Athrotaxis cupressoides seed

LATIN NAME: Athrotaxis cupressoides

COMMON NAME: Pencil Pine

The pencil pine is a handsome, upright, columnar, evergreen conifer of the cool, wet mountains, and its fine, tiny, scale-like, dark-green leaves pressed close along the branches and its small, round, woody cones have made it a treasured and striking tree of the region. It grows as an upright, columnar, evergreen conifer, reaching up to twenty metres or more, with the upright, tapering trunk bearing the dense, columnar crown of the fine, tiny, scale-like, dark-green leaves and, through the warm months, the small, round, woody cones of the few seeds. It is a species of the coniferous tree in the cypress family, and it is native to the cool, wet mountains of the Tasmania, while it is treasured for its fine, narrow, columnar form, and it is known as the pencil pine.

In the cypress family it is the narrow, columnar conifer of the Tasmanian mountains, a tree that stands like a dark pencil in the high, wet country.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The pencil pine is one of the fine, ancient trees of the southern mountains, and its narrow growth rings have been read by the climate scientists to tell the story of the long years of the high country. The botanists have mapped its place in the cypress family and the Tasmanian mountain flora, and the conservationists have kept the few, valued columnar forests close to the centre of their work. It is a tree of the ancient, significant kind, and the growers of the cool garden keep it in their catalogues.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the cool, moist garden, the pencil pine is the narrow, dark-green conifer of the striking corner. Its woody cones feed the small creatures, its dense, columnar crown shelters the birds, and the narrow form gives the garden a fine, formal vertical line. It has served the climate science through its long growth rings, and the conservation of the tree has been of the greatest importance. Narrow, columnar and ancient.

The few seeds sit inside the small, round, woody cones — shake them out and sow them shallowly over the surface of pots of gritty, free-draining, lime-free soil, keep the pots moist in a bright, sheltered spot and never let them dry out, and the first fine shoots will appear in time.