Curtain Fig par excellence

Felling the wet tropical rainforest that grew on the plateau was a massive undertaking by pioneering farmers.

Thank god for the hefty basalt boulders littering the floor of of Queensland's pocket handkerchief-sized Mabi Forest in Curtain Fig National Park!

In their absence, this magnificent strangler Green Fig (not to mention neighbouring Wet Tropics species) would in all probability have been cleared to make way for farmland, such was the richness of the Atherton Tableland's volcanic soils.

It's not hard to see why the national park, just outside Yungaburra on the Atherton Tableland, goes by the name of 'Curtain Fig'. Its 'curtain' of aerial roots descend some 15 metres to the forest floor.