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| The Wollemi Pine |
Pinophyta: Conifers
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Pinophyta
Class: Pinopsida
Order: Pinales
Family: Araucariaceae
Genus: Wollemia
Species: nobilis
Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) is a remarkable coniferous
tree that was in 1994 in a series of narrow, steep-sided canyons
in a mild temperate-zone rainforest wilderness area 150 kilometers
north-west of Sydney.
The discovery by David Noble, a park ranger of the Wollemi
National Park in the Blue Mountains range only occurred because
of his adventurous bush-walking/rock climbing abilities in
the virtually inaccessible and remote canyon system. Luckily,
he had a good knowledge of the plant types and quickly recognised
this as something different and worthy of further investigation.
Returning with a small piece of the tree that he expected
someone would be able to identify, it soon proved itself as
a new un-classified plant specimen that further study would
be needed to establish, especially its relationship to other
conifers. All that was at first suspected by the scientists
was that it had certain characteristics of the 200-million-year-old
Araucariaceae family, but was not quite the same as any living
genus.
Looking at fossil remains of this family of conifers and comparing
later obtained specimens of the plant proved this to be the
case, and it was duly placed into the Araucariaceae somewhere
between the still extant genera Agathis and Araucaria, having
some characteristics of both, but also some of its own. Fossil
remains of Wollemia are widespread in Australia, New Zealand
and Antarctica, but W. nobilis is the sole living member of
its genus and as such represents only one of the three genera
in the family Araucariaceae.
Fewer than a hundred trees are known to be growing wild. A
breeding programme is underway with the first commercial release
of this plant worldwide scheduled for 2005. It should prove
itself to be a valuable tree for ornament, either planted
in open ground or for tubs and planters. It is also proving
itself to be far more adaptable and cold hardy than its restricted
distribution would suggest.
for further scientific information visit the Royal Botanic
Gardens website here
The Edge Movie screens daily ... click here
for session times.
Running Time: 38 minutes.
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