Our history

The effects of changes to climate are being studied by the Australian National University (ANU) in the Arboretum forests. Irrigation to the Corymbia maculata, spotted gum, and Eucalyptus tricarpa, red ironbark, (Forests 98, 99, 101) will be manipulated to simulate drought. The different ways in which these trees cope with drought will be analysed by the ANU’s Fenner School of Environment and Society.

Spotted gum is an ‘avoider’ and uses an advanced root system to maintain its water intake. Red ironbark is a ‘tolerator’; it stops growing in times of drought.

Understanding the adaptability of these species will be useful in making decisions on the future revegetation of areas deforested by a drier climate with longer droughts.

_{Photo: Cris Brack ANU ‘Ken climbing’}

In 1978, CSIRO research scientist Dr Ken Eldridge collected seed from surviving natural Pinus radiata var radiata forests near San Francisco, United States, and from drought tolerant
P radiata var binata provenances on Cedros and Guadalupe islands, Mexico. He aimed to conserve the genetic diversity of the species and, through breeding, broaden the genetic base of pine plantations in Australia.

The seed was used to establish research and conservation plantations. Some was cryogenically frozen and, after 30 years, provided the genetic material for the Arboretum’s P radiata var binata forests (46 and 90). When compared with trees from the P radiata var radiata forest (76), the trees with island provenances have massive buds and thick branchlets.

_{This grove of Pinus radiata var binata is at Duntroon, ACT. Photo: Adam Burgess.}

Australian species in the Arboretum include trees valued by Indigenous Australians for cultural uses such as tool making, for food and ceremony.

Brachychiton populneus, kurrajong (Forest 79)

The local Ngunnawal people had many uses for the kurrajong. Water was obtained from the roots; shoots were roasted or eaten raw; and seeds were eaten or ground into flour, or made into a stimulant that is similar to coffee. The thick bark is suitable for shields and its fibre can be used to make rope for nets, fishing lines and dilly bags.

The description of an Indigenous ceremony at ‘Tuggranon’ in the 1820s records that ‘the fumes of the bark appeared to have the effect of intoxicating’ the participants.

_{Brachychiton populneus, kurrajong, is planted in Forest 79 at the National Arboretum. Photo: Linda Muldoon}

In 18th century Europe, a philosophy of social reform based on reason, science and knowledge gained favour. Private tree collections became places of study into the cultural, economic and industrial value of trees, and, by the 19th century, many owners gave the public access to their educational ‘arboreta’.

Acclimatisation societies in Australia imported exotic species to test their commercial value. Arboreta were established to grow imported softwood trees suitable for use in construction, and for planting in gardens, streets and parks.

In the 1850s, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, director of the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, imported plants ranging from blackberry to Pinus radiata and exported native eucalypts and acacias around the world.

_{Photo: Samples of seeds and pods from the Arboretum's Forests.}

Between 1928 and 1969, 34 arboreta were established in the mountains and lowlands of the ACT to investigate potential species for timber and paper production and street planting.

Bendora Arboretum (planted 1940–1958) was one of 20 established in the Brindabella Range and is the only one to survive the 2003 bushfires. It includes 52 species of mainly conifers from the Himalayas, North America, Central America, South Africa, India and Mexico.

Bendora Arboretum was measured for 30 years by the Forestry and Timber Bureau, and later the CSIRO. It provided valuable information about the growth of exotic conifers at high altitudes in Australia and confirmed Pinus radiata var radiata as the best commercial plantation species for cool-temperate southern Australia.

_{The image gives us an idea of how much National Arboretum Canberra forests will grow by 2063. Photo: Neil Parker.}

Data collected by community observation projects has been proven to be statistically accurate and valuable to science. The National Arboretum hosts important, membership-based groups including the Friends of the National Arboretum, the Canberra Ornithologists Group and FrogWatch.

Volunteers from the Friends work for a few hours on two Tuesdays and two Sundays per month. They measure and record the height and trunk diameters of 15 randomly selected pairs of trees in each forest to create a database of tree growth at the Arboretum.

_{Spotted Grass Frog Photo: Martin Cohen/Wild About Australia/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images}

Strange beings and events populate the forests of myth and fairytale. They hold the terrors of the unknown, where witches imprison twins, wolves eat little girls, and the Dhullagar spirit waits to steal children.

