with a road traversing through it
• 
  Shale Plains with modified landscape
• 
  Shale-Gravel Transition Forest

Selected tree and shrub species

The Blue Box is a large tree found in the Cumberland Plain.

Purple coral peas are shrubby climbers found in the woodlands.

The Golden Wattle is usually a part of sclerophyll woodland communities

River Oaks are abundant in the riparian zones within the Cumberland Plain Woodland.

White feather honeymyrtle with lance-shaped leaves that is covered with creamy-coloured flowers.

The vegetation of the ecoregion includes grasslands, savanna, open woodlands, and some patches of sclerophyll forest lying on a nutrient-poor alluvium that was deposited by the Nepean River from sandstone and shale bedrock in the Blue Mountains. Despite this, they support a tremendous regional biodiversity.

The grassy woodland is dominated by Grey Box (Eucalyptus moluccana) and Forest Red Gum (E. tereticornis), with Narrow-leaved Ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra), Spotted Gum (Corymbia maculata) and Thin-leaved Stringybark (Eucalyptus eugenioides) occurring sporadically. The ecoregion may have an open layer of small trees that would include such species of Acacia decurrens, Acacia parramattensis, Acacia implexa and Exocarpos cupressiformis. The shrub layer is mainly contains Bursaria spinosa, indigofera australis, Hardenbergia violacea, Daviesia ulicifolia, Lespedeza cuneata, Dillwynia, Dodonaea viscosa, with plenty grasses such as Kangaroo Grass (Themeda australis) and Weeping Meadow Grass (Microlaena stipoides).

Bird species in the woodland include (which are mostly vulnerable and/or endangered):

Mammals:

In April 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip describes the land west of Parramatta:

In 1818, author and settler James Atkinson describes the plain as:

In 1819, British explorer William Wentworth describes Cumberland Plain's natural landscape between Liverpool and Nepean River:

• Cumberland Plain
• Ecology of Sydney
• Sclerophyll
• Geography of Sydney
• List of endangered ecological communities in NSW
• Lowland Grassy Woodland

• Cumberland Plain Woodland in the Sydney Basin Bioregion - profile
• Ecology of Cumberland Plain Woodland