Wollemi pine

By Marcus Strom

An Australian conifer that traces its lineage to the Jurassic period 150 million years ago was long thought extinct. Only traces of its ancestor Agathis jurassica existed in the fossil record.

Then one day in 1994 David Noble, a park ranger on a bushwalking holiday, abseiled into a secluded Blue Mountains canyon to find the fossils alive and well and the Wollemi pine was reborn.