Lagarostrobos franklini

Lagarostrobos franklini is often known as the Huon pine, or Macquarie pine is a species of conifer native to the wet southwestern corner of Tasmania, Australia. It is a podocarp, not a real pine.

The plant is a rare Tasmanian conifer with graceful drooping and spreading branches which makes it an ideal specimen plant for a sheltered area.

Lagarostrobos franklini A beautiful slow growing but long-lived conifer, it grows in moist soils in high rainfall areas, making it a perfect addition to a medium to large Irish gardens.

It has an unusual shape. With age, it forms a solid stem and long weeping branches, the thin soft foliage providing a distinct texture in the garden.

There are no spectacular flowers on this plant.

Lagarostrobos-franklini

It was first discovered in 1803 after the first settlers had made homes in Hobart.

Logs had been washed up for a long time on the banks of the Huon River, but surprisingly they were unaffected by rot or insect attack.

Once it was, discovered that it was an excellent workable material for boat building, the settlers realised they had found the ideal material it would float down the river in the green state, it wouldn’t rot or be, attacked by insects, and it was a beautiful fragrant wood smoothly worked.

What was, however, not generally known was that the pines they logged on the banks of western Tasmanian rivers were some of the oldest organisms in the world.

They grow at a rate of a maximum increase of 2 mm in diameter per year, so to reach maturity takes hundreds of years, and some specimens were known to have been 2,000 or 3,000 years old.

According to botanical information, only the North American bristlecone is a longer-lived tree.