The rediscovery of the dinosaur tree
The Wollemi pine trees had missed earlier detection in Wollemi National Park by hiding in a remote canyon. This system is surrounded by tall sandstone cliffs, and only accessible via helicopter or climbing gear. In September of 1994, three adventurers were rock climbing and rappelling through that very ravine when they came across the trees. The leader of the exhibition was David Noble, an officer with the National Parks and Wildlife Service of New South Wales. As an afterthought, he collected a few twigs and showed them to Wyn Jones, a naturalist with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, who couldn’t identify it.
So Jones, botanist Ken Hill from the Royal Botanic Gardens, and biologist Jan Allan from the Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens went to take pictures of these massive trees and collect samples.”The find was all the more astonishing given the towering size and the location of the trees,” reports American Scientist, “less than 200 kilometers from Sydney, a city of more than four million people.