The Wollemi Pine
Posted on 01/16/2020 3:35:24 PM PST by Candor7
Firefighters have saved the only known natural stand of Wollemi pines, so-called “dinosaur trees” that fossil records show existed up to 200m years ago, from the bushfires that have devastated New South Wales.
The state’s environment minister, Matt Kean, said a specially deployed team of remote area firefighters helped save the critically endangered trees from the giant Gospers Mountain fire.
The pines are in an undisclosed sandstone grove in the Wollemi national park, in the Blue Mountains, about 200km north-west of Sydney. They were thought extinct until discovered 26 years ago..............................
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
These pines, a species that is ,2500,000 years old from the time if the dinosaurs, have made it through the brush fire conflagration.
Awesome.
Its a remnant of the Gondwanan forests that once covered much of Australia.
They still exist in abundance on Tasmania.
I would love to see those trees in person - I can’t imagine it. I was amazed to see Joshua Trees - the individual trees can be thousands of years old, I’m not sure how old the species is. But careless or crazy people would endanger those Australian trees if it was common knowledge where to find them.
photos ?
The Blue Mountains are beautiful!!
Gosh, that’s pretty
From the piece:”...existed up to 200m years ago...” So, which is it? 2.5 million or 200 million? Asking for a friend who want to build a log cabin out of them. :-)
You mean someone was around to date them then?
Perhaps the karma of this species is about exhausted.
It would appear to be a hardy survivor though.
Was presumed extinct and known only from fossil records dating to the late Cretaceous.
Then it was rediscovered 26 years ago by accident in a remote region of the Australian state of New South Wales.
Like the coelacanth, its a true living fossil.
Excellent. We have alligator junipers here that are easliy 1000 years old, and I hate it when fire gets them.
Looks a lot like the metasequoia, which are native to one valley in China. My grandfather, in the nursery business, got a seedling somewhere before the communists took over in 1949 and grew it to a 60 footer in Maryland. It’s still there.
A propagation programme made Wollemi pine specimens available to botanical gardens, first in Australia in 2006 and subsequently throughout the world. It may prove to be a valuable tree for ornament, either planted in open ground or for tubs and planters. In Australia, potted native Wollemi pines have been promoted as a Christmas tree.[17] It is also proving to be more adaptable and cold-hardy than its restricted temperate-subtropical, humid distribution would suggest, tolerating temperatures between −5 and 45 °C (23 and 113 °F), with reports, from Japan and the USA, that it can survive down to −12 °C (10 °F). A grove of Wollemi pines planted in Inverewe Garden, Scotland, believed to be the most northerly location of any successful planting, have survived temperatures of −7 °C (19 °F), recorded in January 2010.[18] It also handles both full sun and full shade. Like many other Australian trees, Wollemia is susceptible to the pathogenic water mould Phytophthora cinnamomi, so this may limit its potential as a timber tree.[19]
Metasequoia is the genus, the name of the tree you’re referring to is the Dawn Redwood, discovered 1941, and planted in many public gardens and parks.
All those really old tree types have those unusual “swirling” branches that actually look prehistoric.
Fascinating stuff.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.