Gumnuts, baby! How two abseiling horticulturalists rescued specimens from an endangered tree | Wildlife

Two gardeners embarked on a daring rappelling mission to rescue gum nuts from an endangered tree on the edge of a 300-foot cliff.

Stan Wawrzyczek, a threatened plant ecologist with the Endangered Species Conservancy, spotted an endangered tree. Eucalyptus stenostoma (Jillaga Ash), 90 meters down the cliff in Wadbilliga national park in southern New South Wales.

By chance, he had heard that Amy Downie, a gardener at the Royal Botanical Gardens Victoria (RBGV), could rappel; He was tending to RBGV’s Gray Garden, which has hard-to-reach plants on a steep slope.

He was deployed alongside colleague Ollie Sherlock, a rock climber, abseiler and natural systems team leader.

“The landing site had never been touched down before,” Downie said.

“We had to tie two ropes together because they weren’t long enough.”

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The couple collected gum from four trees using a pruner. They will be used to establish reserve populations and grow seedlings to save the Jillaga Ash from extinction.

The cuttings will also be stored and dried.

Jillaga Ash is found only in Wadbilliga and the nearby Deua national park, and the Wadbilliga population was almost wiped out in the black summer bushfires.

It grows up to 25 meters tall and lives up to 400 years, but it does not have the ability to regenerate after a fire like other trees.

It generally grows on very steep slopes, rocky hills and ridges with shallow soil and “often has a characteristic downhill slope”, according to the NSW government.

The government funded conservation to save six species in the region, including the Jillaga Ash.

“The five-day trip included camping, four-wheel drive, hiking, climbing and rappelling through dense vegetation, surveying, collecting and botanying,” Downie said.

“Following the success of this mission, we are considering new locations where rappelling could be used to save endangered plants.”

Sherlock said they had to work without mobile phone service and had to tackle some challenging 4WD tracks. He thinks drones could be used in the future to detect plants and assess potential risks before going out to pick them.

Jillaga Ash seeds will be deposited in RBGV’s state botanical collection, which holds more than 1.5 million specimens.