Plant Week, Day V

Posted by MadScientist (Düsseldorf, Germany) on 3 May 2008 in Plants & Nature and Portfolio.

Admitted, this is not the plant you would call especially beautiful or an eye-catcher at first sight, at least not if you aren't into conifers, but this is indeed a very special one that I already mentioned a few months ago: it's the Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis). Actually it isn't a pine at all, it's related to the genus Araucariaceae and considered extinct for at least 2 million years, until David Noble discovered a very last resort in a canyon of the Wollemi National Park near Sydney, Australia. Since then big efforts are made to give this plant a future. And this specimen is my contribution: it's growing in a tub on my balcony, is doing fine and I think it is already preparing its unique chocolate-like bubbly bark. I'm totally fascinated to have this little conifer that survived several ice ages and is a living link to the primeval world.

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