Medicinal plants of New South Wales, Australia

Australia is one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries (Williams et al. 2001). It is home to over 20,000 vascular and 14,000 nonvascular plants, ∼250,000 species of fungi, and over 3,000 lichens. Of all the vascular plant species and nine plant families, 85% are endemic to the continent (Orchard 1999). This biodiversity is due to the continent’s long isolation after the early Cretaceous breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent, and consequent speciation across its large latitudinal and climatic range (White and Frazier 1986; White 1994). The Australian flora is highly adapted to drought, low soil nutrients, and fire through various physiological characteristics, such as hard seededness, scleromorphy, ligonotuber development, and epicormic buds (Benson 1999).