Open Access

John T. Hunter, Paul Sheringham

• The vegetation of Gibraltar Range National Park and adjoining parts of eastern Washpool National Park, 65 km east of Glen Innes (29° 31’S 152° 18’E) on the eastern escarpment of New South Wales is described. In total 124, 20m x 50m full vascular plant floristic sites were recorded and information from an additional 53 sites was collated. Thirteen vegetation assemblages are defined based on flexible UPGMA analysis of cover-abundance scores of all vascular plant taxa. Many of the vegetation communities are typical of what is found along the north eastern escarpment of NSW. Three communities are considered to be rare and two vulnerable. A total of 878 vascular plant taxa from 138 families were recorded, of which only 21 (2%) were of introduced origin and 81 (9%) were found to be of conservation significance. Pattern diversity, species density, species accumulation and average geographic range size, along with general measures of richness and diversity, were analysed for all communities. Each of the communities described varied considerably in the diversity attributes measured. Communities with a high number of shrubs had greater constancy between sites compared to those that contained a high number of closed forest species. The community from rock outcrops had the largest average geographical range size.