Beneath a shroud of early morning mist, the Black Bluff Range’s forested slopes ease down past occasional limestone outcrops towards the grassy expanse of the Vale of Belvoir, 17 km north of Cradle Mountain, in Tasmania’s north-west

The unique basalt and karst landscape is recognised as one of the most important ecological communities in Tasmania. Fringed by old-growth rainforest, the valley supports carpets of rare herbs, endangered sphagnum peatlands and thriving populations of carnivorous marsupials.

The eerie stillness of the Vale’s ancient rainforest is momentarily broken by the click of a shutter as Simon Olding takes a photo he’s been painstakingly composing on his handmade Zone V1 field camera.

Despite appearances, the camera is modern and uses individual sheets of large-format transparency film to produce sharp, finely detailed images, perfectly suited to capturing the beauty of bryophyte-draped buttresses of 400-year-old myrtle-beeches (Nothofagus cunninghamii).

The frond of a young fern (Histiopteris incisa) gains a vital foothold in the cool, damp understorey of the Vale of Belvoir rainforest where it attracts the attention of photographer Wolfgang Glowacki. These commonly occurring ferns prefer to germinate in newly disturbed soil, perhaps where a tree has recently fallen.

Wolfgang Glowacki’s macro studies of the lichen Cladonia verticillata approaches the near-abstract quality that characterises much of his work from the week in the Vale of Belvoir, an ecologically significant rainforest, 17 km north of Cradle Mountain, in Tasmania’s north-west.

The Vale’s flora provide a tiny world of inspiration for photographers keen to exploit the potential of macro imagery. Andy Townsend studies moisture clinging to alpine grass blades in the Vale of Belvoir in Tasmania.

Claire Needham uncovers a garden of delights in these green (Pseudocyphellaria glabra) and grey (Leifidium tenerum) lichens.

Sinkholes, characteristic of limestone karst geology, occur when the flow of water in tunnels causes the surface to weaken and collapse, and resulting depressions are colonised by plants. This low-lying example in Tasmania’s Vale of Belvoir, has become a permanent waterhole featuring a rare and endangered Poa grassland community.

Wolfgang Glowacki’s close-up of coral lichen (Cladia retipora) exposes its lace-like structural elements.

So far, no major survey of the lichens and bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) has taken place, but botanists working with the Tasmanian Land Conservancy (TLC) are hopeful further research will confirm the Vale’s unique limestone environment as a place of special significance.

Andy Townsend’s eagle eye spotted this brilliant blue metallic flea beetle (Altica pagana) picking its way across a contrasting yellow moss (Breutelia sp.).

Rob Blakers expertly captures the limited amount of light filtering through the dark green stands of tall, twisted myrtle-beech, interspersed with slender sassafras (Atherospermum moschatum), that make up the temperate rainforest’s dense canopy.