Around 20 years ago, we had the idea to regenerate from a lonely remnant tree on the family 40 acres at Polan Road Cosgrove. Previously, our cousin Gaye Sutherland had surveyed the plants on the property, and identified a lone specimen of Allocasuarina verticillata, Drooping She-oak, possibly 100 years old. These trees grow to 4 – 10 m high, and last approximately 50 to 100 years. They were widespread in our area on hilly slopes like half of the land on the family farm, but were cut for various uses such as wheel spokes, bullock yokes and axe handles and especially for firewood, as their wood burns hot. Who knows how many of these trees once surrounded this old tree? And unfortunately, these handsome plants occur as either female or male, so this old tree by itself it could not result in any more offspring. Also, this plant is a male, so could not produce seeds, but only supply pollen. Although commonly called She-oak, we nicknamed this ancient plant ‘Grandfather Tree’.
We came up with a plan. We sourced some She-oak seedling trees from Liz Evans & Andrew Sands nursery, with their seed collected locally from other remnant trees of the area. We reckoned that surrounding this old tree with a new family would be the best chance of capturing some of its pollen, that would mean that some original genetic material from this old tree would continue into the future.
Of course at that time that we were a fair way into the millennial drought, and so we employed one of the newer products marketed for gardening, that I’d been using in my landscaping work – water saving crystals. We got together as a three generation family group of about 8, and planted 50 seedlings, all with water saving crystals around their roots. Once hydrated, these hold water that is slowly released to the roots, acting as a reservoir in between watering or rain events. Around 20 of the seedlings survived to grow into trees, and I credit the water saving crystals with giving them a fighting chance.
Fast forward to 2016, I was wandering down to check on the She-oak family. By this time, the old tree had degenerated quite a lot but was still hanging onto life, so we were all anxious for some signs from the young trees, on which I found some female trees had formed cones! The next generation was on its way! These trees were quite close to the old tree, so this was added excitement, as it was likely the old tree had pollinated these cones.
I pocketed some closed cones to show the rest of the family and as is my habit, I left them in my car on the dashboard. The warmth helped the cones to gradually open, and some weeks later I noticed seeds emerging from the cones. About that time, John & I decided to tie the knot after quite a few years together. We planned to have each guest plant a tree on the family farm, to add to previous revegetation efforts by the family, including cousin Gaye. The She-oak seeds inspired the idea for John & I to each plant a She-oak seedling instead of exchanging rings. Again Liz & Sandsy’s help was enlisted, to grow She-oak seedlings for us, as well as supplying other local species of trees and shrubs for planting by wedding guests. We had just enough time for the She-oak seedlings to be grown for an April 2017 wedding.
On the wedding day, around 100 seedlings were planted, including a dozen or more She-oak seedlings from our seeds. These have mostly all flourished, some more than others, and in the last year, some of these trees are also producing cones. But the best thing of all, is that there are small trees growing amongst these trees, that we haven’t planted, so the She-oaks are regenerating without our help. I thought these were self-seeded, and they may be, although I think that the dense carpeting of She-oak needles around the trees may supress seedling growth. Another explanation I found in my copy of ‘Revegetation Guide for the Goulburn Broken Catchment’, which says that these plants can produce root suckers. Either way, Drooping She-oak now seem to be established once again on this bit of land, and our family couldn’t be happier to see this plant family here.
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