2 minute read
Queensland bottle tree
In 1969 a young man named Doug Sowerbutts arrived as a migrant from the UK to begin a new life in Sydney. Making the most of his new surroundings, he was naturally drawn to the Sydney Harbour foreshore and started regularly running through the Royal Botanic Garden, particularly around Farm Cove.
During his runs Doug became fascinated with the strange-looking Queensland bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris) in the Lower Garden. This began a lifelong fascination with this remarkable tree species. Doug eventually settled in Queensland and began exploring the regional areas in the Southeast of the state where bottle trees naturally occur. Rich coal deposits occur in similar areas and there was much mining activity underway, with more planned.
Doug began rescuing bottle trees from proposed mine sites and growing them on land he had acquired near Toowoomba. He started to supply these trees to clients far and wide, as they became more popular as a landscape plant.
Fast forward to the early 2000s and Doug established contact with me at the Royal Botanic Garden. In 2006 he put me in touch with a property owner in Bellevue Hill who had a bottle tree that was outgrowing her small front yard. Along with a team of arborists and horticultural staff, we excavated the tree from the small garden and transplanted it back to the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney where it still stands, near the Opera House Gate.
The following year Doug and I arranged to gift the Royal Botanic Garden with another bottle tree that he had rescued from a mine site in Acland, Queensland. The tree arrived in Sydney after its long journey and went into the ground on November 28, 2007. It still occupies a prominent spot on the Garden’s rockery in Farm Cove more than 17 years later.
David Bidwell, Consulting Arborist and proprietor of Rainbow Tree Consultancy. Former Senior Arborist Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain, 1993-2017.
