Re: Tasmanian Pencil Pine inspiration
Posted: November 8th, 2010, 12:47 am
Hi Glenda,
Had the good fortune to visit Melbourne on business and took a few days to see Tasmania. Happened to go to Mt Field because of the giant trees in the lowland, but fell in love with the mountaintop instead. The trees pictured are on the Lake Dobson tarn ridge trail at around 1200m. Wish I had taken fresh batteries, since the camera died after about 100 photos. Maybe that's a good thing since I managed to get down from the mountain before dark!
The Pencil Pines are really amazing for several reasons. For one, they are gnarled little trees that must be centuries old (live over 1000 years according to conifers.org). But unlike other ancient alpine trees, their environment is constantly wet. Yet their bleached deadwood doesn't rot away over hundreds of years. It also surprised me that these trees are growing at a relatively low altitude. Dwarf trees grow at treeline in the US Rocky Mountains, but that is about 3000m elevation.
Here's the back side of the tree on the rock from my previous post.
Had the good fortune to visit Melbourne on business and took a few days to see Tasmania. Happened to go to Mt Field because of the giant trees in the lowland, but fell in love with the mountaintop instead. The trees pictured are on the Lake Dobson tarn ridge trail at around 1200m. Wish I had taken fresh batteries, since the camera died after about 100 photos. Maybe that's a good thing since I managed to get down from the mountain before dark!
The Pencil Pines are really amazing for several reasons. For one, they are gnarled little trees that must be centuries old (live over 1000 years according to conifers.org). But unlike other ancient alpine trees, their environment is constantly wet. Yet their bleached deadwood doesn't rot away over hundreds of years. It also surprised me that these trees are growing at a relatively low altitude. Dwarf trees grow at treeline in the US Rocky Mountains, but that is about 3000m elevation.
Here's the back side of the tree on the rock from my previous post.