It has been a feature in my life for over 70 years. It is a tree, once mighty, now much diminished - a sort of parable for us all. It stands solitary in a farm paddock near Chinkapook in the Mallee region of Victoria. This is the area where I hail from, and the particular paddock was once owned by an aunt and uncle and, way before them, by other family. I make it sound a long time, but white settlement of that part of the State, and thus the arrival of those ancestors with their determination to clear their land and to plant their wheat, was as recently as 1910. So, not that long ago; but from that year dates the tree’s emergence from the thick mallee eucalypt landscape that the pioneer settlers cleared. The newcomers left an area of a few acres of scrub, where they scraped a dam for run-off, and built a meagre home with outbuildings, and established a garden; but, essentially, the square-mile block was cleared of trees. Such was the mindset of the time.
Except that they left the big tree standing in the middle of the paddock.
Some years ago, I was told that botanists “from the city” had inspected the tree, and they thought that it might be 750 years old – you can now add another 50. So, more’s the miracle that the land-clearers back in 1910 recognised the tree’s uniqueness, and resisted putting it to the sword.
The tree is a grey box, a Eucalyptus microcarpa, described in the literature as long-lived single-trunked, with grey fibrous flaky bark. It is typically a tree of woodland plains, and there is no way of knowing whether the tree was originally accompanied by others of its kind, or whether it stood unique among the mallees. And no way of knowing why this tree chose a habitat not of woodland plains, but of undulating sandhills. Was the local environment that different 800 years ago?
Over the years and the generations, the tree’s generous canopy has provided shade and shelter for sheep, and the same for farmers at lunchtime; and the tangle of fallen limbs and disturbed roots has been a haven for rabbits and foxes – subject always to attack from the latest eradication campaign. I don’t recall any time of an eagle’s nest – perhaps the tree is not quite tall enough for comfort! My friend, PK, told me that as a lad in the early 1940s he made piece-rate money “sewing wheat bags” under the tree; and he assured me (some years ago) that there were others in the district who knew of the tree, and had some appreciation of it. I venture that today that number has been reduced to no more than the present owners……and to my family.
Think also of the years before the white usurpers. The tree was surely full grown by age 100, so imagine it witnessing at least 500 years of aboriginal homage and myth-making. The stories that the most recent 100 years can tell are comparatively few indeed – sparse of people, scarce of incident.
The activity of the years under the tree and around its roots has meant that no seedling ever survived. It is the last of its tribe.
Members of my family have known the tree familiarly as The Box Tree, and we’ve proudly shown it to generations of visitors, these days with a sense of regret at the deterioration age has wrought. That deterioration can be seen from these two images.
The second image I took a couple of days ago. Clearly, recent years have not been kind to The Box Tree. The fallen limbs in the undergrowth are clear evidence of its many collapses and loss of structure. Yet, what remains seems robust enough. My intention in posting this blog had been to pay tribute to the tree “before it’s too late”, but that now seems presumptuous. Sure, its best years don’t lie ahead, but am I foolish to think that there could be another hundred of them?
Gary Andrews
