This photo was taken from the naturally occurring creek flat, next to Coupe 843/501/8 at Dingo Creek. At the bottom of the picture can be seen the bracken-like ferns which form a ground cover to about waist height. Beneath the ferns, the creek meanders randomly, cutting a gully about 1m deep.
In the foreground are Soft Tree-Ferns, Dicksonia Antarctica which often grow in wet parts of the forest.
In the middle of the picture, the pointed christmas-tree shaped trees are Sassafras, a rainforest tree. They have adapted to protect themselves from direct sunlight here by forming a dense, all-over leaf cover. The threat to Sassfras from exposure to sun comes when the trunk is directly exposed.
At middle right is an eliocarpus, also a rainforest tree, which has similarly adapted to the sunlight.
At rear left, Errinundra Shining Gums represent old-growth "Wet sclerophyl forest".
At rear right, Cut-tail Ash are fire-regen, representing "Damp sclerophyl forest"
This unique species mix represents evolution in progress: rainforest is beginning to form a community. The tree-ferns are creating a wet, shaded area, and their trunks a moist-nutrient rich micro-environment where young rainforest trees can take hold. If left undisturbed, the rainforest trees will grow and multiply. The Sassafras and old-growth Wet forest at rear show that the 1932 fire did not occur there, and rainforest is expanding up the slope.
Conversly, the Damp Forest relies on fire disturbance and will reclaim the area from rainforest if it is cleared and/or burnt.
None of the area shown would meet the Government's rainforest definition, but is required to be protected to allow rainforest to continue to evolve, as set out as an aim in the Flora and Fauna Gaurantee Act.
A similar stage of rainforest evolution is "Mixed Forest". That is where rainforest has taken hold as an understory and formed a rainforest community beneath or between eucalypts. This only occurs where there has not been fire or other disturbance for a long period. In the Dingo Creek area, Sassafras trees growing in small Mixed Forest stands were 120 years old.