St Helena Gumwood Tree

Conservation efforts have been trying to save the bastard gumwood from extinction. Featuring gnarly branches and a sparse umbrella like canopy the commidendrum robustum or gumwood tree is the national tree of st helena a remote island in the south atlantic ocean where napolean bonaparte was famously exiled and died. In 1977 the gumwood was adopted as st helenas national tree.
st helena gumwood tree

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The bastard gumwood commidendrum rotundifolium is endemic to st helena a small island in the south atlantic.

St helena gumwood tree. However when the east india company first settled the. Though it is now comparatively rare it was once one of the most abundant trees of mid elevations of the island of saint helena in the south atlantic ocean. The eastern half of st helena was once covered with a huge swathe of native forest known as the great wood. In 1991 the peak dale gumwoods were attacked by the jacaranda bug orthezia insignis.

And by the 20 th century only a few of the native gumwood trees survived. Commidendrum robustum the saint helena gumwood is a species of tree endemic to saint helena ascension and tristan da cunha. A small tree to 78 m it was cut extensively for fuel in the early years of settlement of the island by the. Even there the st helena gumwood grows in only a specific habitat range.

Sadly the fate of the gumwood tree is not looking too good either. St helena gumwood facts the st helena gumwood forms one of the ten rarest species of tree on the planet and evolved as endemic only to the island of st helena in the south atlantic ocean. This volcanic island has 45 reported endemic plant species however all of them are rare and threatened and at least 8 are thought to already be extinct. The bastard gumwood commidendrum rotundifolium is a species of tree endemic to the island of saint helenait was thought to be extinct but one last tree was discovered in horse pasture in 1982.

During the 1700s most of the native trees had succumbed to the combined effects of felling for timber by settlers browsing by goats and rooting by pigs. At one time it represented one of the most abundant species on the island. This tree long believed to be the last was destroyed in 1986 by a gale. The jacaranda bug which looks a little like a whitefly is a sucking insect that takes the sap from the tree.