Huon "Pines" & Ancient Rain Forests of Gondwana

One of the most charismatic & long-lived trees to be found in Tasmania is the Huon "Pine", which isn't a pine at all but actually a member of an extremely old conifer family (Podocarpaceae) from the Jurassic. Loggers began annihilating old-growth Lagarostrobos franklinii in the early 19th Century and logging wasn't stopped until the 1980s, at which point little to no old growth was left, except for the most remote patches of it which were only accessible after a few days of hiking through the wilderness in the remote Southwest. However, sometime in the 1980s a botanical survey revealed an isolated population of old growth Huons in the Eastern part of their range, as yet untouched by loggers.

In this episode we explore this grove and talk to the curator of botany at the Tasmania Herbarium about these incredible trees, as well as taking a closer look at some of the other species they grow with in these incredibly rich temperate rainforests.

Many thanks to Miguel de Salas & Matt Berger for help in the production of this episode.

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