The University of Colorado Boulder has acquired a rare Wollemi pine tree, a tree species that lived alongside dinosaurs and was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in Australia in 1994.
CU Boulder alumni Judy and Rod McKeever reached out to the university’s greenhouse seeking to donate their beloved Wollemi tree, named Wally, after it outgrew their Boulder home.
“My first reaction was like, you don’t have that,” CU Boulder Greenhouse Manager Malinda Barberio said, laughing. “And then I realized that (Judy) was totally right. And then I was really excited because I knew we didn’t have one.”
The Wollemi pine is a critically endangered Australian tree species, and it’s one of the oldest and rarest trees in the world, according to the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service in Australia. Only 46 adult trees and 43 juveniles remain in the wild, according to NPWS, and the pine belongs to a 200-million-year-old plant family.
The tree is sometimes referred to as a living fossil or dinosaur tree because fossil evidence of the species dates back 91 million years. Wollemi trees were thought to have gone extinct around 2 million years ago, until a small grove of living trees was discovered by chance in 1994 in a remote rainforest canyon of the Greater Blue Mountains in Australia.
Due to the threat of extinction, in 2006, National Geographic sold $100, 10-inch Wollemi pine saplings in National Geographic’s holiday catalog.
“My husband (Rod) does bonsai and loves his bonsai garden, so when I saw the advertisement for National Geographic selling these trees, and it was a love story about finding a dinosaur in an Australian canyon, I thought it would be the perfect addition to his collection,” Judy McKeever said in a release. Bonsai is a Japanese art of growing and shaping miniature trees in containers. “But (Wally) never got bonsaied or really trimmed at all, and just kind of grew out of control.”
The small grove of trees discovered in 1994 remains the only known site of Wollemi trees in the wild. In that climate, according to NWPS, the trees can grow up to about 130 feet tall. Mature trees typically have more than one trunk and can produce up to 40 trunks on a single tree. A single trunk may reach up to 450 years old, and some of the larger trees living in the wild could be hundreds, if not thousands, of years old.
Wollemi pines can be found at some botanic gardens and university collections, Barberio said. CU Boulder’s Wollemi is more than 6 feet tall. The Wollemi has deep-red, bubbly bark and fern-like foliage. Wollemi pines don’t have a traditional triangular pine tree shape. Wollemi trees have thinner branches closer to the ground, and the top of the tree is dense and round, making “it look a little bit funky and a little bit more charismatic,” Barberio said.
The Wollemi pine tree donated by two CU Boulder alumni has flat, fern-like leaves, differing from a traditional pine tree. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)
CU Boulder’s greenhouse is following recommendations provided by the alumni donors on the best way to care for Wally. They’re keeping Wally out of direct sunlight, which can damage its leaves, and watering every few days. Growing trees in a pot can be difficult, Barberio said, but Wally can’t be planted outside due to Boulder’s cold weather conditions. The main goal for Wally is to see it produce cones so the greenhouse can grow more Wollemi trees and support the species’ genetic diversity. Barberio doesn’t know how many years that will take, but, she said, she has seen Wollemi trees produce cones in similar greenhouse conditions.
The greenhouse will utilize Wally to teach students and educate the public on promoting conservation.
“It’s really accessible, and we’re able to tell all these different stories,” Barberio said. “And now that we have the Wollemi, we’re able to tell the story of the Wollemi, plant conservation and paleobotany.”
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