by Carla Caruso

Could this be the oldest tree in your Adelaide Park Lands, predating European settlement?

There’s no plaque or signage near it. No fanfare.

The gnarled tree in Carriageway Park / Tuthangga (Park 17) – not far from where the Park Lands Trail crosses the creek – isn’t even alive; it’s been left there as a wildlife habitat.

Nor is it the tallest or thickest tree.

However, Matt Jorgensen, the horticulture team leader at the Adelaide City Council, believes that there’s a chance of it being our CBD’s oldest tree, possibly standing there since before 1836.

After taking us to this spot, Matt points at an 1876 aerial-panorama lithograph of the CBD (below) on his phone.

“If that’s Pulteney Street there, and these are the south-east Park Lands, then one of those trees through the middle there could potentially be this one,” he said.

The old, dead tree is a South Australian blue gum (Eucalyptus leucoxylon), which was identified by botanist Andrew Crompton in 1998.

While a 2007 survey by academic David Jones found five trees within Park 17 that he regarded as predating European settlement, Matt is unsure whether this is true - then or now.

“We don’t have enough evidence to categorically say that there are pre-European settlement trees anywhere in the Park Lands under the care of the City of Adelaide,” Matt said.

Though, Darren Peter’s 2008 thesis, Tree Succession Planning: Modelling Tree Longevity in Tuttangga / Park 17, the Adelaide Park Lands, did find one remnant blue gum and several red gums, which he dated to the 1850s.

‘Remnant’ refers to any trees or vegetation, which remain in the landscape after the removal of most or all of the native vegetation in the immediate vicinity.

There is one other contender for Adelaide’s oldest tree, however. The other, a river red gum that is believed to date from before European settlement, is in Botanic Park (Park 11) - an area of your Park Lands that is under the care of the State Department for Environment and Water, rather than the City Council.

The fact that this gum, and the one in Park 17 - whatever their age - could still be standing is a minor miracle. Early European settlers cut down thousands of trees in your Park Lands, from 1837 to about 1870, leaving them almost bare.

Matt next takes us to the West Terrace Cemetery in Park 23, where there might also be at least “the progeny” of trees that predate settlement.

These include a group of mallee box trees (Eucalyptus porosa), which “can live up to 200 years”, and a native apricot tree (Pittosporum angustifolium) – all in an untamed corner of the cemetery.

“This is Australia’s oldest, continuously functioning, metropolitan cemetery,” Matt said.

“There are older cemeteries, but they aren’t still operating. So, that’s the reason that this vegetation has survived in this space this long.

“I don’t think the mallees here are pre-European settlement trees; they don’t live long enough. But there have been [other] trees in this space that have lived and dropped seed.

“If you work in the conservation space – think about Melbourne or Sydney – it’s quite unique in a city setting to have remnant trees like this. It’s pretty spectacular.”

Native grasses, such as spear grass (Stipa spp.) and wallaby grass (Danthonia spp.), are also evident in this part of the cemetery. Elsewhere, there’s a native quandong grove.  

In future, Matt hopes to delve further into the age of some of the larger trees that inhabit your Park Lands, using scientific tools that would also yield information about past climactic conditions.