The wide valleys of the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park in western Victoria, blackened by last summer's bushfires, are bursting with new green shoots.

Among the ash and soot, thousands of spiked grass trees — Xanthorrhoea — have pushed up tall creamy-white spears throughout the park.

Deakin University associate professor John White, a wildlife ecologist who has worked in the Grampians since 2008, said the enduring grass trees were a defining trait of the resilient mountain range and its foothills.

"Those grass trees are just plants that didn't get killed by the fire," he said.

"Some of the grass trees are 50 to 100 years old.

"The first thing you see usually when a fire goes through a woodland is this green flush, which is the grass trees shooting out at their base."

The grass tre

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