This is my 6 year old Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis). For anybody not aware of the extra-ordinary story of this tree, it was discovered in 1994 in a remote part of the Blue Mountains, about 100 miles from Sydney. An exhaustive search of the area revealed only 3 more specimens than the 70-odd mature trees in the original location. They turned out all to be genetically identical. It belongs to a genus thought to have been extinct for a very long time. In terms of tree evolution, it is truly primitive. It only survived at all because it is adapted to tolerate very low light levels. Its ancient cousins once covered the entire area around the south pole (the earth was warmer then) and so it had to cope with weeks or months of total darkness. They were growing at the bottom of a very deep gorge, right next to the cliff, mostly in 100% shade.
Anyway....after being kept in a top security lab for ten years they were finally released to the public in 2006. This is one of the first batch to go on non-auction sale in the northern hemisphere (late 2006). When it started producing cones last year I could hardly believe it - very few conifers reach sexual maturity this early. But that is part of the joy of owning one of these babies - nobody knows how they are going to behave under various different conditions in different parts of the world, because the only mature trees are in one place and nobody has ever watched a wollemi pine grow up!
(pictures taken today)
Immature female cones:
Male cones disintegrating, lots of pollen:
Anyway....after being kept in a top security lab for ten years they were finally released to the public in 2006. This is one of the first batch to go on non-auction sale in the northern hemisphere (late 2006). When it started producing cones last year I could hardly believe it - very few conifers reach sexual maturity this early. But that is part of the joy of owning one of these babies - nobody knows how they are going to behave under various different conditions in different parts of the world, because the only mature trees are in one place and nobody has ever watched a wollemi pine grow up!
(pictures taken today)
Immature female cones:
Male cones disintegrating, lots of pollen:
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