Image: EBE carpenter John Archer presents Vice-Chancellor, Professor Chris Moran, with the box set.

A rare Wollemi Pine that once stood in the grounds of Booloominbah has been given new life in the form of a handcrafted pen and box made from its salvaged timber.

The tree, known as Parent Tree 7: Hercules*, was one of only fifteen “parent trees” selected from cuttings of the Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) that was discovered by David Noble, a NSW Parks and Wildlife Service officer, in 1994.

Noble spotted the unusual tree while canyoning in a remote gorge in Wollemi National Park northwest of Sydney. Before this chance encounter, the species was known only from fossil records dating back millions of years.  

Only around 100 Wollemi Pines exist in the wild and DNA testing has shown most are genetically identical.

A cultivation project was undertaken after the plant was discovered to conserve and protect the species. Plants were grown from cuttings and shared among institutes all around the world, including UNE.

Despite efforts to save the UNE specimen (utilising grey water to try to keep the plant alive during severe water restrictions in the drought), the lack of soil moisture combined with prolonged periods of hot weather led to the tree dying.

Rather than see the tree’s story end there, EBE carpenter John Archer transformed part of its timber into a box, which together with a pen, was presented to Vice-Chancellor Professor Chris Moran as a symbolic gift reflecting UNE’s resilience and rejuvenation.

*Tree 7 in the Grove is like the strongman of classical Roman mythology, Hercules, as cuttings from this tree are among the most vigorous and fast-growing specimens. In the myths, Hercules was the son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmene. His strength and resilience were legendary, including strangling serpents in his crib as a baby and completing the Twelve Labours, which included slaying the Nemean Lion and capturing the three-headed hound Cerberus from the Underworld.