Wollemia nobilis

(Wollemi Pine)

Hidden in a deep rainforest gorge within Wollemi National Park, in the Blue Mountains of NSW, this tree was thought to be extinct, until a NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service officer and avid bushwalker, David Noble, discovered it. He had abseiled into a deep rainforest gorge. He knew there was something unusual about the trees, as can be seen from the photograph – they look almost out of place in the environment, so he collected a fallen branch.

It turned out to be a major botanical find. The tree is one of the world’s oldest and rarest trees. In fact, it’s been likened to coming across a dinosaur wandering around, hence its nicknames, the ‘living fossil’ and ‘pinosaur’.

Sir David Attenborough remarked in 2005: How marvelous and exciting that we should have discovered this rare survivor from such an ancient past. It is romantic, I think, that something has survived 200 million years unchanged.

In the wild, the tree grows up to 40 metres tall with a trunk diameter of over one metre. It’s a conifer in the Araucariaceae Family, so it’s a relative of the Kauri Pine, Norfolk Island Pine, Hoop Pine, Bunya Pine, and Monkey Puzzle Pine.

The trunk is a deep chocolate brown with a bubbled texture (likened to bubbling chocolate, as can be seen in the photograph) and because it has a tendency to sprout multiple stems, the tree creates quite a bushy effect. Its foliage is an unusual dark green.

The Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney and the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service developed a unique conservation strategy – the Wollemi Pine Recovery Plan. Wollemi Australia was established (comprising the Queensland Government Department of Primary Industries Forestry, and Birkdale Nursery) to propagate and market the plant. Through the partnership, royalties from trees sold will be invested in the pine’s conservation in the wild.

The tree has proven very versatile and easy to grow. It’s still growing in Frankfurt after being covered with a thick layer of snow and temperatures down to -10 C. It does require well drained soil, and doesn’t like to be overwatered. Its protected natural habitat suggests that it would prefer a similar environment in the garden, and it is in fact suitable as an indoor plant but light levels must be reasonable.

It takes about 8 or 9 years to produce seed, so propagation has been by vegetative means (cuttings) and tissue culture is currently being explored. Seed collecting via helicopter turned out to be quite dangerous anyway!

The Wollemi Pine is on display in a number of Botanic Gardens across Australia and overseas, where it is closely guarded.

For more information and stockists, or to join the Wollemi Pine Conservation Club, visit the website: www.wollemipine.com.

Images are by Jaime Plaza - Botanic Gardens Trust Sydney

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