Bluff River Nature Reserve vegetation mapping was undertaken by Dr John T. Hunter in 2002 by contract for the NPWS Northern Tableland Region. It is described in the Vegetation and Floristics of the Tenterfield Nature Reserves report which includes Bluff River, Bolivia Hill, Curry’s Gap, Gibraltar & Mt McKenzie. All reserves lie north of Glenn Innes and south of Tenterfield on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales and the New England Tablelands Bioregion. The local government regions for all reserves are the Tenterfield Shire and the County of Clive. Bluff River NR is located approximately 35 km north of Deepwater and incorporates 1793 ha.

The vegetation of five reserves within the Tenterfield area is described and mapped (scale 1:50 000). Fifteen communities are defined based on PATN analysis and an additional community is mapped based on information derived from previous investigations. These fifteen communities were mapped based on ground truthing, air photo interpretation and landform. Seven communities are considered of conservation importance with two of which were considered endangered and one should be considered vulnerable. Most communities are of woodland structure, although sedgelands, heaths, grasslands, open forests and tall open forests also occur. Many of the communities show considerable variation and intergrade along common boundaries and in particular on intermediate soil types. Physiography was the major correlative influence on community distribution, however protection from the north west and east, time since fire, grazing and geographic locality were also strongly correlated.

VIS_ID 4714