The Ancients Discovering the World's Oldest Surviving Trees in Wild Tasmania

About this book

Deep in Tasmania's remote valleys and mountains grow trees whose direct ancestors lived with dinosaurs. Many are thousands of years old, some over ten millennia. Prize-winning nature writer Andrew Darby takes us on an island odyssey to discover these ancient survivors: the mysterious King's Lomatia, perhaps the oldest single tree alive; the primaeval King Billy, Pencil and Huon pines with their stories of human admiration and destruction; and the majestic giant eucalypts. He shares tales of the scientists and nature-lovers who identified these ancients and now work to protect them from climate change and fire, offering hope for their future.

Contents

Flame
1. Camouflage King's Lomatia
2. Dinosaur King Billy Pine
3. Pine of Olympus Pencil Pine
4. Water Tree Huon Pine
5. Overshadow Giant Eucalypts
6. The Green Myrtle Beech
7. The Gold Fagus

Author's note
Chapter notes

Customer Reviews

Biography

Andrew Darby is the author of Flight Lines, on long-distance migratory shorebirds, and Harpoon on whales and whaling. Flight Lines won the Royal Zoological Society of NSW's Whitley Award for the Best Natural History and the Premier's Prize for Non-fiction in the Tasmanian Literary Awards. It was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Award for Non-fiction. He was the Hobart correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.