Sotheby?EUR??,,????'???s Auctions Rare Trees

 

Wollemi pines (Wollemia nobilis) in the wild and in cultivation (below). The auction lot of pines went for $1,590,162, more than double Sotheby's lowest estimate.

More than 200 bidders came to the Sydney Botanic Gardens for the Sotheby’s auction Oct. 23, 2005 to bid on 292 first generation Wollemi saplings grown from cuttings of rare parent pines in the Wollemi National Park of New South Wales, Australia. The Wollemi pine was food for the dinosaurs and found only in fossil records?EUR??,,????'??+until Sept. 1994, when bushwalker David Noble stumbled upon a group of Wollemia in Sydney?EUR??,,????'???s Blue Mountains. The discovery was considered a major botanical find. It?EUR??,,????'???s estimated that less than 100 of the adult trees exist in the wild.

Peter Nowland, a Landscape Architect for the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, purchased two two-meter trees for $4,500. Nowland told the Sunday Mail he was drawn to the tree?EUR??,,????'???s great shape and strong trunks and wanted these special trees for the public domain.