The Bilston Tree or Bilston's Tree is a very large river red gum ( Eucalyptus camaldulensis) growing near Brimboal in far western Victoria. [1] The tree was saved from being felled in June 1961 for railway sleepers [2] by local community action led by Bill Flentje, the District Forester at Casterton. [3]
Negotiations between the Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) with the landowners, Mr Tomas Henry Bilston and his brother Mr John Wheeler Bilston, as well as Mr Lance Thyear from Pyramid Sawmills, led to the purchase the tree on 6 March 1962 for 70 pounds as compensation for the loss of revenue. The Bilston brothers donated a small patch of land (1 acre, 1 rood, 26 perches) plus a right of carriageway. The land was subsequently declared reserved forest on 28 May 1964 by the FCV. [3]
In 1961, the tree was thought be about 400 years old and had a circumference estimated between 27 and 29 feet (measured at shoulder height - 5 foot). The total height was 135 feet. [3] The Bilston Tree is commonly claimed to have germinated in 1200 AD making it over 800 years old, but there is no evidence for this. [4]
The Bilston Tree is often claimed to be the world's largest river red gum but it is not. However, the unique thing about the Bilston Tree is its clear unbranched trunk, with very little taper, up some 40 feet. Estimates in 1971 suggested that 9,100 super feet (HLV) or 21.5 m3 of timber could be sawn from the tree, which is enough for over 300 railway sleepers. This probably makes the Bilston Tree the largest “merchantable” river red gum. [3]
The tree was remeasured by a trained forester in June 2024 and had a circumference of 812 cm (at 1.3 m above the ground) and a height of 32.4 m. Reliable measurements are hard to obtain, but over the 53 year period from 1971 to 2024, the Bilston Tree grew a total of 86 cm in girth. This equates to an annual increment in its circumference of 1.62 cm/year (or 0.51 cm/year in diameter). [4]
The crown is thinning and showing signs of senescence while there is some epicormic growth from the lower trunk. Unlike many other old river red gums, there is no major swelling at the base or large burls. Some large branches broke from the tree in 1973 and again in 2013. The more recent one has been carved by local artists. [2]
The Bilston Tree is recorded in both the National Trust and Heritage Victoria registers. [2]
Eucalyptus regnans, known variously as mountain ash, giant ash or swamp gum, or stringy gum, is a species of very tall forest tree that is native to the Australia states of Tasmania and Victoria. It is a straight-trunked tree with smooth grey bark, but with a stocking of rough brown bark at the base, glossy green, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of between nine and fifteen, white flowers, and cup-shaped or conical fruit. It is the tallest of all flowering plants; the tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 100 metres tall in Tasmania.
Agathis australis, or kauri, is a coniferous tree in the family Araucariaceae, found north of 38°S in the northern regions of New Zealand's North Island.
Białowieża Forest is a large forest complex on the border between Poland and Belarus. It is one of the last and the largest remaining part of the immense primeval forest that once stretched across the European Plain. The forest is home to more than 800 European bisons, Europe's heaviest land animal. UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme designated the Polish Biosphere Reserve Białowieża in 1976 and the Belarusian Biosphere Reserve Biełavieskaja pušča in 1993.
The Strzelecki Ranges is a set of low mountain ridges located in the West Gippsland and South Gippsland regions of the Australian state of Victoria.
Taxodium distichum is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a wide range of soil types, whether wet, salty, dry, or swampy. It is noted for the russet-red fall color of its lacy needles.
The Mingo Oak was a white oak in the U.S. state of West Virginia. First recognized for its age and size in 1931, the Mingo Oak was the oldest and largest living white oak tree in the world until its death in 1938.
Syncarpia glomulifera, commonly known as the turpentine tree, or yanderra, is a tree of the family Myrtaceae native to New South Wales and Queensland in Australia, which can reach 60 metres in height. It generally grows on heavier soils. The cream flowers appear in spring and are fused into compound flowerheads.
Eucalyptus grandis, commonly known as the flooded gum or rose gum, is a tall tree with smooth bark, rough at the base fibrous or flaky, grey to grey-brown. At maturity, it reaches 50 metres tall, though the largest specimens can exceed 80 metres tall. It is found on coastal areas and sub-coastal ranges from Newcastle in New South Wales northwards to west of Daintree in Queensland, mainly on flat land and lower slopes, where it is the dominant tree of wet forests and on the margins of rainforests.
