Gumnuts, baby! How two abseiling horticulturalists rescued specimens from an endangered tree | Wildlife

Two horticulturists undertook a daring rappelling mission to rescue gumnuts from an endangered tree on a 300m cliff.

Stan Wawrzyczek, endangered plant ecologist at the Threatened Species Conservancy, spotted an endangered tree, Eucalyptus stenostome (Jillaga Ash), 90 m from the cliff in Wadbilliga National Park, southern New South Wales.

Coincidentally, he had heard that Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (RBGV) horticulturist Amy Downie could do abseiling: she looked after RBGV’s Gray Garden, which has hard-to-reach plants on a steep slope.

She was roped up with colleague Ollie Sherlock, a climber, abseiler and acting team leader for natural systems.

“The rappel site had never been lowered before,” Downie said.

“We had to tie two ropes together because they weren’t long enough.”

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The couple collected gumnuts from four trees using pruning shears. They will be used to grow seedlings to create backup populations, saving the Jillaga ash tree from extinction.

The cuttings will also be stored and dried.

Jillaga ash is only found in Wadbilliga and the neighboring Deua National Park, and the Wadbilliga population was almost destroyed by the summer’s black bushfires.

It grows up to 25 m, lives up to 400 years, but does not have the capacity for regeneration after fire of other trees.

It typically grows on very steep slopes, rocky peaks and ridgelines with shallow soils, and “often exhibits a characteristic downward slope”, according to the New South Wales government.

The government funded conservation to save six species in the region, including the Jillaga ash.

“The five-day trip involved camping, 4x4ing, hiking through dense vegetation, climbing and rappelling, surveying, collecting and botany,” Downie said.

“Following the success of this mission, we are considering new locations where abseiling could be used to save endangered plants. »

Sherlock said they had to work without cell phone service and tackle difficult tracks in 4x4s. He believes drones could be used in the future to spot plants and assess risks before retrieving them.

The seeds of Jillaga Ash will be stored in the state botanical collection of the RBGV, which has more than 1.5 million specimens.