Tree from dinosaur age bears fruit for first time
One of the world's rarest trees is bearing fruit for the first time in a garden in Worcestershire.
A retired couple in Wichenford, Malvern, are hoping their Wollemi pine can be propagated to help the endangered species.
Dubbed 'dinosaur trees', the species dates back more than 90 million years and was thought to have died out with the T-Rex.
But a cluster of the prehistoric conifers was discovered in 1994, in a remote valley 125 miles west of Sydney, Australia.
In 2010, saplings and cuttings of the Wollemi pine were sold around the world, and one was replanted by Pamela and Alistair Thompson.
They planted it in their garden in Wichenford and discovered it bearing fruit for the first time this month.
Pamela, a 75-year-old retired police officer, said: 'It would be amazing, absolutely amazing, to have seedlings and to propagate from the world's rarest tree.
'I couldn't imagine being so lucky to do it.
'I saw a small tree for sale for more than £1,000, which shows just how rare they are.'
Pamela and her husband Alistair, a 75-year-old retired spinal surgeon, are opening their garden to the public as part of the National Garden Scheme on May 4.
The grandmother of three said: 'The long pendulous fruits are actually the male cones and the globular spiky fruits are the female cones.
'So, what we're really hoping later in the year would be to collect and germinate some of the seeds from it.
'That would be really something, but we will just have to wait and see.'
The Wollemi pine, which flourished about 200 million years ago, is thought to be the first endangered tree to be protected through mass commercial cultivation.
The tree is related to monkey puzzle trees and bears both male and female fruit.
It became the most significant botanical discovery of the 20th century when a cluster was found by a parks ranger as he abseiled into a remote canyon in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, in 1994.
After a decade of secret survival trials, it made its first European appearance in 2005, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Sir David Attenborough, who planted the tree, said at the time: 'How exciting that we should discover this rare survivor from such an ancient past. It is romantic that something has survived 200 million years unchanged.'
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