Dinosaur-era plants flourish in Tasmania’s internationally recognised Jurassic garden

You can’t hang out with dinosaurs, but at a unique garden in Tasmania you can wander among the plant species they ate, flew over and trampled underfoot during the Jurassic era.

“They’re the plant equivalent of dinosaurs, and they are very far from being extinct,” Dr Tonia Cochran, managing director of the Inala Jurassic Garden told ABC Radio Hobart.

Dr Cochran planted the garden on Bruny Island near Hobart in 2013 with species that have existed for more than 150 million years.

It is the only garden in Australia, and one of just 14 in the world, that last month received a grant from the Global Genome Initiative to help preserve genetic plant material so the species never become extinct.

This initiative, which is run by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, collects the Earth’s genomic biodiversity to preserve plant genes, and makes them available to researchers around the world.

Noah’s Ark of plants

“I thought it would be good to grow a few Gondwanan species to show the connection between the plants from different continents,” said Dr Cochran, who in pre-COVID times, ran tours to other Gondwanan landscapes around the world.

“There are still lots of ancient relics of Gondwana here in Tasmania.

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“Tasmania is one of those classic Gondwanan countries — it was the last bit to break off Antarctica, 45 million years ago.”

Gondwana is the name of the ancient super-continent, that broke up to form the world’s southern continents as we know them today.

Dr Cochran’s Jurassic garden covers just 2 hectares of a 600-hectare family-owned conservation reserve.

But in that space, there are now growing about 50 plant families, with a total of about 700 species — more than 100 of which the Global Genome Initiative did not have genetic material for.

Preserving ancient floral wonders

Dr Cochran was encouraged to apply for the grant.

“We got an email saying, ‘You’ve got some really important plants there, and we’d strongly encourage you to look at this a bit more closely’,” she said.

“We are able to to supply information on something like 110 species they didn’t have in their genetic database.

“And that’s all pretty much thanks to the rich flora of Tasmania — we have a lot of Tasmanian species in the collection.”

Dr Cochran and another researcher, Dr Katherine Young, are collecting specimens and working in conjunction with the Tasmanian Herbarium in Hobart, and the United States Botanic Garden, which is located in the grounds of the Capitol in Washington.

“We’re entering data into a gigantic worldwide database so any scientist from around the world can access that data,” she said.

“If the species become extinct they might be able to do something to help them.”

Other gardens that are part of the initiative include botanical centres in the US, Austria, Brazil, India, China, Jordan, Uganda and the Philippines.

Quest to save our global garden

Dr Cochran said it was possible that some people had dinosaur-era plants growing in the own gardens but did not know it.

“Wollemi pine is a classic Gondwanan species that dates back to about 250 million years ago,” she said.

It was thought the Wollemi pine was extinct until it was discovered by chance in 1994 in a rainforest about two hours’ drive from Sydney.

So it might be worth taking a closer look at the plants in your own back yard.

“People are growing ancient plants without even knowing about it,” she said.

The Jurassic garden also has plants that, due to climate change, are not surviving in their usual regions.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could provide a little Noah’s Ark so that we can move some of these species to try and create insurance specimens so that we don’t lose them?” Dr Cochran asked.

“There are some species on mountaintops in northern Queensland, that are not going very well.

“We’re working with Melbourne Botanic Garden, and a few other institutions to try and see if we can replace altitude with latitude.

“They’re cloud forest species from places like Mount Lewis and Mount Bartle Frere in Queensland, that aren’t doing very well at all, and they can’t go up any higher.

“So we’ve got some north Queensland species here in the garden that are growing perfectly well.”