Rainforest trees at Nightcap national park have not evolved to deal with bushfires, leaving the landscape vulnerable for years after major burns

Thousands of years of accumulated leaf fall makes the ground bounce like a mattress underfoot and, high above, rainforest coachwood trees form a dense canopy that dresses the understory in permanent shade.

Some of the unique plants in this rainforest can trace their lineage back 40 or 50m years when the Gondwana supercontinent was breaking apart and Australia was detaching itself from what is now Antarctica.

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