A UNIQUE COLLECTION OF GONDWANA TREES

A walk around the Ardene Gardens is quite literally a walk amongst ancient trees. Here you will encounter species of trees that once thrived on the vast super continent Gondwana, in a time of temperate climate, when tropical rainforests stretched across the landscape. To glimpse remnants from this by-gone age of dinosaurs, look out for the palm-like Cycads; the woody, evergreen Podacarpus trees; and the Araucarias such as the spectacular Norfolk Island Pine, all living fossils that have hardly changed since the Jurassic period, millions of years ago.

A vast and ancient continent

Until around 180 million years ago, at the onset of the Jurassic period, an ancient supercontinent covered much of the Southern Hemisphere. Known as Gondwana, it was a landscape far removed from what we experience today – warm and temperate, it was dominated by tropical rainforests, where ferns and cycads grew in abundance. It was also the time of reptiles, when dinosaurs, in all their diversity and magnificence, roamed the earth. Over a period of time, this vast Gondwana landmass started reacting to the pressures of continental movement and began to split into South America, Africa, Madagascar, Antarctica, India, Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Arabia.

Gondwana trees

Today, the continents that once made up Gondwana share a floral ancestry with plants that existed when the great supercontinent was still intact. And here in the Arderne Gardens, growing alongside exotic trees from the far corners of the world, one can see an extraordinary selection of mature Gondwana trees, each with a lineage dating back an incredible 200 million years.

These include the Araucarias, Cycads, and Podocarpus.

THE STORY OF THE ARAUCARIA

The beautiful Norfolk Island Pine growing in the Gardens is a member of the Araucariaceae, an ancient family of coniferous trees stretching far back to the pre-Jurassic period. The genus 'Araucaria' is derived from a region in Chile called Arauco, where the Araucani Indians lived. Today, Araucariaceae have had to adapt to dramatic shifts in climate, yet they still grow in parts of the Southern Hemisphere, where they represent a dynamic living link to a very ancient past.