Amazing Trees

 Wollemi Pine Tree

Scientific classification

Scientific Name - Wollemia nobilis

Domain               - Eukaryota

Kingdom            - Plantae

Phylum               - Spermatophyta

Class                    - Pinopsida

Order                  - Araucariales

Family                - Araucariaceae

Genus                 - Wollemia

Species               - W.nobilis

 Wollemia nobilis is a genus of coniferous trees in the family Araucariaceae. It was known only though fossil records until 1994, when the Australian species Wollemia nobilis was discovered in a temperate rainforest wildness area of the Wollemi National Park in New South Wales. It was growing in a remote series of narrow, steep-sided, sandstone, gorges 150km north-west of Sydney. The genus is named after the National Park. In both botanical and popular literature, the tree has been almost universally referred to as the Wollemi pine, although it is not  a true pine, nor a member of the family, but is related to Agathis and Araucoria in the family Aracariaceae.

                              

The Wollemi pine growing in the heart of the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney was planted by Principal Research Scientist from the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan Dr. Cathy Offord in 1996. Wollemia nobilis is an evergreen tree reaching 25 - 40m tall. The bark is very distinctive, dark brown, and knobby, quoted as resembling the breakfast cereal coco pops. Wollemi pines lives for an extremely long time, some of the oldest living trees around today are thought to be between 500 and 1000 years old.

The Wollemi Pine is classified as critically endangered ( CR ) on the IUCN's Red List, and is legally producted in Australia. After it was discovered that the trees could be successfully cloned, new trees were potted up in the Botanic Gardens of Sydney and Mount Annan. It is thought that the Wollemi Pine has been undergoing a slow natural decline for thousands of years, but today this species is threatened by it's small population size and restricted distribution making it very susceptible to the effects of human activities or unexpected catastrophes. 

😊😊😊