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The level of the rainforest between the forest floor and the canopy is called the understory. It houses many plant species including the rainforest trees, ground ferns, tree ferns, zamias, cunjevois, cordylines or palm-lilies, native bananas, palms, climbing plants and epiphytes. Epiphytes (lichens, mosses, ferns and orchids) are plants that live off of other plants, and use trees for attachment purposes only. They do no hurt the plant they live on. Their roots absorb moisture from rainwater as it runs downs tree trunks, and nutrients from rotting plant-life. Large tree branches in the understorey support many ferns such as the Bird’s Nest, Elkhorn, Staghorn and Basket Fern. Insects and other small creatures live well in these damp areas, and frogs and reptiles commonly shelter within the plant-life. Most orchids also grow in shady conditions. There are about 150 species that have been recorded in the Wet Tropics. Hundreds of tree trunks of all shapes, sizes and colors can be seen in the understorey, their bark often decorated with epiphytic lichens and mosses. Trunks may be smooth, ridged, furrowed or noticeably bumpy.There are also many palm trees that are found in the Wet Tropics. Many animal species are live by the many different kinds of plant life in the understorey. Some of the understorey invertebrates are moths, butterflies, bees, ants, flies, preying mantids, stick insects, beetles, crickets, cicadas and spiders. These are preyed upon by skinks, geckos, monitors and birds (eg. robins, fantails, scrubwrens, gerygones, shrike-thrushes and treecreepers). Other birds such as pigeons and bowerbirds build their nests in sites amongst the understorey. Since as many as seventy to ninety percent of the trees in the rainforest’s canopy depend on animals for pollination and to move around their seeds, many species are have special features to make sure that the right animal or insect will take and deposit pollen to the in the correct way. Plants pollinated by certain animals often have certain characteristics. For example, flowers pollinated by birds have brightly colored, cup-shaped flowers for the birds to land on. Flowers that are pollinated by bats are often white, an bloom at night. These flowers with large amounts of nectar. Flowers pollinated by flies often have a rotting or mildew-like smell. Flowers that are pollinated by bees have a sweet odor. Butterfly flowers have a mild odor and are red or orange, since butterflies are one of few insects with good color vision. These flowers are most common in places in the understory where the light can get through the trees in the upper layers, and, forest-edge plants species. These are the areas where butterflies tend to be most plentiful in these areas.
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Click on the pictures of the animals to find out more!
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