Presidents message:
Greetings fellow IWCS members,
Fresh from the annual meeting in Gellibrand, Victoria, Australia, it gives me great pleasure to
address you for the first time as President of the Society. Our meeting was hectic, productive and
enjoyable. I was especially grateful to Mark Duff the immediate Past President for making the trip
from the USA and handing over the President’s Gavel in person. There will be many highlights from
the meeting you will read about in forthcoming issues of this journal, but I will treasure a
photo of me with Mark, Dennis Wilson and Gary Green, the most recent four Presidents together in a
garden
at Lavers Hill. I think this is worthy of a front cover, but Mihaly might exercise his editorial
control and be worried about scaring the membership.
Of course, I am also indebted to Dennis, Gary,
Secretary/Treasurer Eric Krum and the other eight
overseas members for making the trip to Australia. Your support made the meet a great success.
One moment encapsulated what the Society is all about. We visited the conifer arboretum of Alistair
Watt at Lavers Hill, the wettest place in Victoria. Alistair was longtime leader of the Australian
Conifer Society and established his 10-acre arboretum forty years ago. He personally collected many
species in overseas expeditions, (a practice no longer permissible under Australian quarantine
laws). Before Covid I had visited his arboretum, and he allowed me to remove the dead stump of a
17-year-old Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) for my wood collection. This is
the famous dinosaur pine discovered thirty years ago as one remnant population in New South Wales,
having been known in the fossil record for 100 million years but last recorded as a fossil in
Tasmania 2 million years ago.
The wood from Alistair’s tree has been processed and traded as a few precious standard specimens
and one piece was given to South Australian member, Darby Munro to turn into pen blanks. Darby had
prepared a beautiful tribute to this special tree, featuring three pens for the open day display at
the conference. Alistair made a surprise visit to the open day and Darby gifted one of the pens to
him. This made Alistair quite emotional. It turns out that the tree had been given to him by his
late mother and the pen would be a beautiful connection to her.
There will be plenty of important issues to address in subsequent editorials but for the time being
let me sign off with season’s greetings to you all and to wish you the very best for the new year.
John Lyons #9737