ByJordan Joseph
Beneath the sandstone cliffs of Wollemi National Park, an unassuming evergreen has stirred curiosity among plant lovers and conservationists alike. It looks like any other conifer from a distance, but it carries a backstory that stretches to the age of dinosaurs.
Scientists only realized its significance in 1994, when a group trekking along a narrow canyon stumbled upon it. Among them was David Noble, a field officer from the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service.
The Araucariaceae family, which includes the Wollemi pine, traces its lineage to roughly 200 million years ago. The tree’s thick, textured bark and distinctive foliage link directly to fossils from the Jurassic era.
Botanists were surprised to see this tree thriving in a sheltered gorge after so many centuries. A then-Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens remarked that the Wollemi pine was the “botanical equivalent of finding a small dinosaur still alive on Earth.”