Forests are magical places, where heroes dwell, kangaroos talk, willow trees walk and elves and fairies shelter.

Trees are the focus for traditions, such as Germany’s Tannenbaum or Christmas tree, the Bulgarian New Year, Japanese Hanami celebrations, and Maronite Christian festivals
in Lebanon.

_{Lebanon Ladies Maronite Ball, Sydney, 17 August 1938. Photography by Tom Lennon. Collection: Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.}

Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom, is home to 900 veteran Quercus robur, English oak, and the legend of Robin Hood. As told in a series of ballads, Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw, skilled archer and swordsman, a friend of the people and enemy of injustice who lived in Sherwood Forest with a band of like-minded followers.

Forest 82 was grown from the seeds of the oldest known European tree in Canberra, an English oak growing in Palmerville Heritage Park, near Evatt ACT.

_{1000-year-old major oak in Sherwood Forest. Photo: Dave Porter Peterborough UK/ Getty Images}

Trees are part of national identity. They witness our triumphs and tragedies.

Avenues of Honour, planted along highways after World War I, represent a particularly Australian response to remembrance. The first of these avenues was at Ballarat, Victoria, where 3771 trees, one for each local enlisted soldier, are planted along 22.5 kilometres of highway. Included in the 23 species planted in Ballarat were Acer saccharum, sugar maple (Forest 16), Platanus orientalis, oriental plane (Forest 53), and Betula pendula ssp pendula, silver birch, a host species in Forest 44.

The people of Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, planted the 281 Quercus engelmannii, common elm (Forest 21) — which line the town’s Avenue of Honour — simultaneously during a 30-minute ceremony.

_{Avenues of Honour, Elm trees line the Avenue of Honour at Bacchus Marsh, Tourism Victoria. Photo: James Lauritz}

Indigenous Australians removed large pieces of bark from trees to make shelters, canoes, shields and coolamons (dishes). Trees were scarred to act as markers and to make them easier to climb in pursuit of bird eggs or possums. Tree carvings (dendroglyphs) indicated ceremonies and, in some cultures, burial sites — the dead were placed inside large trees until the flesh was gone, after which the bones were interred
in a cave.

_{Scar made in a Eucalyptus macrorhyncha, red stringybark (Forest 20), for a coolamon. Photo: Lannon Harley}

The art of using horticultural techniques to create the impression of age and to miniaturise trees and landscapes in containers was developed in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907). Known as penjing, it was probably inspired by naturally dwarfed plants with twists, knots and deformities of premature age that were revered as having concentrated life energy.

The equivalent art of bonsai was developed in Japan after cultural exchange with China. The simpler shapes of bonsai are designed for contemplation by the viewer and as an exercise in effort and ingenuity by the artist.

The National Bonsai and Penjing Collection of Australia is located just outside the Arboretum Visitors Centre.

_{Acer palmatum, Japanese maple bonsai. Artist:A Robinson. Photo: A McGrath}

“Canberra represents for the first time the design of a city by a landscape architect and one where landscape is integrated into the wider structure of the city and not just as an isolated element or ornament.”

Lake Burley Griffin Heritage Assessment, Draft Report March 2009, Godden Mackay Logan.

The city’s designers, Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, integrated the city into its site to reveal its democratic function and striking landscape. They planned a city of trees, to revegetate the mountains and paint the hills in swathes of single-colour plantings. They also proposed a continental arboretum towards the western end of the lake.

Many species in the National Arboretum have not been grown in public plantings in Canberra and will prove to be evocative and inspirational additions to the city of trees.

_{Image: Walter Burley Griffin’s plan for a continental arboretum in Canberra. National Archives of Australia: AA1966/33, FOLDER 1}

The plan to build a National Arboretum came, after the fires of 2003, in the Shaping Our Territory report.

In 2001 more than half the pine plantations on the future Arboretum site were destroyed by fire. The rest burnt in January 2003 when wildfires killed four people, destroyed 470 houses and almost 60 per cent of the ACT’s remaining pine plantations.

A national ideas competition opened in 2004 and Taylor Cullity Lethlean Landscape Architects with Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects were announced the winners in 2005. Their design of ‘100 Forests, 100 Gardens’, was based around 100 forests of rare, threatened and symbolic tree species.

