Koolan Island Flora and vegetation 
241 
None of the native taxa reached their range ends 
on Koolan Island. 
Koolan Island presents a excellent opportunity 
for long term monitoring of weed invasion and 
persistence following major disturbance in an 
isolated sub-humid tropical environment. The 
townsite will also allow an opportunity to study 
the fate of the introduced garden species following 
the removal of town infrastructure and 
supplementary watering. 
One major new habitat created by the mine will 
be an extensive, deep permanent freshwater 
wetland in the bottom of the major pit (next to the 
loading jetty, Figure 1) which has intersected a 
shallow aquifer. We are unaware of any similar 
habitat on the sandstone areas of the adjacent 
mainland. The colonisation of this wetland will add 
significant numbers of new taxa to the flora of the 
island. At the date of the present survey the pit 
was bare of all vegetation and water levels were 
being kept artificially low by continuous pumping. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
We would like to thank Norm McKenzie 
(CALM) who organised the 1993 field trip and 
assisted with data collection, and Patrick Warrand 
(BHP) who assisted in arranging accommodation 
and transportation on the island. Mike Lyons 
prepared the figures. Daphne Edinger assisted in 
compiling the flora list and processing specimens, 
and the database personnel of the WA Herbarium 
helped with data extraction. The Department of 
Environment, Science and Technology partially 
funded this work under the National Rainforest 
Program. A.A. Mitchell's work was undertaken 
during surveys for exotic species as part of the 
Northern Australian Quarantine Strategy. 
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Manuscript received 3 January 1995; accepted 30 March 
1995. 
APPENDIX 1 
Flora list of 282 taxa recorded from Koolan Island, Western Australia. Collection numbers refer to specimens lodged in 
PERTH. * indicates a naturalised weed and "sr" indicates a sight record. 
Family Acanthaceae 
Dicliptera arrnata F.Muell. 
Hypoestes sp. 
* Ruellia tuberosa 
Vernon 40 
Vernon 51 
L. Mitchell 3118 
