According to reports, this relic of the past, christened the Wollemi Pine, had remained unchanged since the early Cretaceous Period, about 135 million years ago. The implication was that visitors to the copse could rest in the shade of trees identical to those through which Tyrannosaurus Rex (or its contemporaries) stalked its prey.

The discovery led to much discussion in the media. Some writers thought that 135 million years was rather a long time to prosper without evolving, and wondered why the trees in this particular thicket had obstinately kept to the old ways. Somewhat on a tangent, it was observed in Britain that the average punter on the (then new) National Lottery could expect to have won the jackpot around five hundred times during that vast expanse of time.

There was also an effect on the public imagination. The natural history books had hitherto tended to portray the primaeval forest in alien and rather sinister colours, silent and dank, misty under the steamy jungle foliage, bubbling over with leeches, many-hued fronds and slithery creepers. There would also be a few strange-looking missing links skulking furtively in the shadows, uneasily conscious of their semi-adapted state. But after this find it was clear that the dinosaurs co-existed with relatively ordinary-looking pine trees.

It soon emerged that news of the discovery had been delayed awhile, giving a researcher time to grow a few little seedlings of the newly discovered conifer in the laboratory, with a view to marketing the prehistoric plants for sale. A waggish journalist suggested that an appropriate name might be Jurassic Bark.

Having survived so far undisturbed by man in its little valley, the Wollemi Pine is thus probably doomed to succumb to the same fate as the Giant Sequoia. Also known as the Giant Redwood, this noble tree was long thought to be extinct, but was discovered seven decades ago to be flourishing in California, and is now an increasingly frequent growth in country gardens and city streets.

A mere commoner after all, unlike the King of the Tyrant Lizards.