Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 15, 1994 TAG: 9412150060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA LENGTH: Medium
Venturing into an isolated grove in a rain forest preserve 125 miles from Sydney, the Parks and Wildlife Service officer suddenly found himself in a real-life Jurassic Park - standing amid trees thought to have disappeared 150 million years ago.
``The discovery is the equivalent of finding a small dinosaur still alive on Earth,'' said Carrick Chambers, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens.
To botanists, discovery of the 39 prehistoric pines is ``off the planet,'' he said Wednesday.
``This is probably one of the most significant botanical finds of this century. It's a very exciting find and it's a real living fossil,'' said botanist Ken Hill of the botanic gardens.
The trees were found in an almost inaccessible part of Wollemi National Park in the Blue Mountains. They have been named the Wollemi Pines.
``In one way, it will be our own Christmas tree. It's been discovered at Christmas, it's a conifer, it's going to be the Australian Christmas tree,'' said Chris Hartcher, the environment minister for New South Wales.
The biggest tree towers 130 feet with a 10-foot girth, indicating it's at least 150 years old. The trees are covered in dense, waxy foliage and have knobby bark that makes them look like they are coated with bubbly brown chocolate.
``The fact that such a large plant can go undiscovered for so long is a clear indication that there is more work to be done before we can say we understand our environment,'' Hartcher said.
So far, only 23 adult trees and 16 juveniles have been found, making the species one of the world's rarest plants. Their exact location is being kept secret to protect them while botanists take seed samples to propagate them.
Their home is a tiny 1.2-acre grove in the 1.2 million-acre park, found by Noble during a weekend hiking holiday in August. The park service then worked with the botanic gardens to identify the pines.
``Wollemi'' is an aboriginal word meaning ``look around you,'' which is just how Noble found the prehistoric pines.
Barbara Briggs, the botanic gardens' scientific director, hailed the finding as one of Australia's most outstanding discoveries of the century, comparable to the living fossil finds of the dawn redwood tree in China in 1944 and the coelacanth fish off Madagascar in 1938.
The Wollemi Pines once covered vast areas of the world, scientists think, but, as the climate changed, the few remaining trees survived only in this damp, protected gorge.
``This is a plant family that was widespread, including the Northern Hemisphere, before that great extinction ... when we lost the dinosaurs,'' Briggs said. ``It's been in a very sheltered spot and I think it's escaped fire for a very long time.''
The closest relatives of the Wollemi Pines died out in the Jurassic Period 190 million to 135 million years ago, and the Cretaceous Period, 140 million to 65 million years ago.
On Wednesday, the Royal Botanic Gardens, the New South Wales government and the National Parks and Wildlife Service jointly announced that the Wollemi Pine is a new genus - the scientific classification used to embrace a group of similar species.
by CNB