Wollemi pines growing in Coates wood, Ellen McHale © RBG Kew
I Spy A Wollemi Pine
Since it was discovered in 1994 growing deep in a canyon in the Blue Mountains, the curious conifer has became available to many parts of the world. Wollemi Pines can now be found growing in parks, gardens and backyards across the globe.
The
I Spy A Wollemi Pine citizen science survey was launched in December 2019 by Dr Cathy Offord based at the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan and Dr Heidi Zimmer from the NSW Department of Energy, Environment and Science.
Dr Offord and Dr Zimmer are trying to identify the hottest, coldest, wettest and driest places where Wollemi Pines can grow to gain important insights into the environmental tolerances of this special tree.
In just four months, the survey has received 850 responses from 28 countries describing Wollemi Pines growing in gardens and parks around the world. It's a great result considering there are fewer than 100 mature Wollemi Pines growing in their secret location in the wild.
"This means we are about 80% of the way to meeting our goal of 1000 responses and there is still three months to go," Dr Offord said.
"We’ve had responses from people who have been growing their Wollemi Pines for 25 years, people who got one for Christmas last year and everything inbetween," said Dr Offord.
The majority of responses so far have been from Australia (410), the UK (351), USA (27), New Zealand (6), Canada (6) and Germany (6).
"There has been one response from Peru and Japan, but we'd love to hear more from people in the Americas, Asia and Africa, so our study can have truly global coverage," said Dr Offord.