Dinosaur trees!

Today I visited Wakehurst Place Gardens for the first time. It was lovely...very quiet ( both because not many people and so quiet as no road noise which is not the case at eg Kew, RHS and many other NT places I visit. ) Also such a variety of trees and plants from around the world. There were also many areas of wild flowers which were in full flower including the large Coronation wildflower meadow planted for the 60th anniversary of the Coronation. I will definitely be returning and having a more lengthy look at the Millenium Seed bank displays.
Many of the trees and plants are set out by country and these Dinosaur trees are in the Australian area. They are so called because until 1994 they were thought to be extinct and were only known from fossils. A ranger came across them when abseiling 600m down a gorge in Australia. They are Wollemi pines and there are only about 100 mature trees in the wild. They are not true pines but more closely related to the monkey puzzle tree. Some of the seed is stored in the Millenium Seed Bank. In 2020 fires in Australia threatened to destroy the remaining wild trees so specialist firefighters were sent to protect them. The trees here act as an ‘insurance policy’. Cultivated plants are now sold all over the world and plants are sometimes available in the shop at Wakehurst.