h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Wollemia nobilis, the Wollemi Pine - A87789163
Author: Alun - U14483889

Entry: Wollemia nobilis, the Wollemi Pine - A87789163
Author: Alun - U14483889

This is my first attempt at Peer review. Some of this was an experiment in using GuideML, which I've found a challenge. For illustrations I have a couple of photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alun/tags/wollemipine/

Also, I should say I work with the Annals of Botany and there are a couple of AoB references. These go to free access papers. I've tried to make it more than just what's in AoB by linking to other relevant sources. Unfortunately some of these are papers behind paywalls, but that's where the information is.

Okay, this is supercool!

Wow, is all I can say. Oh, and I've got to tip off Willem, who will want to see if one can grow in his South African backyard.

Thanks for including the pictures.

Hi again Alun, and congratulations on submitting this to Peer Review. I can hardly believe that you've vanquished all the vagaries of GuideML.


As I said elsewhere, this Entry is perfect for the Guide, and we really welcome writing of such calibre. Many thanks.

There are a couple of very minor typos, but the main point of Peer Review is to give our members a chance to query anything that is not clear. I doubt that there will be much to query though, as the Entry is very well written.

Lanzababy

Hello Alun, and I enjoyed this entry very much! Dmitri is right, I would like to have one grow over here. We don't have members of the Auracaria family here, but we have Podocarps, which also an ancient conifer group dating back to about the same time and which are also considered part of the 'Antarctic flora' which you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_flora

I'm very happy that the folks in Australia are working to conserve this species.

I could help you folks out with an illustration if you're not in too much of a hurry. This weekend I'll have time, and could try a drawing showing a mature tree's growth form which together with the young tree in the pot might work well for the article.

Willem - that would be truly wonderful. There's no rush, but I am sure we'd be honoured if you did find time. Thanks!

This is a great Entry! Thanks for writing it.

Are you sure about your dating? Wikipedia says that these trees only branched out from their close relatives at the start of the Cenozoic, which is after the end of the Cretaceous, but you have them already going into a decline at the end of the Cretaceous.

One thing puzzles me. If these trees were already known from fossils, had they not already been given a name? Why was it necessary to give them a new name when the live example was found?

A few little details about choice of words:

"so an expedition was sent out, led by David Noble" -- this sounds as if this is the first time you've mentioned Noble, but we have actually already been introduced to him a couple of sentences earlier. I'd change this to "led by Noble himself" to make it clear it is the same guy.

"the 'cones' are not woody and therefore strobili" -- this would be clearer if you said:
"the 'cones' are not woody and therefore are strobili"

Thanks for the suggestions for changes Gnomon.

As for Dating, I'm not sure about it for two reasons.

One is it's easy to get confused between Wollemia and Araucariaceae, the family they're in and that's what I've done here. Araucariaceae were going into decline. There's a few sites saying the oldest Wollemia fossils are 200 million years old, and I think they're talking about Araucariaceae fossils. I should re-write that.

The other reason is that the dating isn't firm yet anyway. The reference to the Cenozoic comes from a recent paper on New Zealand dating. I can't evaluate that, so I'm happy to believe it's more recent research that redates some fossils. However, the older fossils are from Australia at 90 Mya and I don't think these have been redated, yet.

There are papers that give older dates, but these pre-date the New Zealand redating so they could be out of date. The most recent I've seen is Hemisphere-scale differences in conifer evolutionary dynamics in PNAS from 2012 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1213621109 . I can't access the paper from home, but the supplementary data has error bars for Wollemia parting from Agathis, these reach from around 120 Mya to 40 Mya. I think if the bars are that big the dates are going to move a few times yet.

The fossils were classified as Dilwynites. My guess is that the species got a new name because to get a species name you need a full botanical description and (I think) Dilwynites was only identified from pollen. Pollen is very distinctive, so if Dilwynites pollen and Wollemia pollen is the same, you very likely have the same tree, but you can't reconstruct what a tree looks like from its pollen. I've found this in Academia.edu that says there are possibly older macrofossils that match Wollemia http://www.academia.edu/1127216/The_Wollemi_Pine_and_the_fossil_record But the problem here is that it's not a conclusive match.

So I'll re-write the dating later today when I've thought it over.

Alun, great entry. You might enjoy reading Willem's Phyto-Philes archive from at A53937714. It is towards the bottom of that page.

What a super, super Entry. Well done Alun.

Alun, please don't stress about the dating, genealogy and classification, I'll help you out with that soon.

Ok, I've made a couple of changes following Gnomon's comments to try to add some clarity.

The Phyto-philes illustrations are brilliant. A similar illustration would add a lot to the entry if you could make one Willem.

Thanks to everyone for their comments.

That's great - thanks, Alun.

Hi folks, I have a picture for this entry:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/WollemiPine1b_zps61455b1a.jpg

Just a coloured pencil drawing, but I think it illustrates the growth form of this tree well enough.

If you folks are satisfied I could mail it in ...

I mean if you're satisfied I *will* mail it in.

That's really beautiful Willem!

I am more than satisfied, I'm sure that Alun will be too.

That is really a gorgeous drawing Willem, I am sure the author will like it. Do you think this tree would be happy in your garden? f so it would make a pretty addition to it.

Good read, good entry, WD!

I have a couple of dozen of these fellas growing on my sisters acreage, some are growing well and some not so well, I suspect they don't like the high rainfall of the sub tropics all that much but two which are potted have done duty as Christmas trees(albeit small xmas trees) these last two years and they seem happy enough.

Sorry Willem, I have to disagree. It's not 'just' a coloured pencil drawing. It's a FANTASTIC coloured pencil drawing. I'm extremely envious of your skills. Very impressive.

Ooo, I think I recall hearing about the discovery of these, in the way back wehn, but had entirely fogotten about them

Liked the entry a lot... well written I thought

I wonder if I could teach one of these things to be a houseplant.... that would be kinda cool, I think the balcony outside in this perminantly cold climate would probably not suit it well enough to grow it outside

We totally echo what Alun said in post #18. Thank you Willem. We are very privileged to be able to show your work on h2g2