Samantha Tidy (text) and Rachel Gyan (illustrator) Wollemi: Saving a dinosaur tree, CSIRO Publishing, October 2023, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781486316090
This colourful scientific picture book from the team at CSIRO Publishing tells the exciting story of discovering the Wollemi pine and saving it not once, but twice. The pine was found by a park ranger, David Noble, in 1994 when he abseiled into a remote gorge in the Blue Mountains. He didn’t recognise the tree and took a small cutting to be examined. It was indeed a new species but of ancient origin.
Named Wollemia nobilis after its location and finder, the exact location was kept secret. Because so few of the trees existed, botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens were called in to propagate saplings that could be bought by the public, grown in botanic gardens around the world and planted in the grove near the existing trees.
However, in 2019 the Black Summer bushfires threatened the whole area. A massive firefighting effort ensued to save the trees and their habitat. Fortunately, it was successful and the trees survived. Listed as a threatened species and critically endangered, conservation efforts are continuing.
Rachel Gyan’s full page brightly coloured illustrations beautifully convey the gorge where the trees live in the wild and the dramatic firefighting scenes. The text concludes with a glossary, taxonomy, and species information. The final endpaper is a timeline from prehistoric times until today. This is a good introduction to a fascinating topic for young readers.
Reviewed by Lynne Babbage
