Mountain ash ( Eucalyptus regnans ) forest at Marysville,Victoria,Australia. Photographed in December 2013,the picture shows the structure of forest following a series of catastrophic bushfires. In the foregorund,an understorey of herbs and tree ferns has regenerated after the Black Saturday fires of February 2009. In the background,uniformly aged E. regnans trees have been burned,but not uniformly killed. These trees,about 26 years old,grew from seed released by mature trees killed in the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983. Those parent trees jad grown from seed released by the Black Friday fires of 1939. E. regnans is a fire-sensitive species that relies on seed production for long-term survival in fire-prone sites. At 26 years old,E. regnans trees are mature enough to produce replacement seed. At sites where fires occur at intervals shorter than 15 years,E. regnans cannot survive |