Giant Antarctic Beech, Nothofagus moorei
Antarctic Beech, Nothofagus moorei at Cobark Park, Barrington Tops.
Those tourist trees at Lamington National Park are tiddlers compared to the giant Nothofagus at Barrington Tops and Werrikimbe National Park. This tree was double the height of those well photographed tourist industry money makers. This towering tree in a remote cool temperate rainforest, hundreds of kilometres to the south where hardly anyone goes.
This tree was immense, around 50 metres tall. Nearby was another with a massive base, five and a half metres in diameter. That base was almost square in shape, with a "new" shoot growing out of woody mass, some 35 metres high.
In many years of searching the cool temperate rainforests of eastern Australia I'd not seen a Nothofagus as tall as this photographed tree. How tall was it? Easy, go there and measure it as it is now horizontal. Blown over by a huge windstorm a few years ago.
But this may not be the end of this ancient organism. Antarctic Beech sprout from the base with epicormic shoots. And there's a good chance it will live a few decades (or centuries) more.
This was a glorious cool temperate rainforest. Big trees everywhere, but in the understorey were Mountain Walnut (Cryptocarya foveolata), Trochocarpa montana and many other fascinating plants.
A huge windstorm knocked down big trees in this forest. But, it's likely to retain its integrity and be just as impressive in a hundred years or more. Time goes slow in Cool Temperate Rainforests. And this flattened tree might yet reach the sky once more.
Giant Antarctic Beech, Nothofagus moorei
Antarctic Beech, Nothofagus moorei at Cobark Park, Barrington Tops.
Those tourist trees at Lamington National Park are tiddlers compared to the giant Nothofagus at Barrington Tops and Werrikimbe National Park. This tree was double the height of those well photographed tourist industry money makers. This towering tree in a remote cool temperate rainforest, hundreds of kilometres to the south where hardly anyone goes.
This tree was immense, around 50 metres tall. Nearby was another with a massive base, five and a half metres in diameter. That base was almost square in shape, with a "new" shoot growing out of woody mass, some 35 metres high.
In many years of searching the cool temperate rainforests of eastern Australia I'd not seen a Nothofagus as tall as this photographed tree. How tall was it? Easy, go there and measure it as it is now horizontal. Blown over by a huge windstorm a few years ago.
But this may not be the end of this ancient organism. Antarctic Beech sprout from the base with epicormic shoots. And there's a good chance it will live a few decades (or centuries) more.
This was a glorious cool temperate rainforest. Big trees everywhere, but in the understorey were Mountain Walnut (Cryptocarya foveolata), Trochocarpa montana and many other fascinating plants.
A huge windstorm knocked down big trees in this forest. But, it's likely to retain its integrity and be just as impressive in a hundred years or more. Time goes slow in Cool Temperate Rainforests. And this flattened tree might yet reach the sky once more.