_{Mt Stromlo Observatory. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images}

The Arboretum’s design reflects the Burley Griffin plan by establishing an international arboretum containing tree species from around the world on the ‘Green hills’ site to the west of the lake, in the same vicinity as the Griffins’ proposed continental arboretum.

The forest lots and allées (wide spaces between the forests) of the Arboretum have been located to align with the Griffins’ vision. This connects the Arboretum back into the greater Canberra masterplan.

The landscape architects’ vision sought to redefine the meaning of a public arboretum in the 21^st century. Through their concept of ‘100 Forests’, whole forests of many of the world’s rare and threatened tree species have been planted, rather than single specimens.

_{The sculpture is mounted on boulders, like the rock eyrie of a wedge-tailed eagle. Photo: Adam Burgess}

The layout of some forests reflects the ethnobotanical relationship between species and human culture. The Koelreuteria paniculata, goldenrain tree, native to China and Korea, is named after the 18th-century German botanist Joseph Kölreuter, who recognised the role of insects in pollination. The tree has orange fruit that look like paper lanterns.

The layout of this forest combines honeycomb’s hexagonal geometry with the three-pointed geometry of the fruit. Merging these shapes creates a six-pointed star of pathways in Forest 104, similar to an 18th-century baroque garden.

_{Concept: Landscape architects’ concept design for the layout of goldenrain tree plantings in Forest 104. Image by Taylor Cullity Lethlean.}

Nest III (2007), Richard Moffat

Located at the top of Dairy Farmers Hill, Nest III is assembled from objects collected from farms on the New South Wales South Coast. Its welded layers record the history of Australia’s small acre and dairy farming. The sculpture is mounted on boulders, like the rock eyrie of a wedge-tailed eagle.

_{Photo: Adam Burgess}

The Arboretum is committed to the conservation of rare and threatened trees. The number of trees in its forests sometimes exceeds the number of trees remaining in the wild.

The rarest tree in the Arboretum is Franklinia alatamaha, the Franklin tree (pictured).

Originally occurring along the banks of Alatahama River in McIntosh County, Georgia, United States, this species has not been seen in the wild since 1803. Over-collection by nurserymen is thought to have brought the tree to extinction. Numerous expeditions to relocate the plant in the wild have failed. It is now a popular garden plant and it is growing at the Arboretum in Forest 93.

_{Image: © President and Fellows of Harvard College. Arnold Arboretum Archives.}

The ceremonial gardens of the Central Valley and the Central Valley Terraces extend from near the Arboretum entrance to the crowning ridge line.

In the spirit of its international conservation objectives, the National Arboretum and the ACT Government have hosted ceremonial tree plantings by the heads of state, ambassadors and representatives of Australia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, European Union, Hungary, Japan, Lebanon, Maldives, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the People’s Republic of China, Portugal, Samoa, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Sweden, Thailand, Timor, the United Nations, the United States of America, and Zimbabwe.

Trees will continue to be planted here by world leaders, Governors-General, distinguished Australians, royalty, and by representatives of significant Australian community organisations.

_{The Central Valley Terraces are reserved for plantings of Araucaria cunninghamii, hoop pines, by Australian celebrities. The first to be so honoured were icons of Australian sport, David Campese (Rugby Union), Robert de Castella (marathon runner), Lauren Jackson (basketball) and Mal Meninga (Rugby League) on Monday 7 March 2011. Photo: Elizabeth Hawkes}

On 7 November 2011, Glenn McGrath (McGrath Foundation), Matt Kilby (Global Land Repair), Kabi Kabi elder Beverly Hand from Bunya country, Ngunnawal elder Agnes Shea, and
breast-care nurse Kerryn Ernst joined ACT Minister for Women Ms Joy Burch MLA, to plant two Araucaria bidwillii, Bunya pine, in Forest 71.

These trees mark ‘Plant Pink Friendship’, to raise funds for specialist breast-care nurses from the sale of Global Land Repair’s pink tree guards, as used in the Arboretum.

The Bunya pine, native to south-eastern Queensland, is a source of traditional food and has sacred status for Kabi Kabi and other Indigenous nations.

_{Mr Glenn McGrath AM, McGrath Foundation, plants a Bunya tree on 7 November 2011. Photo: Elizabeth Hawkes}