Jan Garben
Pacific Drift. Or, Tree of Hope? – A modern day story of man vs nature.
Sea Change, Tree Change – Trevor carves out a patch of paradise for his retirement…
Undaunted – Perched high on its arboreal host, with luxuriant fronds and storm-ravaged leaves, the staghorn fern embodies the exuberance of life, and its precarity.
Living Slowly, Dying Fast – Tasmania’s endemic Pencil Pine, Athrotaxis cupressoides, is one of the longest-lived trees in the world, some over 1300 years old. It grows slowly, taking 50 years to reach 1 metre in height. Fossils from South America show that 150 million years ago this ancient Gondwanan genus, Athrotaxis, was widespread. The pencil pine is one of only two surviving species, both found only in Tasmania’s highlands. It provides the exclusive food source to the Pencil Pine moth, Dirce aesiodora. Pencil Pines are very susceptible to bush fires, and numbers have declined markedly due to accidental and deliberate fires since the European colonisation of Tasmania. Around 40% of pencil pine rainforest has been destroyed by fire and will never regenerate. Changing climate affects growing conditions and its reproductive pattern, and the introduced fungus Phytophthora, which causes dieback, poses another threat to its survival.
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