"Eternity", Myrtle Beech Tree, Image 1, Victoria, Australia

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"Eternity", Myrtle Beech Tree, Image 2, Victoria, Australia

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"Eternity", Myrtle Beech Tree, Image 3, Victoria, Australia

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When I first ventured into Victoria's tall mountain ash forests I was amazed by what I saw. Subsequently I spent as much time as I could photographing and roaming around in them. I unknowingly assumed that these forests represented the final stage of natural succession for these damp forest ecosystems, like the giant sequoias and coast redwoods that I'm more familiar with in America. I was very surprised to discover that this is not the case, and the course of forest succession is more complicated here.

After centuries of growing a mountain ash forest produces dense shade. The shade becomes so dense that mountain ash seedlings cannot develop and the forest cannot perpetuate itself. While that is happening the shade loving and very slow growing myrtle beech trees begin to establish themselves. Over many more centuries the mountain ash forest evolves into one dominated by myrtle beech trees.

If that was the end of the story there would be myrtle beech forests everywhere, but they are extremely rare. This is because myrtle beech trees have very low fire resistance and are often completely wiped out by bushfires. Since the shade loving myrtle beech trees cannot establish themselves in the sunny environment that exists after a fire, the sun loving mountain ash trees take over and the cycle starts all over again. Unfortunately there are two other factors that account for the extreme rarity of myrtle beech forests in Victoria.

Since European settlement the majority of Victoria's forests have been cleared and developed for other uses. Those that remained have been subjected to fires of ever increasing frequency and intensity. Today only 1% of Victoria's mountain ash forests can be classified as "old growth", it takes them centuries to attain that status, and myrtle beech trees do not grow in any other forest type. These factors combine to make myrtle beech forests rare and extremely fragile. Fires are now so frequent and intense that mountain ash forests in some areas cannot regenerate. Without them there can be no myrtle beech forests. It's easy to see that forests like the one shown here could easily be the last of their kind.

It is surprisingly difficult to photograph a tree within a forest in a pleasing way. There are countless obstacles and distracting elements, and few to no places from which a good image can be composed. Epiphytic growth on the branches moves significantly in the slightest breeze and complicates things dramatically. The image shown here is composed of two focus stacked captures to assure that the near and far elements are all sharply focused.