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Athrotaxis selaginoides D. Don

King William Pine

Modern name

Athrotaxis selaginoides D.Don

A tree to 90 ft under optimum conditions but usually smaller, with a reddish-brown, furrowed, and somewhat fibrous bark, which is soft and spongy as in Sequoiadendron giganteum. It is very distinct from the other two species in its stout branchlets and in the size of the leaves, which are 14 to 12 in. long, awl-shaped, ending in a sharp point, keeled at the back, hollowed inside, and with a band of white stomata each side the midrib. The leaves are incurved, but stand away from the twig at angles of 30° to 45°. The branchlets with their foliage are about 58 in. in diameter. Cones the largest of the three species, to 34 in. or even more wide, the scales tapered towards the base, and with a thin, pointed, triangular apex. Bot. Mag., t. 9639.

Native of western and south-western Tasmania, where it is found in the temperate rain-forest with Nothofagus cunninghamii, etc., or in eucalyptus woodland, more rarely in small pure stands near the tree-line (Forest Trees of Australia, pp. 216-17). It is the most important of the three species, yielding a valuable timber resembling that of redwood, but mature trees have become rare in the wild. In cultivation it has proved the most tender of the three.

As with the other two species, the best examples in the Britsh Isles are to be found in Ireland and Cornwall, as the following records show: Tregrehan, Cornwall, 51 × 312 ft (1965); Lamellen, Cornwall, 41 × 3 ft (1962); Killerton, Devon, 36 × 114 ft (1962); Scorrier House, Cornwall, 35 × 234 ft (1965); Wakehurst Place, Sussex, 31 × 234 and 33 × 1 ft (1962). The following were all measured in Eire in 1966: Mount Usher, Co. Wicklow, 49 × 5, 43 × 212, 41 × 312, 39 × 412 ft; Kilmacurragh, Co. Wicklow, 48 × 534 ft; Headfort, Co. Meath,pl. 1927, 32 × 234 and 27 × 212 ft.



From the Supplement (Vol. V)

specimens: Wakehurst Place, Sussex, pl. 1917, 40 × 314 ft (1979); Killerton, Devon, 49 × 212 ft (1983); Scorrier House, Cornwall, 48 × 334 ft (1979); Mount Usher, Co. Wicklow, Eire, 56 × 512 ft and 46 × 5 ft (1975); Kilmacurragh, Co. Wicklow, Eire, 52 × 6 ft (1980).

Genus

Athrotaxis

Other species in the genus