An extensive gently undulating sand and clay plain of Tertiary and Quaternary age frequently overlain by aeolian dunes. Vegetation consists of semi-arid woodlands of Black Oak / Belah, Bullock Bush/ Rosewood and Acacia spp., mallee shrublands and heathlands and savanna woodlands. The region is known in Victoria as the Victorian Mallee region and characteristically has few surface water bodies because its soils are highly permeable and its climate promotes high evaporative losses. Approximately 70 per cent of Victoria’s mallee vegetation has been cleared and as a direct consequence of farming practices, the 1930s saw a part of the Victorian Mallee become one of the worst wind eroded areas in Australia. Substantial areas of mallee remain today in the western aeolian dunes, mainly in South Australia and but also western NSW. Clearing has also been widespread in the north eastern portion of the bioregion in NSW particularly on the undulating plains and relict river channels and lakes associated with the Murray and Darling Rivers.⁴

Johann Joseph Eugene von Guérard (17 November 1811 – 17 April 1901) was an Austrian-born artist, active in Australia from 1852 until 1882. Known for his finely detailed landscapes in the tradition of the Düsseldorf school of painting, he is represented in Australia's major public galleries, and is referred to in the country as Eugene von Guerard. In 1852 von Guerard arrived in Victoria, Australia, determined to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields. As a gold-digger he was unsuccessful, but he did produce a large number of intimate studies of goldfields life, quite different from the deliberately awe-inspiring landscapes for which he was later to become famous. By the early 1860s von Guerard was recognised as the foremost landscape artist in the colonies, touring Southeast Australia and New Zealand in pursuit of the sublime and the picturesque. He is most known for the wilderness paintings produced during this time, which are remarkable for their shadowy lighting and fastidious detail. Indeed, his view of Tower Hill in south-western Victoria was used as a botanical template over a century later when the land, which had been laid waste and polluted by agriculture, was systematically reclaimed, forested with native flora and made a state park.