Eucalyptus botryoides, commonly known as the bangalay, bastard jarrah, woollybutt or southern mahogany, is a small to tall tree native to southeastern Australia. Reaching up to 40 metres high, it has rough bark on its trunk and branches. It is found on sandstone- or shale-based soils in open woodland, or on more sandy soils behind sand dunes. The white flowers appear in summer and autumn. It reproduces by resprouting from its woody lignotuber or epicormic buds after bushfire. E. botryoides hybridises with the Sydney blue gum in the Sydney region. The hard, durable wood has been used for panelling and flooring.
Eucalyptus polyanthemos, commonly known as red box, is a species of small to medium-sized tree, that is native to eastern Australia but has been introduced into other countries. It has fibrous bark on the trunk and larger branches, smooth greyish to cream-coloured bark above, or smooth bark throughout. It has broadly egg-shaped to round juvenile leaves, lance-shaped, egg-shaped or almost round adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven, white flowers and barrel-shaped to conical fruit.
The Biltmore stick is a tool used by foresters to estimate tree trunk diameter at breast height. The tool very often includes a hypsometer scale to estimate height as well. It looks much like an everyday yardstick. With practice a Biltmore stick is considered to be exceptionally accurate, often within half an inch on diameters. Some foresters use the tool regularly, however, many prefer to use more accurate tools such as a diameter tape to measure diameter at breast height (DBH) and a clinometer to measure height. On the other end of the spectrum, some foresters consider the use of a Biltmore stick to be no more accurate than their own visual estimates, and make it practice for their surveys to be largely completed in this manner.
Eucalyptus pilularis, commonly known as blackbutt, is a species of medium-sized to tall tree that is endemic to eastern Australia. It has rough, finely fibrous greyish bark on the lower half of the trunk, smooth white, grey or cream-coloured bark above, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of between seven and fifteen, white flowers and hemispherical or shortened spherical fruit.
Eucalyptus deanei, commonly known as mountain blue gum, round-leaved gum, or Deane's gum, is a species of large tree endemic to New South Wales. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped leaves that are paler on the lower surface, flower buds in groups of seven to eleven, white flowers and cup-shaped to bell-shaped fruit.
Eucalyptus albens, known as the white box, is a common tree of the western slopes and plains of New South Wales and adjacent areas in Queensland and Victoria. It has rough, fibrous bark on the base of its trunk and smooth, white bark above. The leaves are lance-shaped and groups of seven spindle-shaped flower buds are arranged in leaf axils or on the ends of the branches. White flowers are mostly present between August and February and the fruit are barrel-shaped to urn-shaped.
Trees have a wide variety of sizes and shapes and growth habits. Specimens may grow as individual trunks, multitrunk masses, coppices, clonal colonies, or even more exotic tree complexes. Most champion tree programs focus finding and measuring the largest single-trunk example of each species. There are three basic parameters commonly measured to characterize the size of a single trunk tree: tree height measurement, tree girth measurement, and tree crown measurement. Foresters also perform tree volume measurements. A detailed guideline to these basic measurements is provided in The Tree Measuring Guidelines of the Eastern Native Tree Society by Will Blozan.
The Separation tree is a heritage listed Eucalyptus camaldulensis tree, commonly known as a red river gum, located in the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Melbourne in Victoria.
The Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) was the main government authority responsible for management and protection of State forests in Victoria, Australia between 1918 and 1983.
Redwoods of the Otway Ranges is a small sheltered grove of Coast Redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens, about 5 kilometres (3 mi) south of Beech Forest in the Otway Ranges in southwestern Victoria, Australia.
Two bushfire awareness totems were carved by forester David Parnaby in about 1951. They sat outside the Noorinbee office of the Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) until the mid-1960s before being moved to a new office at nearby Cann River. The totems were well known tourist icons of the township until they collapsed from rot in the late 1990s. The heads were also thought to be lost until they turned up in 2021 and were used as templates to make replica totems which were reinstated outside the DEECA office in 2023.