What about the Wollemis?

On an unseasonally hot October day last year, as a lightning storm passed over Wollemi National Park in the Blue Mountains, one strike hit ground. at single spark on Gospers Mountain grew into Australia’s largest forest re in history, decimating more than 500,000 hectares, killing an untold number of animals, and threatening to destroy the last grove of Wollemi pines left in the wild. AB Bishop reports on what was done to save these precious trees, and how gardeners around the world are helping to conserve this ancient species

The Wollemi pine captured public attention in the mid-1990s when news of an exciting Australian botanical discovery filtered around the world. Three adventurers, including David Noble, had come across a stand of unusual trees while exploring a remote canyon in Wollemi National Park, 120km north-west of Sydney.

Not recognising the tall conifer with unique bubbly brown bark and green, fern-like foliage, David, a botanist and then field officer with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, took a sample for identification. When compared to living and fossilised plant records, it proved to be a member of the Araucariaceae family (think monkey puzzle tree), belonging to the supposedly extinct prehistoric Wollemia genus.

Although numerous prehistoric plant genera exist worldwide, including ferns, cycads, proteas and magnolias, it is very rare for a species to ‘reappear’ after it was thought extinct for millions of years. The monoecious Wollemi pine (W. nobilis) is the sole living species of the genus.

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Located in a sandstone gorge in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, the last wild grove of Wollemi pines survived last summer’s res, although a few trunks and part of the understorey were charred.

Vast forests of the evergreen conifers, which can reach 40m tall, were likely to have been common throughout eastern Australia until about 40 million years ago. The plants were quite possibly a favourite food of the dinosaurs!

While the trees have endured dinosaurs, ice ages (they develop a waxy coating over their growing buds in cold weather) and lengthy periods of extreme drought for up to 200 million years, they need protection from plant hunters and disease contamination, so the location of the last remaining stand of fewer than 200 survivors is a heavily guarded secret.

However, as the Gospers Mountain blaze became a monster, ripping through the parched, dense bush towards the precious trees, it became apparent they were under a different kind of threat, and a multi-pronged environmental protection mission was put in place.

an urgent mission

Firefighters from NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and NSW Rural Fire Service were deployed to protect the trees from above and below. Air tankers sprayed retardant ahead of the fire front, and the trees were drenched with water. A specialist team was winched from a helicopter into the deep sandstone gorge.

Although it was an emergency operation, hygiene protocols dictated that the team spray their boots with disinfectant as soon as they touched ground. The strict hygiene measures had been put in place years earlier, after the root-rot fungus Phytophthora cinnamomi, to which the Wollemi pine is susceptible, was found within the site, thought to have been introduced through illegal visitation.

The ground team set up a pump fed from a small creek, and dampened the deep leaf litter using handheld hoses and a rudimentary sprinkler system.

It wouldn’t be known for days if the mission had succeeded, and everyone involved held their breath. When the smoke finally cleared, aerial photographs showed ‘veins’ of verdant green gorges – the canopies of the tall, mature Wollemi pines – snaking through an otherwise sadly charred landscape. Amid the utter despair of the situation, it was a welcome sight to Wollemi lovers worldwide.

Despite the intensive firefighting effort, sections of the understorey had burned, including a number of Wollemi pine seedlings. However, the majority of the plants survived, and are still flourishing months later. Only time will tell what impact (if any) this catastrophic fire has had on these majestic trees.