The slender leaf mallee contests this favored soil, its stems and buds casting a reddish aura. The leaves of the Dumosa mallee mix in gray-green tones. The mallee eucalypts may look scraggly compared to their cousins of the floodplain, but that view is only skin deep. Beneath the surface, a tough tuber is the centerpiece of an elaborate root system. Insulated from the unforgiving heat above the ground, each mallee's core is also safe from the fires that race through its canopy of oily leaves.
New shoots sprout quickly on the heels of the common infernos.
In the lower reaches beneath the dunes, hundreds of other plants carve out their niches. The tiny pink flowers of the Heath-myrtle bloom where the soil is a fine clay. Green Tea-trees create dense thickets. Cypress Pines build scattered forests. Within this community, a patchwork of newcomers is encroaching.