The Lost Valley of the Wollemi Pine [View all]

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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/2012/06/30/the-lost-valley-of-the-wollemi-pine/

In 1994, New South Wales National Parks & Wildlife Service Officer David Noble stumbled on some trees in a canyon in an inaccessible part of Wollemi National Park. He’d never seen anything like them before. Indeed, when he took samples to botanists, they confirmed it was something they’d only ever seen before in the fossil record.



They were the descendants of an ancient line of conifers that had been thought extinct for millions of years. They became known as “Wollemi Pines”.

For those who think there’s little left to discover on our planet, it should be noted these rare trees were discovered a mere 150 km away from Sydney, in a wilderness area in the Blue Mountains. If giant aged trees can still be discovered in this day and age in major, industrialized countries, then there is still plenty out there left to surprise us.