Mrs Chandra Selvam
I was amazed with an iconic tree in a park in Perth, Western Australia. The huge 36 tonne tree from it’s original home Warmun, North Western Australia’s Kimberley region is in Kings Park now.
The tree uprooted and travelled 3200km from North to South and survived all its way to be replanted in Kings Park. A Huge Botanical garden that boasts as one of the world’s largest inner city parks.
A 25 metre trailer with police escorts transported it. After a couple of days of traveling by the trailer truck it reached it’s final destination. This was the longest land journey for a mature tree of this size and kind. This iconic tree was planted on 20th July 2008 in Mt Eliza Escarpment overlooking the Swan and Canning rivers. A huge crowd of 3000 people witnessed this planting ceremony. The local Nyoongar folks performed a smoking ceremony to welcome the tree.
More about this Boab tree-an ancient tree with 750 years of age, weighs 36 tonnes, trunk width five metres, 2.5 metre in diameter height 14 metres and shaped like a bottle, has twisted branches at a height with pod like fruits. It’s a deciduous tree shedding leaves in the dry season. The Nyoongar, the people of it’s birth region call it ‘Gija Jumulu’. They offered it as a gift to the Kings Park and the Park authorities accepted the offer to add to the other 14 existing small Boab trees that were transplanted earlier in Roe Garden. It was a sheer relocation due to building up of a bridge and the extension of the Northern Highway. Before the gigantic tree left its original home the aborigines also had performed a smoking ceremony to bid farewell.
Now, in the new accommodation no new person goes without a glimpse of the giant size tree with cultural and historical value. It’s fenced, attracts tourist from all over the world. Boab tree grows slow to live long. This particular tree in Kings Park is considered young as some others are known to be 2000 years old.
The special gift received a world wide media coverage in July 2008. Though it has the scientific name Adansonia gregorrie, jumulu is popularly known as Boab in Gija language, Gija and Jumulu put together Gija Jumulu a name given by the indigenous people but Boab is a convenient name and it’s the forever name of the tree.
The park authorities in Australia is committed to plant conservation and this Boab tree has adjusted very well on its new accommodation.
The cost of the travel was absorbed by many local companies and the government.
The Boab is located at the end of the Forrest car park in Fraser Avenue. Do not miss when you go the Kings Park and Botanical Garden in Western Australia.
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