Auckland Council's Auckland Botanic Gardens on Hill Road, Manurewa will soon provide a conservation refuge for six endangered Wollemi pine trees, cousins of the New Zealand kauri.
The gardens will house the Wollemi pines in the Gondwana Arboretum – a garden for ancient trees that lived in the time of the dinosaurs, when New Zealand was attached to Australia, South America, South Africa, India and Antarctica.
Many of the trees in the Gondwana Arboretum are threatened in their native country because of fires, mining, forestry and diseases. The collection at Auckland Botanic Gardens is helping to save these wonderful trees from extinction.
The endangered Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis), which is found in just one place in New South Wales, Australia, was first identified as recently as 1994.
You can visit the Gondwana Arboretum at any time but you’ll have to wait to see the Wollemi – they'll be planted in autumn.
