Own a piece of Jurassic Park

In 1994, a handful of trees thought to have gone extinct 2 million years ago were found growing in a remote canyon in Australia. These trees, now known as the Wollemi Pine, were quite common 90 million years ago (according to the fossil record) but as Australian weather got drier, one isolated micro-climate remained that the wollemi could survive in. And survive they did: a few of the trees in that canyon are even 1000 years old and 121 feet tall.

"The discovery was the botanical equivalent of finding a dinosaur alive today."

Nursing an "Extinct" Tree Back to Health

"The location of the pines is kept completely secret, and there is a AUD$220,000 (US$133,000) fine for anyone disturbing them. Only a very small number of researchers are allowed to visit the main grove, and they must follow strict quarantine measures such as changing their clothes to prevent the introduction of weeds or diseases."

Those trees are now protected, but a decision was made to root cuttings of the stands and send them around the world to be owned by the likes of you and I.

To reduce the temptation for people to try and steal pines from the wild, and to increase the total number of pines in the world, the management committee decided to propagate the pines for sale as garden plants. Birkdale Nursery, a private company, and the Department of Primary Industry (Forestry), both in the state of Queensland, were awarded the rights.

The eagerly anticipated release in the US is scheduled to be announced on September 19 at National Geographic’s headquarters in Washington, DC and celebrated with a planting of a Wollemi Pine on the company grounds on September 22.

But, seeing that I found out about it early from an insider, I did a search on the National Geographic site and found that the page to pre-order Wollemi Pines is already up.

A funky christmas gift? You betcha! Just make sure I am on your list!