Price of 'exclusively' bred rare plants soar in 20-year first at Aussie auction
Each specially cultivated Wollemi pine – known as dinosaur trees – has been individually labelled with details of its unique provenance.
Some of the world’s rarest plants are being auctioned in Australia for the first time in 20 years. Bids have been soaring on six small Wollemi pines that were directly propagated from a cluster of trees discovered in 1994 at a secret canyon in the Blue Mountains.
Known as “dinosaur trees” because the species evolved 200 million years ago, today there are fewer than 100 mature Wollemi pines in the wild. While it’s possible to buy Wollemi pines from nurseries, the trees being auctioned are unlike any that have been auctioned before.
"There's a really interesting world out there of people who collect rare plants, and these would definitely fall in the exclusive category of trees," the Botanic Gardens of Sydney's director of horticulture and living collections John Siemon told Yahoo News on Wednesday.
Each tree being auctioned was directly propagated from original specimens two years ago and cultivated by a team of scientists. It's the first time trees that have been genetically traced and verified have been released to members of the public. And each specimen comes with a tag detailing the purity of its breeding.
"These are incredibly special individuals," Siemon said. "If you went to a garden centre and bought a plant it could actually be a clone — much like what a Granny Smith apple is. But we as scientists like to keep all our individuals separate and we can track and trace them."
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Why is bidding so high on one of the Wollemi pines?
The plants are being auctioned on the 30th anniversary of the rediscovery of the pines by the Foundation and Friends of the Botanic Gardens to raise money for its Rainforest Seed Conservation Program, and bidding closes in just 11 days. At the time of writing, the cheapest specimen was Wollemi Pine 5 with a bid of just $350, while the 1 metre-high Wollemi Pine 1 has a bid of $1,200.
Siemon has been involved with the Wollemi pine's protection and cultivation for 23 years, joining the project just seven years after it was rediscovered. While he's unsure why bids on this one particular tree are soaring, he believes it could be because it was sourced from Site One — the place where botanist David Noble rediscovered the species.
"I'm speculating, because it's an anonymous bidding process, but someone may have some inside intel about this specific plant," he said, noting that some data about plants was released by Sothebys when it auctioned several Wollemi pines 10 years after their rediscovery.
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Will a Wollemi pine fit in my garden?
For those thinking of buying a Wollemi pine, it’s important to make sure you have enough space as they can grow 40 metres high. Each tree can also sprout 40 trunks with each potentially living for thousands of years.
If you can’t justify spending a few hundred dollars on a tree then don’t despair, there are specimens planted around the nation’s botanic gardens. In NSW they can be found at the Blue Mountains, Sydney and Mount Annan, while Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and the ACT also have trees.
The species is listed as critically endangered because its wild range is limited to just one small area in NSW. This makes it particularly vulnerable to bushfires and disease, and for several days there were fears they could have been lost during the Black Summer fires. To protect it, the Botanic Gardens of Sydney is working with National Parks and the Department of Environment to protect the original trees and cultivate others at new sites.
Whoever purchases the six plants at auction will be able to play a role in their protection, because of their plant's special genetics.
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