Tasmanian Pencil Pine inspiration

[Houston Sanders]

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.

[bodhidharma]

i just love these trees.

We should do more work on the Australian conifers!. Especially the Alpine ones as we have great examples to follow.

Grant

I wonder how they would collect? It would be worth the effort. It reminds me of some of the old collected Ponderosa when i was in the States and J.B.P's from Japan. Thank you for sharing those inspirational shots guys.

[bonsaibontanist]

I cannot believe that everyone is not trying to bonsai these down south in Vic and Tassie I sure would be if I was living down there.
Also I believe we are lucky that these amazing ancient Yamadori in Tassie cannot be collected from National Parks so they will remain in the wild for all to enjoy and be inspired by.

[MoGanic]

I cannot believe that everyone is not trying to bonsai these down south in Vic and Tassie I sure would be if I was living down there.
Also I believe we are lucky that these amazing ancient Yamadori in Tassie cannot be collected from National Parks so they will remain in the wild for all to enjoy and be inspired by.

Your absolutely right. Collecting these amazing trees would cause the same thing it did in Japan with their Junipers - there would be none left except in pots.

Having said that, anyone got some grown from seed or cuttings in Vic? Would love to obtain some!

Absolutely inspirational stuff.

-Mo