The Tasmanian Pencil Pine

There is a place on Tasmania’s West Coast where a community of Pencil Pines live on an alpine plateau. These pines have reproduced by suckering. The pines were extensively studied some time ago and the conclusion was that they are up to 1,600 years old and quite possibly far older as the original pines may be long gone and the descendants may even date back to the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago. One of the pines studied turned out to be the largest clone ever reported for a root suckering conifer anywhere in the world.

These pines live in some of the harshest weather that Tasmania can throw at them, blasted by snow and ice in winter and even in summer, only briefly basking under sunshine before the rainand winds return. 

I took the advantage of a brief weather window to visit. I pitched my tent a little way from these ancient twisted and contorted plants before the mist rolled in and the evening slipped into night.

The night was cold and clear before a calm, clear dawn ushered in the next day.

I spent the day wandering the plateau, capturing the superb vegetation forms around me, marvelling at the distant layers of misty mountains and standing in awe in front of twin channels blasted into the ground by a past lightning storm.

This is an ancient land, raw, powerful and enduring and very, very special.

Geoff Murray

Mont Ambassador

@geoffmurray55