Mount Lesueur is a near-circular, flat-topped

mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by a ...

located from Jurien Bay in

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. It rises above the surrounding lateritic plain of

Lesueur National Park Lesueur National Park is a national park straddling the boundary between the Wheatbelt and Mid West regions of Western Australia, 211 km north of Perth. The park was gazetted in 1992. It includes two mesas known as Mount Lesueur and Mou ...

which has eroded away around it. Mount Lesueur was first sighted and named by Europeans as the French ship the ''Naturaliste'' sailed past Jurien Bay on its voyage up the Western Australian coast. It was named in honour of

Charles Alexander Lesueur Charles Alexandre Lesueur (1 January 1778 in Le Havre – 12 December 1846 in Le Havre) was a French naturalist, artist, and explorer. He was a prolific natural-history collector, gathering many type specimens in Australia, Southeast Asia, ...

, a natural history artist on board the ship. The next recorded sighting was by Captain

George Grey Sir George Grey, KCB (14 April 1812 – 19 September 1898) was a British soldier, explorer, colonial administrator and writer. He served in a succession of governing positions: Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Go ...

, who led a small party through the area in 1839 after they were shipwrecked near Kalbarri. In 1849 a party led by A.C. Gregory ascended Mount Lesueur. They were followed the next year by botanical collector James Drummond on the first of his many visits to the area. A reserve (No.24275) was created around Mount Lesueur for "educational purposes" in the 1950s. A more extensive area was gazetted as a national park in 1992. Mount Lesueur has an extremely high level of plant biodiversity, making it of immense research and conservation importance to botanists.

References

Lesueur Wheatbelt (Western Australia) {{WesternAustralia-geo-stub